Kathy Bates says that while the entire first season of Matlock has been a rollercoaster ride from the jump, the upcoming episodes are going to take the cake.
Chatting with Decider at the PaleyFest LA recently, the Oscar-winning actress — who currently stars as Madeline “Matty” Matlock in the reimagined CBS series — shared her excitement for fans to see the episodes leading up to the finale.
According to Bates, Matty and Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), are going to have to face off and address some uncomfortable truths between them.
“There’s one coming up after this one that we’re seeing today — it’s a very complicated relationship,” she said. “It’s a very complicated case with Olympia and there’s stuff going on with Olympia and Matty. And so it’s very crazy, but also very emotional.”
The entire first season has been leading up to this type of moment between the two characters, whose friendship may not survive the reveal of Matty’s true intentions. Spoiler alert: the real reason Matty took a job at Jacobson Moore is to figure out who is responsible for concealing documents that would have pulled opioids off the market prior to her daughter’s death.
While Olympia, a junior partner at the firm and Matty’s boss, has found an unlikely friendship in her time working with Matty, it could all dissolve if she was the person at Jacobson Moore who hid the evidence that led to Matty’s daughter’s death. Bates says in one of the coming episodes, things are finally going to boil over and lead to some revelations for the lawyers.
“[It’s] about friendship and trust and things lost and ‘Are you really my friend? Did you you know all of that?’ And so it’s a very exciting episode that’s coming up,” she teased.
And the episode is bound to be a hit if the show’s popularity is any indication. Matlock — which also stars Jason Ritter, David Del Rio, Beau Bridges, and Leah Lewis — got an early Season 2 renewal from CBS and will most likely aim for a second season premiere in the fall.
Before getting to that second season, however, the lawyers at Jacobson Moore will have to deal with one more big case in the special two-episode finale. While Bates couldn’t share too many details about how things shake out for Matty and her coworkers, she did say that it all connects to Sarah (Lewis) becoming the counsel for someone accused in a major crime.
“She’s not supposed to and she takes on a client and it turns out to be a guy who murdered his boss, that’s what they think,” Bates explained. “So she gets herself in a big mess so we’ve got to get her out of that. It’s just it’s going to be really cool for the audience to see how that goes.“
As for what her costar has to say about the two-hour Season 1 ending, Lewis kept it brief, telling Decider, “Shit gets crazy.”
Episodes of Matlock air Thursdays on CBS and stream the next day on Paramount+. The two part finale airs on April 17.