CBS‘s new series, Matlock, wants you to assume it’s going to be a sweet throwback to the halcyon days of ’80s and ’90s TV. Much like its plucky heroine, Madeline “Matty” Matlock (Kathy Bates), the new CBS procedural is banking on you underestimating it. It lures you in with sweet, cozy storytelling, familiar legal drama tropes, and Matty’s own pocket full of Werther’s Originals.

Then, in the final minutes of the Matlock pilot, penned by showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman, the CBS drama pulls the rug out from under its audience’s feet. Matlock‘s big twist forces the audience to confront our own biases while also exposing this new version of Matlock as something wholly subversive in its own right.

**Spoilers for the end of Matlock Episode 1 ahead**

Even though we know from the opening sequence that Matty Matlock is far more cunning than her nice old lady schtick suggests, the final moments of the Matlock pilot reveal that the folksy lawyer isn’t named Matlock at all. Matty Matlock is actually Matty Kingston, a wealthy retired contract lawyer who lives in a luxurious suburban McMansion with her doting husband Edwin (Sam Anderson) and tech savvy grandson Alfie (Aaron D. Harris).

Matty hasn’t pushed her way into the halls of Jacobson Moore to make mad money representing big pharma to support herself after becoming widowed. Rather, Matty has infiltrated the law firm to discover which major partner — Senior (Beau Bridges), Julian, aka Junior (Jason Ritter), or Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) — is responsible for covering up whistle-blowing documents that would have gotten opioids off the streets a decade earlier. Matty is a woman on a mission because her daughter Ellie, Alfie’s mother, died of opioid addiction. If she can find out which lawyer chose money over morals, justice will be hers.

It’s an incredibly clever twist that completely reframes Matlock as a thoroughly modern legal procedural and reasserts Jane The Virgin creator Jennie Snyder Urman as one of the most innovative network showrunners of the 21st century, placing her alongside the likes of Robert and Michelle King (creators of Evil and The Good Wife universe) and legal drama titan David E. Kelley.

Last week, Decider caught up with Snyder Urman last week to discuss the inspiration for Matlock‘s big twist, the importance of putting a spotlight on older female characters, and how landing her dream Matty — Oscar winner Kathy Bates — changed the show as a whole…

DECIDER: I want to start with the big twist at the end of the first episode of Matlock. I was reading in the Los Angeles Times that you went on a long walk when you were deciding whether or not to take this on. Is it true that by the end of the two hour walk, you had the pilot just mapped out in your head, all the way through to the twist? 

JENNIE SNYDER URMAN: Yeah, because the take had the whole thing in it. These walks for me are everything and they’re like really my creative juice. I think my legs know that when I start to walk, I have to start to think at the same time because I’ve been doing it for years. But I really thought about just what I could do that would be different and surprising and the “Why?” Why now? Why this? Why reboot? All of those kind of questions were swirling around in my head and I knew it had to be a strong enough and different enough take. And I just kind of let my mind go. By the end of it, I sort of thought, “Well, I’ll be interested in it if I can do this version.” And luckily the powers that be liked it. 

Speaking of which, I mean, it’s called Matlock. Matlock, the show, exists in this universe. Why do you think your take is good for a Matlock reboot? Could you see the twist working in like a Perry Mason reboot or something else? Is there something specific to Matlock, the original series, that makes it so welcoming to your take? 

Yeah. To me, it was that welcoming feeling. Like when [series EP] Eric Christian Olsen told me about the project, he said, “I describe Matlock as like a Werther’s candy. It makes you feel good and comfortable.” And I took that very seriously and put some butterscotch in the show. But in other words, you’re comfortable and you’re familiar, and right and wrong come out how they’re supposed to do when the mystery is solved. That’s sort of the cloak I wanted to wrap around this project. 

Yeah, but you kind of subvert that, too, by every turn. I remember during the set visit this past summer, we were told that you even want to keep people on their toes about where everything in the office was located. Is the joy of this show subverting expectations? How far will you go pushing against the Werthers-ness of it all? 

Well, I think right at the end of the pilot, you realize, “Oh, there was something much sharper in that Werther’s Candy.” What I really love about what happens after the pilot is that we get to be on the inside with her. Kat Coiro — she is the director of the pilot and so many episodes — she and I kept talking about how we didn’t want to smell any kind of twist coming. That you really had to feel like this would be a good and solid and fun show to watch if there was no twist. You’re watching a story about an older woman who’s returning back to the workforce and is underestimated and is going to surprise and delight people. That had to sort of be solid. And then the twist is the sort of, “And then this, too?!” After that, we get to put that mood into the show. Because every time you’re on a mission with Matty and you’re aware of the stakes, aware of the danger, and you’re aware of her being found out. You get to play with tension. That, to me, is so exciting because then you get an extra layer of storytelling and you get to bring the audience along with you, but then still hold a little bit back so that we get surprises. We wanted surprises to be built into the show. 

Was there a specific reason why you wanted it to be focused on avenging her daughter’s death from the opioid crisis?

I had been thinking about that for years. Like years and years and years ago, I had tried to get the rights to a book about it. And then other people had it and shows came out, but I had always thought about that. There’s something that stuck in my mind — I’m forgetting the law firm now and I don’t want to get it wrong because that seems litigious — but I had read about a law firm that got sanctioned for not showing something in discovery. And it just like stuck with me because I’m like, imagine you’re a lawyer and you’ve got this ethical and moral obligation. You have your professional obligation to your client, but what is the obligation for the truth and for public health and for public safety? Because there’s a version where it’s like you get this bad information and you can do something about it and bring it to the light. Or you can just put out more paper and bury people in more lawsuits and let it drag on for years and years and years and years. Think about all the collateral damage in there. I just I kept going back to that. Like some people must have had eyes on these incriminating things and they didn’t push it forward.  I just kept thinking about that and what would the obligation be? I think that this specific crisis is just keeps morphing and growing more and more. You know, it shows no signs of slowing. It’s picking up steam. If there was no more story to tell, then we couldn’t tell it, but there’s so much. I think also there is no greater trauma or tragedy than, I think, the death of a child. It’s like your whole world and then it’s changed. Those two things, connecting them, made me feel like we had a strong spine to the story. 

I’m curious how far you plot the twists ahead and how much you know so far about where you want to take the story? Will it be revealed that Matty’s lying to her colleagues? Will we find out who is responsible? I’m curious how far ahead you plot, not just how you start your seasons as a writer, but also how much you clue in the actors. Because when I spoke to Skye P. Marshall and Jason Ritter during Summer TCA in July, they told me that — at least as of that interview — they had no idea which one of their characters was potentially responsible. 

Yes. So I like to keep it close to the vest. The writers’ room is like, we plot everything right in those first two weeks. So we are making sure that we are laying enough breadcrumbs that are going to pay off at the end and that we’re not changing direction midstream. So there was a lot of plotting. The mystery will be solved by the end of the season. And also I kept cards close to the vest, but as they started to need to know things as complications developed, different people on the cast would get a call from me where I would say, “Here’s a heads up. This looks like this, but it’s really this. I need you to play this underneath that.” Those that those kind of conversations. 

You know, besides Matlock, was there another legal drama that you kind of look to for inspiration? Because I did feel tonally some echoes of the Kings’ work or even like Suits. 

I love the Kings’ work. So yeah, I feel like it’s its own sort of tonal thing because it has all these different elements. But like, if you ask me what TV I’m a fan of, I’m going to say the Kings all day long, every day, because I just think their shows are so smart, so character-driven. Their legal brains are incredible and it’s always surprising. So I find them inspiring always. And I loved The Practice when I was growing up, or not growing up when I was… Yeah, I was old. [Chuckles] And I love David E. Kelly. Ally McBeal was very seminal for me. I think it all kind of goes into the soup of your influences, and then, it comes out as your particular version of that dish. 

Speaking of being a fan of the Kings, your show is going to be the lead in for Elsbeth. How do you feel about those two going back to back in the fall schedule? 

I like it. It’s awesome. I think it’s a perfect pairing. Yeah, I love Elsbeth. I think it’s such a great show and she’s such a fun character and it brings me a lot of delight to watch. So I feel like it’s like totally a good match. I’m excited. I think it’s great, yeah. 

Shifting gears, I know during the TCA panel you had mentioned something about how this is the first time you’ve been like, “Imagine Kathy Bates in this role,” and then Kathy Bates actually wound up on set. Besides just, you know, her being one of the most iconic, amazing actresses ever, does she add anything to her performance to the character that surprised you, that no one else could have done, that made me reassess your your game plan for Matty?

Well, she surprises me daily, you know, because of what she finds in the character. I think it seems silly, but I underestimated how much she can tell with like an eye switch or a move. So what it’s done, is it allows us to play so many levels so quickly. Like you can feel what she’s hiding, what she is saying, and how she wants you to receive it, all in one. For the character, that is really so exciting because it really allows the audience to step in and see her her plotting as well as her executing those plots. So I think because of how gifted she is, it really allows you to be on the inside with Matty. And then of how quickly the pain of when we talk about the daughter and how real and deep and devastating she makes those moments are just magical. And to me, it’s also watching her scenes with Skye. To me, that is like fireworks. 

I’m 39, almost 40, and I think Skye is about the same age. Sometimes I feel like even though I feel like I’m hitting my prime, society says maybe not. But this is a show about women who have all this experience and they are finally kind of getting to assert it in subversive ways. Can you talk more about how important it is for you to have — I won’t call myself an older woman, but like, we’re not ingenues at this age — but Matlock puts older women front and center.

Definitely, yeah. I’m almost 50 and I’m looking ahead. I think maybe in my 40s, I was looking back a lot, in terms of the experiences that I had and what it was to be a first time mom for me or those kind of seminal moments. And now, it’s not that I’m not reflecting on all of that, but I’m also looking ahead like, “Whoa, I’m 50. What’s going to be the next 20 or 30 or, you know, god willing, 40 years?” What will it be like for me and what will society be like? How will I fit into this world? How will I hold what I know, hold my sense of strength and power and all of that, when I’m being told constantly that it’s less useful and that you have to move to the side.

And there is a moving to the side, too, that’s part of that. I think part of it is you have to keep learning as you get older. That’s the way. Don’t be afraid to learn from the people that are younger than you and let the people that are younger than you look towards you for what advice you can give. That’s what I think we work on with the Olympia/Matty relationship. They keep learning from each other. You know, it’s just that being willing to learn. So as I get older, I have to realize that there’s new stuff coming that I don’t know about, that I’m not the voice of. And I have to take that in and listen and then hope that also experience counts for something and that can be offered. 

Matlock will return on Thursday, October 10, with an encore of the pilot at 9 PM ET.

This interview has been edited and formatted for clarity.