Review: 'Matlock'

Television writers and showrunners hate when TV critics try to figure out why a TV series made certain creative decisions. They argue that there are always mandates from the networks, producers, and stars that outsiders wouldn't know about. So trying to attribute storylines or creative choices to the people who are writing the series can often be misleading.

And I understand all that. Someone watching the finished episode will never understand all the compromises and A/B choices that came along the way. But that's the nature of the process. As a TV critic, all I can do is write about the show that I'm given.

So after watching the episodes of Matlock CBS provided to critics, my take is this is a show that feels like the network said "We want a Matlock reboot!" And the response was "I'm going to give you a show that mentions Matlock in passing, but has only the barest connection to anything related to that classic Andy Griffith series."

If you haven't watched the first episode, there are going to be spoilers here. So consider yourself warned.

Based on the CBS promos for Matlock, you probably have a sense of what to expect from the show. Matlock is now a woman, played by Kathy Bates. She's a widow from the Deep South who talks herself into a big corporate law job after having been away from the law business for 30 years.

And that is certainly the way the episode begins. Madeline Matlock - "Matty" for short - uses a series of tricks worthy of an Oceans 11 reboot to get through layers of security and into the partner's meeting at Jacobson Moore, a prestigious law firm with floors of lawyers and staff. She talks her way into a job as an intern and is assigned to Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), a lawyer who grew tired of the firm's corporate clientele and is now trying to carve out a new path taking on high-risk charitable cases.

Of course, there are the expected complications. Olympia is sparring with her soon-to-be-ex Julian (Jason Ritter), who also happens to be the son of the firm’s senior partner Senior (Beau Bridges). She doesn't much like Matty and that goes double for Olympia's two younger associates, Sarah (Leah Lewis) and Billy (David Del Rio).

The pilot leans heavily into the "I'm old, but surprisingly wise about the ways of the world" framing and as you might imagine, Matty slowly begins to win over Olympia to the point where she ends up somehow introducing evidence to the judge that breaks open the case of the week.

All of which is fine enough. It felt like an awkward reboot, but Bates is charming in the role and it certainly leans into the likely demographic for the show. But the last several minutes of the episode were infuriating.

Throughout the episode, Matty has rolled out this backstory for her new coworkers. She's broke, her deadbeat, hard drinking and gambling husband is dead and she is taking care of a grandson Alfie (Aaron D. Harris), who hates her.



As Matty says goodbye to her fellow associates at the end of the day, she gets on a bus to head home. Instead, she gets off after one stop and boards a waiting limousine which drives her back to her expansive mansion.

It turns out she's not broke, her husband isn't dead and her grandson adores her. Oh, and her name isn't even Matlock. We discover that her daughter died of an opioid overdose and this is all part of a long con to get inside Jacobson Moore. She's convinced the firm buried evidence in a previous case that could have taken the drug that killed her daughter off the market years before it happened. And she has a murder board of photos and clues pointing in the direction of the responsible parties.

I have nothing against the overall premise of the long con idea. And having an older actress like Bates play the role of the Avenger is a nice twist. But what infuriated me was that it had nothing to do with Matlock. Other than she picked the name both as an in-joke and an excuse for writers to use the name as a running joke: "Okay, Jessica Fletcher."

It's as if NBC launched a reboot of Seinfeld, but it turned out to be about a NYC detective who was constantly assigned "cases about nothing." 



It's easy to understand why Bates would take the role and why CBS apparently has a lot of faith in the series. Thanks to Jane the Virgin creator Jennie Snyder Urman, Matty is a multi-layered, often funny character that is a welcome contrast to some of the show's other more dour performances. And while the show seemed to lag a bit towards the end of the episodes I was sent, I can see audiences appreciating the "who done it" premise coupled with a solid ensemble of actors.

Still, there was no real reason to name the show Matlock. Other than doing so would bring in viewers curious to see what a reboot of the series might look like.

We'll see if the bait-and-switch matters to the audience. Or whether they can look past that annoying twist and enjoy the show that's really there.