Matlock Has New Twists Up Its Sleeve in Season 2

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 2 of Matlock, "Another Matlock." Read at your own risk!]

In my review of the first season of the Kathy Bates-led Matlock reboot, I voiced some skepticism as to how a series with a tightrope-walk twist of a premise would work once things, well, got untwisted. By the end of the pilot episode, we had learned that Matty Matlock (Bates) is lying about her identity to everyone she works with at the law firm of Jacobson Moore in order to figure out who hid evidence on the firm's major pharmaceutical client Wellbrexa, evidence that would have implicated them and their drug as part of the opioid crisis — evidence, if it had come to light, that would've gotten the drug off the market, perhaps saving countless lives, including Matty's daughter. Matty has sworn to out whichever person at Jacobson Moore hid this evidence and get justice. 

A premise like that has a shelf life, I wrote. At the beginning of Season 1, I was left wondering what happens once someone else is let in on the big twist. And when Matty's supervising lawyer and friend, Olympia Lawrence (Skye P. Marshall), discovered Matty's secret at the end of the show's inaugural season, I thought, OK, what happens now? Because what happens once Matty's secret is a secret no more can really make or break the show. The start of Season 2 addresses that question head on. And the answer? Well, at least for now, there is nothing to be concerned about. In fact, Matlock has only gotten more layered and more compelling to watch. 

The end of Season 1 saw Olympia not only learning the truth about Matty and what she is doing at Jacobson Moore, but also discovering that Matty's instincts were right — Olympia found the missing evidence, a game-changing study that was removed from discovery in one of the pharma company's big cases, tucked away in a safety deposit box that belongs to her ex-husband and the father of her two children, Julian (Jason Ritter). She confronted Julian, who swears that he was carrying out his father, Senior's (Beau Bridges), orders and he regrets it to this day. He understands how unethical and illegal it was. He begs her not to expose him. All of this means that come the Season 2 premiere, Olympia is in a tough spot. Not only does she know that turning over the study and the evidence that Julian hid it is the ethical thing to do, but, despite the lies, Matty is also her friend, and she feels for her and her desire to get justice for her daughter — or, at the very least, assuage her grief, even if in a minute way. 

On the other hand, Olympia has a relationship with Julian, too. They're divorced, but she cares for him, and she is concerned about the blowback this could have on her family. Her kids would be collateral damage here. In the Season 2 premiere, Olympia attempts to get Matty to work with her to get enough evidence to pin this all on Senior. Does she lie about Julian having the Wellbrexa study? Sure, but if we can forgive Matty for lying to avenge her family, it's not a leap to forgive Olympia for lying to protect hers. Thanks to the unlikely friendship that these two have forged, Matty is sympathetic to a degree, but she and her husband, Edwin (Sam Anderson), are ready to move forward from this ruse that has taken over their lives and want to go to The New York Times with the evidence they have at the moment, let them figure out the rest, and move on. Olympia needs more time than that. 

It's this conflict between these two friends, both trying to do what's right by their family, that is the crux of the opening installments of Matlock Season 2. At face value, that sounds simple enough, but I don't think either showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman or Kathy Bates settled on dusting off a classic procedural just to be simple enough, and that ambition is clear even within these first two episodes. Instead of simply setting up a season in which Olympia is constantly trying to catch up to and grasp for ways to thwart Matty, over the course of these first two episodes, Season 2 instead sets up a clever seesawing power dynamic between the two women in which neither seems to hold the power in the relationship for very long. 

We've grown used to Matty being in charge — she's always two steps ahead of everyone else — and by the end of the Season 2 premiere, it certainly seems like Matlock will proceed as normal in that regard. Not only has Matty discovered that her friend is lying about finding the study, but she also learns Olympia is keeping it hidden in a safe in her own home. By the end of the episode, Matty winds up with the study in her hands, and she and Edwin are all set to go public. She is in the driver's seat. But it doesn't take Matlock long to flip the status quo on its head. 

The second episode of the season reveals that Olympia is just as adept at the manipulating-and-lying game as Matty is. Honestly, Matty would be impressed by Olympia if she weren't on the receiving end of it all. Olympia reveals that the study Matty stole out of the safe is a decoy and she has the real one tucked away elsewhere until they can figure out this mess. She fakes laryngitis as an excuse to keep Matty busy in court while she tries to find more evidence that points to Senior, or, at the very least, a way to buy more time before Matty blows up Olympia's life. By the end, just as Matty thinks she's reached the end of her revenge mission, Olympia makes her big move: She informs Matty that Matty and her husband are guilty of a whole host of fraudulent activity in service of bringing down Wellbrexa. 

Angry that Olympia would try to threaten her and her family, Matty goes off. She tells Olympia that there's not enough evidence and that no one would ever find a nice little old lady like her guilty of anything. She's untouchable. Now, if Olympia had seen Misery, she'd be terrified. But Olympia's not scared. That's partly because we have to assume Misery doesn't exist in the Matlock universe but mostly because this is exactly what Olympia wanted Matty to do — she's been recording the entire conversation. Olympia sends Matty the recording at the end of the episode to inform her that she no longer has the leverage she thinks she does, and if it wasn't already clear, Olympia makes it so: She is the one in charge now. And then she takes a celebratory sip of wine because that's what one does when they change the game. 

Now, whether the power dynamic between Matty and Olympia will continue to go back and forth throughout the season or whether one of these women will take the reins for a while is yet to be seen. Either way though, just knowing that either one could flip on the other at any moment is a smart way for Matlock to play things. Obviously, it keeps things interesting, which is especially necessary for a series that at its foundation is a procedural. There might be a formula the show is following as far as the cases getting litigated each week, but now we know there's no formula as far as Matty and Olympia's relationship goes.

But there's another, much more interesting reason this conflict works to Matlock's advantage: The highlight of Season 1 was far and away watching Bates and Marshall's on-screen chemistry build as the friendship between their characters grew more complex. That pairing was the secret sauce, and Season 2 knows it. Letting Olympia in on Matty's secret was a huge risk, but it pays off tremendously, even just two episodes in. While these women are at odds as far as how they want to handle the hidden study and get justice for Wellbrexa's victims (even if their end goal is the same), it's abundantly clear that they care about each other. They are quite open about not trusting one another, but it is obvious that they want to trust each other. The unlikely friendship they formed is important to them, even if it feels impossible to get back to it after everything. This makes things complicated — and that gives Bates and Marshall so many more levels to play on this show. Watching them dig through those layers together is a delight. The first two episodes are full of one-on-one scenes between these two, and when one is over, you're always counting down to the next one.

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It'll be interesting to see how Matlock proceeds and what wrinkles will appear to keep the tension around Matty's (and now Olympia's) truth not only compelling but believable. With Bates and Marshall at the center of it, though, there is a lot of promise that the series will continue to grow in the right direction. Even if you're not into procedurals, the Matty and Olympia duo (and the Bates and Marshall one) is reason enough to tune in to Matlock. So maybe the reboot of an iconic '80s legal procedural is actually a lovely story about a complex female friendship. How's that for a twist?

Matlock Season 2 airs Thursdays at 9/8c on CBS.