A year ago, the reboot of writer-producer Jennie Snyder Urman's Matlock delivered a series premiere that defied expectations, stunning viewers and critics alike. The expected cozy, CBS-friendly procedural about a sweet old-lady lawyer, played by Oscar winner Kathy Bates paying homage to the late, great Andy Griffith, was spun in a wholly unexpected direction. That sweet old-lady lawyer? She's actually a rich, righteous old liar, working undercover at the prestigious New York law firm of Jacobson Moore to expose its culpability in the opioid epidemic that claimed the life of her daughter, Ellie.
The twists and turns of season one kept viewers on the edge of their seats, all the way up to the finale. Madeline Kingston, posing as the folksy, broke, widowed "Matty" Matlock, maintained her ruse until close to the end of season one, when her boss, Olympia Lawrence (Skye P. Marshall), uncovered the secret and became a reluctant ally. Matty warned Olympia that she and her husband, Edwin (Sam Anderson), were about to go public with all the evidence they'd gathered against Jacobson Moore and its Big Pharma client Wellbrexa. Olympia asked her to wait until after she checked the bank boxes she shares with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Julian Markston (Jason Ritter), to see if he was part of the firm's cover-up scheme. We ended the season on a cliffhanger, as Olympia actually found a sheaf of damning documents, which Julian then asked her to shred.
Last season's pileup of Matlock plots and subplots may have been a bit much, especially given that nearly every episode also included a new legal case for Olympia's team to handle in less than 44 minutes of screen time. The stories involving Olympia's other underlings, Sarah Franklin (Leah Lewis) and Billy Martinez (David Del Rio), were often minimized and isolated. I wondered back then if this was all sustainable. I still wonder.
I enjoyed Matlock's season-two premiere immensely, but it remains an open question how long this new season can continue generating episodes that are partly "an imposter barely escapes detection while sneaking evidence out of the office" and partly "that same imposter comes up with the winning argument in a tricky legal case." It's no coincidence that the first new Matlock episode in half a year is called "The Before Times," taking its name from the way multiple characters openly yearn to return to the days when their secrets were still secrets. For now, at least, Matlock season two seems to want very badly to be Matlock season one.
And yet, I have to admit...the old magic still works. This episode's case-of-the-week is both entertainingly batty and thematically relevant. The new spin on "digging up dirt on Jacobson Moore"—with Olympia now by Matty's side—adds an exciting new energy. Oh, and just when it seems like we know what's what, Urman pulls one of Matlock's usual last-minute switcheroos, leaving us on the edge of our seats once again for what's to come.
Let's delve into the case at hand. Our protagonists are Maya Richards (Bridge Barrera) and Georgia Brant (Lydia Pentz), two high school drama buddies who hosted an after-hours soiree at their theater, which unfortunately turned into a blaze. When arson investigators uncover the presence of an accelerant, Georgia turns on Maya, suggesting her friend intentionally set the place ablaze out of frustration over her minor role in the school play. The accusations spiral out of control. Maya claims they threw the party to raise money, each for their own nefarious reasons: Georgia for her cocaine habit, and Maya to amass enough crypto to pay off a blackmailer who catfished her into sending nude photos. Ultimately, it emerges that neither is directly responsible for the fire, which was fueled by 50 chemical-laden ping-pong balls (for beer pong). It was foolhardy for these two young ladies to turn on each other, especially given the mutual dirt they held. This uneasy detente between Matty and Olympia drives much of the rest of the episode's plot.
The season-one finale's lingering question is answered early: Olympia didn't shred Julian's hidden documents, but she's also not forthcoming with Matty about their existence. Instead, Olympia stashes the papers in a new safe she's installed in her brownstone and tries to convince Matty that they should collaborate on investigating Howard "Senior" Markston (Beau Bridges), whose trip to Australia during his son's document heist is suspiciously coincidental.
I predicted the documents' fate as the season's biggest cliffhanger, but we also ended the finale with the arrival of Joey Danza (Niko Nicotera), a man claiming to be Ellie's ex-boyfriend and the father of her teenage son, Alfie (Aaron Harris). As the premiere begins, Matty is all business with Joey, telling him she'll need some of his hair for a DNA test before discussing custody arrangements. But she knows in her bones that Joey is telling the truth. In this episode's most poignant scene, she reflects on how Joey knows one of her most painful mistakes with Ellie: tarnishing the good memories of her daughter's past as a champion swimmer by telling her friends that an athletic injury led to her opioid addiction.
The big problem for Matty is that she desperately wants to commiserate with her friend Olympia about all this, and Olympia is more than willing to exploit this weakness. Edwin doesn't want to hear about how Olympia was "pretty great" when Matty confided in her about Ellie and Joey. He needs to put an end to all the Jacobson Moore drama once and for all, before it comes back to bite them. Given that we see Olympia secretly pulling Julian aside to advise him on how to avoid going to prison, Edwin's right to be wary. (Notably, though, Olympia has not yet told Julian about Matty.)
The new dynamic between Matty and Olympia, where each of them, to a certain extent, is harboring a lie from the other, infuses the show with a fresh burst of energy. Both are too cunning to fully trust each other, and too astute to feign otherwise. (When Olympia tells Matty she's unsure if they'll ever truly be friends again, she adds, "If I had said yes, you'd know I was lying.") It's also entertaining to witness Matty rolling her eyes at Olympia's rudimentary espionage attempts, such as when she fumbles through Senior's rolodex while Matty stands guard outside his office. ("Y'know, I did my missions by myself," Matty says, sighing.)
As Matty keeps watch, she is reminded of who her true target should be. To stall Senior outside his office, she chastises him for how he treats Julian. Senior then gruffly threatens to fire her and ensure no one ever hires her again if she repeats that impertinence. He brags that New York's employment laws "don't touch people like me" ("Only kidding," he adds, before reversing himself again. "At least that's what I'd tell a jury."), fueling the temptation for Matty to abandon the New York Times packet and focus on Senior.
However, I confess that this episode's twist caught me by surprise. I wasn't sure if I had forgotten that the first season was a Twist Ending Delivery Device, or if I had just assumed there were no more twists left. Either way, I was stunned and delighted by the sudden appearance of a Matlock-style "look again" montage, in which we discover that Matty is not one step behind Olympia in regard to the damning documents. The keen-eyed Matty spotted the key to Olympia's new safe and then found a way to (1) Learn its location, (2) swipe the key, and (3) swap out the real documents for fakes.
Oh, and she also used Joey's DNA test to determine that he is, in fact, the father—and also that he's lying about being clean and sober. Madeline Kingston, master of misdirection and avenger of addicts, is back in business. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
