‘Matlock’ Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman Addresses That Hardcore Twist In Premiere On CBS

SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details about the premiere episode of Matlock on CBS.

Viewers expecting a simple gender-swapped version of the classic TV show starring Andy Griffith were treated with an unexpected twist at the end of the episode.

Instead of seeing the sweet little old Madeline “Matty” Matlock go home to her modest house and cat, we find out that this brilliant, 60-something lawyer is actually on a secret mission to bust up the law firm that could have prevented opioids from killing so many people (like her daughter, whose son she is now raising with her husband.)

Matty’s targets are Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), a senior attorney and key rainmaker with a thirst for justice; Olympia’s ex-husband/attorney Julian (Jason Ritter), and his father Julian Sr. (Beau Bridges), who heads the firm that Matty wants to destroy.

Here, creator and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman explains why she decided to turn the remake on its head, and what we can expect by the end of the drama’s first season on CBS.

DEADLINE So the pilot goes from, ‘oh this is a story about a sweet older lady going back to work to a holy sh*! this comes with a hardcore twist. Was that all a part of your original pitch? How did you get there?

JENNIE SNYDER URMAN It was part of the original pitch. When I was thinking about what I would do if I were to adapt this title, I was like, what would be different? Of course, I was going to start with a female protagonist, but I didn’t want to just do a gender swapped version that wasn’t interesting. So I started to think that maybe she is using the name Matlock. I gave myself sort of a challenge. I can continue to tell the audience they’re underestimating her but then they’re fooled at the end. I knew I wanted her to have a spine of steel throughout the show, that it had real stakes, that there was something real and deep we could explore in terms of grief and loss and our responsibility to each other, the responsibility of the legal profession in terms of what is your responsibility to public health versus your job as a lawyer to not do something that would hurt your client. I had read an article about a law firm that was sanctioned for hiding documents in the opioid crisis, and that stayed with me for a long time. I had read all of those books before Dopesick, and I remember I tried to get the rights early on, so that was all in my head at the same time. You never know what the soup of is going to be like, how the synapses are going to connect in your brain. Why would a woman like that want to go back into the law firm? What could be deep and meaningful enough? Then the story unfolded. So I pitched it, from beginning to end.

DEADLINE So the sweet little lady that we see at the beginning … are we going to find out, away from the law firm, that she’s far from that?

URMAN In the pilot, you really have to feel like you’re enjoying a fish-out-of-water comedy. And then all of a sudden, the ending comes and you’re surprised. Starting with episode two, you’re on the inside with her. So you get the privilege of knowing she’s on her secret mission. She’s a spy, basically. Is she going to get caught? Is she not going to get caught? We start to expand the home life, and you start to learn more about who Madeline Kingston is. You start to learn more about her family, about her marriage, about her grandson, about her daughter. You’ll meet her daughter eventually in flashbacks and sort of go to that core, that moment when Matty decided that she has this plan. Is she going to get caught and excited when she outsmart someone, or worried when she doesn’t outsmart someone?

DEADLINE So will we see Matty at home addressing how she hates having to play the nice little old lady at work?

URBAN Well, at the end of the pilot, she’s like, ‘these f–king butterscotch candies.’ She’s not a fan, but they sell little lady to her. Madeline Kingston is a much more direct, much more driven, and a harder character than Matty Matlock. We do get into the differences of who she is, where the Matty Matlock persona came from. You’ll learn about that. We really try to keep revealing things as the show goes on.

DEADLINE Can you address the challenges of depicting an older woman in the workplace and making sure the language doesn’t sound ageist?

URMAN I’ve gone according to gut and trying to play into people’s expectations before subverting them. A lot of times, we say things so that other people can’t hurt us. There’s a little bit of that. Matty uses that. She uses the fact that people are going to underestimate her. People are going to think she’s a nice, sweet little lady who doesn’t have much of an agenda besides, like, paying her bills. And she’s going to run with that. It’s sort of like, underestimate her, if you dare. We’ve had fun with the jokes because the humor is also a big part of the show, and I hope that we hit the balance where we can say things and sort of have fun with it, but also what we are ultimately doing is paying homage to what an older woman can do and is capable of. And that, to me, is really thrilling.

DEADLINE How long do you want to keep the secret? Will you resolve it by the end of the season?

URBAN Matty does not want to get exposed, I’ll say that. I wanted the mystery that we’re setting out with to be 100% resolved by the end of the season. It will leave us with new problems.

An encore of the Matlock pilot will air October 10, and then episode 2 airs during CBS’ official premiere week on October 17.  Matlock will also be available on Paramount+.