Note: This story contains spoilers from “Matlock” Season 2, Episodes 15-16.
The two-hour “Matlock” Season 2 finale wrapped up the mystery at the heart of the Kathy Bates-led drama series by finally seeing those who concealed the Wellbrexa study be brought to justice — while Bates’ Matty kept her identity as Matlock intact.
As Matty, Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) and Julian (Jason Ritter) inched closer to exposing Senior (Beau Bridges), the finale threw the crew a couple curveballs as they learned that Senior had been faking his dementia and that multiple members of the board — including Senior’s ex-wife Eva (Justina Machado) — shared the blame for the cover-up.
While the trio teetered on whether to expose Senior, the turn of events cemented their mission to bring Senior and anyone else involved in the decision down, leading to an FBI raid of Jacobson Moore that arrested everyone from Senior, Eva, the Wolf and even Julian — a twist creator Jennie Snyder Urman hopes will provide a satisfying conclusion to the show’s overarching mystery.
“The way that you’re capable, at an older age, of living beautiful, new adventures, you also have to be held responsible for what you did in your life,” Snyder Urman told TheWrap. “That’s what Matty came in wanting, and that is what she gets now. Along the way, so many other things changed, her life opened up, and she realized how much she loves being a lawyer again, and her relationship with Olympia has been life-changing and sustaining.”
With Julian stepping up to expose the crime in place of Matty, he’s implicated himself, though Matty and Olympia shrug his arrest away with the hopes that he’ll either score a deal with the FBI or that they’ll help with his defense.
Snyder Urman identifies the moment as Julian’s “hero arc,” noting that he’s always wanted to be a good person, but has previously chosen to protect himself rather than doing the right thing. “This is a big moment for him, and it’s the moment when he finally defines and distinguishes himself as a different person than his father is, and proves it by making a selfless gesture in the name of justice and a greater good,” Snyder Urman said. “He’s going to have to live with those in the next suit.”
Julian’s act of selflessness ensures that Matty can remain Matlock, avoiding she and Edwin (Sam Anderson) being sprawled across the media and ensuring she can keep practicing law alongside Olympia. That twist ensures the CBS drama keeps its title as “Matlock,” and also provides some emotional satisfaction as Matty embraces the upsides of her double life.
“We really wanted to dig into what Matty Matlock has meant to Madeline Kingston, and what that persona has allowed her to do and let go of who it’s allowed her to be, what it’s allowed her to access inside herself, and really understanding that she has grown and changed,” Snyder Urman told TheWrap. “There’s a lot that she loves about how she was as Matlock that she’s not able to be as Kingston, and that felt really moving to us. And really like a great place for the character to land emotionally — that she doesn’t want to give up this alter ego, because this alter ego has really taught her a lot about herself — and she interacts with the world differently, so the world interacts with her differently.”
With the Wellbrexa mystery wrapped up with Season 2, Snyder Urman confirmed Season 3 will contain a “brand new mystery” when it returns on CBS’ midseason slate in 2027. There will also be a “little bit of a time jump, whether it’s six months or a year,” picking up with the central characters in slightly different places.
“There’ll be the same impulse as Wellbrexa but it will be a totally different, new, contained mystery, and will come in sort of this organic way, so that we can still have a mystery and have all surprises and all that but we’re really in a different storytelling place when we come in, and I want to really honor that,” Snyder Urman said. “You’ll have all of the things that you like about ‘Matlock,’ but they will have accomplished this one big, big thing, and they’ll be in different places.”
The new mystery won’t surround Matty’s unresolved guilt about Ellie’s death, with Snyder Urman saying “she will never come to terms or be at peace with her daughter’s death, but she has metabolized it in a deeper way and forgiven herself.”
From gearing up to make fewer episodes to queuing up several more years of “Matlock,” Snyder Urman breaks down what the new season entails below. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: At the end of the finale, we see Edwin preparing to let Sarah (Leah Lewis) and Mrs. Belvin (Patricia Belcher) in on everything. Will they be part of this new team?
We’ll find everyone in different places and you’ll have to watch as they come together again. But yes, they both have different feelings on that reveal, which we’ll get into. They start in surprising places, but … Leah is a regular — she’ll be in all the episodes, whether she’ll be with Matty at the beginning, that remains to be seen. And then I’m excited to have Mrs. Belvin back in our storytelling fold.
You also just brought on Henry Haber as well. Will he also continue as a series regular?
I hope so. I thought he was really wonderful and such a fun presence to [bring] in. I’d love him to be back as well.
With the midseason return, are you going to get fewer episodes or are you still aiming for 16-19?
A little fewer. I really want to do a tight, well-plotted mystery that we can really accomplish in a year, and I wanted enough time for us to plot … I really don’t want … any of the quality of the show to go down, so we just need a little bit of time to really put that into place. But I have ideas about it. I’m excited about where it’s going to go for the third season, and I think we can do a really surprising, mysterious, fun arc … I think it’s going to surprise people.
Will we still have a case-of-the-week?
Yeah, always case-of-the-week for sure.
With this reset comes the question of longevity. What conversations have you had with Kathy about how long you want the show to go?
I think Kathy wants to go as long as possible, so we haven’t really talked about ending. I know the next couple of years of storytelling and beyond that, we have to just see with the studio and Kathy. I’m sure we’ll have conversations at some point, but we haven’t yet.
We had some fun guests this season, including Edwin Hodge, Melanie Lynskey and Gina Rodriguez. Will any of them be back?
I hope so. I mean, I definitely, definitely have plans. We’ll just have to see if they’re free, but I have plans for all of them.
Alfie is growing up. What’s his role in the show’s evolution?
He’s going to be a little bit older and they’re going to have moved off of his mom’s mission specifically. Things will move into a new phase of how and what that means for Matty when … the kid in the house doesn’t need them as much. And what does that mean for Edwin … Edwin’s going to have a really significant storyline in the third season as well. Sam did such a beautiful job this season.
You’ve explored so much in Matty. What is the next thing you want to explore for her and Olympia as well?
There’s new challenges that come in Matty’s marriage, and I want to keep exploring what a longtime marriage is and isn’t, and what happens when somebody changes and the other one doesn’t. Olympia is going to have new stresses and pressures, especially as a result of Julian’s choice at the end. And I think their relationship is now forged together, so what does that intimacy that they have do to the other people in their lives? I’m interested in that and how they can and can’t draw boundaries within themselves, too, and then the new mystery is brings up a lot for both of them. I can’t really say too much, but we have a lot of fresh, emotional areas to explore.
“Matlock” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Paramount+.
