Spoilers are ahead for the series premiere of CBS’ Matlock reboot, starring Kathy Bates.
The very long-awaited reboot of Matlock has finally debuted in the 2024 TV schedule, with CBS even giving it a special early premiere before moving to its regular time slot in October. The series has gotten plenty of promotion on the network and kept Kathy Bates from going into retirement, so it seemed all but guaranteed that a lot of people would tune into the premiere. Well, I was one of those who made sure to watch, and I was largely unimpressed… until the last five minutes delivered a twist in a way that had me immediately checking when Episode 2 would air.
Why I Initially Wasn’t Won Over By Matlock
Kathy Bates was clearly having a lot of fun with the role of Madeline “Matty” Matlock from the very beginning, and the episode actually did a great job of showing rather than telling about Matty’s diminished circumstances. (Or so I thought, anyway, but more on that in the next section!) But I’ve watched a lot of legal dramas in my time – including three that literally have “Law” in the title – and I just wasn’t getting hooked by what seemed to be a pretty average case with a predictable resolution. Matty was clearly clever, but that’s not necessarily enough to make a hit show.
Admittedly, I was getting Elsbeth vibes from the pilot and I quickly became a fan of Elsbeth when it premiered earlier this year, so perhaps that’s why I just wasn’t warming past tepid on Matlock. We already have Elsbeth, and the Carrie Preston-led show will in fact air right after Matlock once it moves to its regular time slot next month. We don’t need two, right? And Elsbeth is already great!
All in all, my biggest takeaway from Matlock’s pilot was that it was fine, and not a bad way to spend an hour, but it wouldn’t be appointment television for me. I also didn’t watch the original Matlock, so the nostalgic nods were fun but not game-changing for me.
And then Kathy Bates pulled a switcheroo on the audience – or me, at least – in the last five minutes, and my feelings about her new show have completely changed. Well played, Matlock! (If you missed it, you’ll be able to stream the series premiere with a Paramount+ subscription.)
Those Last Five Minutes
Matty’s future at the Jacobson Moore law firm was only certain if she could help Olympia win her case defending an innocent man, complicated by the fact that Olympia didn’t particularly want her there. Matty ultimately secured herself an office through a combination of knowledge, blunt honesty, and forming connections with witnesses. She talked about wanting pharmaceutical cases to fix her money woes, her grandson who hates her, and her bum of an ex-husband with that Kathy Bates charm to make her feel relatable. She also quickly formed a bond with Olympia’s other two underlings, Billy and Sarah, without making an enemy of Olympia’s soon-to-be ex Julian.
Even as somebody who has never seen the original Matlock, I had to smile at Billy and Sarah playing the theme song at Matty right before she boarded the bus to leave the firm for the day. Of course she was riding the bus, because she clearly wasn’t in a financial situation to own a car, right?
Plot twist, with a few minutes to spare! Matty got off the bus after only one stop, only to turn into an alley where a fancy car was waiting for her with the driver on hand to open the door for her and refer to her as “Mrs. Kingston.” She placed an absolutely massive diamond ring on her finger, arrived home at her mansion, and lovingly reunited with her doting husband and her affectionate and not at all hateful grandson. The “Harmless old lady” persona was a ruse all along, up to and including carrying pockets full of butterscotch candies.
But the elaborate ruse – which went as far as her young grandson setting up a fake LinkedIn profile for her– was only half of the big reveal, because she hadn’t been lying earlier in the episode when she said that her daughter had died due to drugs. The real reason she deceived her way into a job at this one particular firm was because one of the attorneys had hid documents that could have taken opioids off the market ten years earlier and prevented her daughter's death.
She had narrowed down three candidates as the guilty party: Olympia, Julian, or Julian’s father Senior, who also happened to be a very powerful man in the firm. Matty is a woman on a mission! And honestly, maybe I should have seen it coming after the trailer was set to Britney Spears’ “Oops!...I Did It Again” with the line “I’m not that innocent” repeating multiple times, but I’m glad I didn’t. The twist made for a fun surprise, and I’m up to tune in again for another episode.
The wait for the next episode will unfortunately be longer than just a week, however. Matlock arrives in its normal time slot with Episode 2 on Thursday, October 17 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS, between Ghosts Season 4 at 8:30 p.m. ET and Elsbeth at 10 p.m. ET.