Legal dramas, by their very nature, are tales of adversaries, and due to the way we process narratives, it's natural for us to take sides when we watch shows about lawyers. The writers of Matlock understand this well. This series may not be as rich in moral ambiguity as some prestige dramas driven by antiheroes, but over the course of this first season, Matlock has repeatedly subverted audience expectations by revealing that the characters we were encouraged to boo and hiss might not be as sinister—and that even the protagonist, Madeline "Matlock" Kingston, can be wrong, quite wrong.
Take this week's case, which initially threw me off-balance, twisting my sympathies before delivering a resolution that I'd call messy and emotionally unsatisfying. Yet, this twist was fully intentional—and, I argue, thematically spot-on.
Let's start with the client, Paloma Deleon (Greta Quispe), a Mexican immigrant who aids other immigrants in obtaining small business licenses. She's embroiled in an ugly child support dispute with Bruno Cortez (Mauricio Mendoza), a brusque international business magnate who looks down on Paloma's humble family background. Paloma is seeking fair financial compensation from a wealthy man, while Bruno counters by seeking custody of their son, Tenoch (Enzo Fabiani), a shy 7-year-old who, based on his behavior in this episode, may be on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum.
The situation becomes even more complicated when Julian, aiming to play hardball with Olympia in their own divorce proceedings, takes on Bruno as a client. He claims in court that Paloma has unfairly slandered Tenoch's father and bribed her son's affection with lenient discipline and extra screen time. Bruno appears to be a bully who doesn't have Tenoch's best interests at heart, and the rules of storytelling suggest that Julian will regret using this case as a means to punish his soon-to-be ex-wife.
But things don't play out as expected. Olympia's team struggles to gather the most damning evidence against Bruno: that his volatile temper led to a public altercation with Tenoch's soccer coach. And Paloma proves to be a difficult client. She admits to sharing details about Bruno's womanizing with Tenoch and is caught trying to take the child to Mexico to visit her dying father, despite an order for her to stay in the country. Then, when the court appoints a social worker to look after Tenoch while the custody hearing continues, Paloma barricades herself and her son in the Jacobson-Moore office.
The most significant blow to Paloma's case, however, lies in the fact that Tenoch doesn't seem to harbor any particular animosity towards his father. When his emotions become overwhelming, he finds solace in sorting his soccer cards. When asked by a social worker which parent gives him that sense of calmness, Tenoch hesitates, unable to choose. He simply desires for them to stop fighting, adding with heartbreaking sincerity, "If it's my fault, I'll do something different."
Julian, on the other hand, never faces the existential crisis of "What have I become?" while defending Bruno. It's Olympia who is chagrined. After a judge, filled with indigestion and popping antacids, charges the bickering exes with contempt and locks them in a holding cell, Olympia finally asks, "What the hell are we doing?" She backs down from the aggressive stance towards the divorce that Matty had encouraged (for her own devious ends) and tells Julian she no longer wants a forensic accounting of his finances. The two then broker a deal for Bruno and Paloma that gives them both time with Tenoch and avoids anything that could be perceived as a "win" for either side. In explaining the plan, Olympia quotes wisdom from her father: "You can be right or you can be happy."
As for Matty, during all this drama, she is more or less a silent bystander, less ready with a suggestion or insight than usual. This is because the Paloma/Bruno/Tenoch case has triggered memories of when she and Edwin sat in a California courtroom, arguing that their daughter Ellie (played by Marnee Carpenter) should be relieved of custody of Alfie. These scenes are harrowing for many reasons, but mainly because Ellie comes across as the wronged party. Matty is so cold and steely as she and her attorney make every one of Ellie's slip-ups seem like gross criminal negligence. Although Matty is, sadly, right about a lot of her suppositions—including her insistence that Ellie had lied about being on the wagon when the toddler Alfie burned himself—the tough love is, honestly, tough to take.
Paloma's plight rattles Matty so much that she suggests to the client—while considering fleeing the country with Tenoch—that there is "One mistake I wish I could take back, every single day." She is referring to a choice she never got the chance to reverse: taking Alfie from Ellie and arguably triggering her overdose. Matty has a lot of regrets. And it doesn't help that Edwin, who was by her side through the whole Ellie ordeal, quietly second-guessed her decisions. (In one of the court proceedings, Ellie pleaded with Edwin to make Matty stop.) The episode begins with one of those nightmare sequences Matlock drops occasionally, showing Edwin dreading what will happen if Matty realizes he lied about finding an email from Alfie's possible father. Then at the end of the episode, Matty does discover the lie, and in a raw moment, asks Edwin if he blames her for Ellie's death. His pained but honest answer? "Sometimes." Even to her own husband, Matty isn't always the hero.
