“Matty thrives as a woman in control. This year she’s not, due to a lot of surprises, so she starts to grip tighter and tighter,” executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman reveals of septuagenarian lawyer Madeline “Matty” Matlock (Kathy Bates), real name Madeline Kingston, in the legal drama’s second season. “That’s not conducive to one’s best work, best friendships, or ability to get to where they want to go.”
The strings of the puppet master, who went undercover at Jacobson Moore to find out which lawyer hid pharma documents that could have prevented her daughter’s overdose death, were already getting tangled in the Matlock Season 1 finale. Matty’s work pal Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), now a partner, knew it was Julian (Jason Ritter), her ex and the father of their kids. Julian claimed he did it under orders from his dad, Senior (Beau Bridges), head of the firm. Matty and husband Edwin (Sam Anderson) weren’t sure if Olympia would protect her own family or help them expose the truth.
“Matty and Olympia are formidable women,” Urman says. “Last season [shook] up their dynamic. Sometimes they are on the same side, sometimes they aren’t. Justice and what it looks like will continue to absorb and challenge Matty. She wants it to be a seismic event. There will be some kind of justice. What it looks like will be revealed.”
Also in the finale, a stranger (Niko Nicotera) claimed to be the father of Matty’s grandson Alfie (Aaron D. Harris). “There’s a level of control she has to let go of,” says Urman, who promises flashbacks and “surprising endings” for the first two episodes.
But letting go of being in command is a tough ask for Matty. Before shooting the episode, Urman and Bates discussed where the need originates. “The last time her life was completely out of control was, of course, when her daughter was in an active addiction,” Urman says. “Because she couldn’t stop her daughter from using, that is the core emotional place that this lack of control puts Matty back into. Kathy and I talk a lot about that, about what that period of her life was like and what’s getting reignited by it now.”
Matlock, Season 2 Premiere, Sunday, October 12, 8:30/7:30c, Regular Time Period Premiere, Thursday, October 16, 9/8c, CBS