MATLOCK Series Premiere Post-Mortem: Jennie Snyder Urman Breaks Down the Twist and What it Means for Season 1

[Warning: This post contains massive spoilers for the MATLOCK series premiere.]

“She’s not the Matlock you’re expecting” the CBS promos for the new drama teased…and they were being quite literal.

In the series premiere of MATLOCK, the final moments of the hour revealed that much of what viewers learned about Madeline “Matty” Matlock (Kathy Bates) was a variation of the truth: She wasn’t a hard-on-her-luck widowed lawyer re-entering the workforce by day while taking care of her grandson, solo, at night. 

Instead, she was actually Madeline Kingston, a well-off grieving mother who infiltrated law firm Jacobson Moore—with the help of her still-alive husband and grandson—in an attempt to figure out who was indirectly responsible for her daughter’s death.

Here, MATLOCK showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman talks with Give Me My Remote about keeping the show’s true premise a secret, how the mythology will play into season 1, and more.

This is a very different show than what people might expect on paper. For you as a writer, what has the balance been like in trying to promote the show and get people to tune in without tipping your hand about what the big twist is?
So hard. It’s so hard. It’s so hard because there’s, of course, so many [people asking], “Do we need another reboot? Another gender-flipped reboot?” And you kind of have to sit and say, “Well, wait and see,” and “Maybe you’ll like it.” So I just try to kind of stay in what we’re doing. 

It’s interesting because usually on a network show you’re maybe shooting episode 8 or so [when the pilot airs]. We’ve had nothing because we’ve been shooting it [off-schedule] because of the strikes and everything…we’re going to be shooting episode 18 [when the pilot airs]. So we kind of had that loop where nobody knows anything about the show. 

For me, I struggle with being [aware] I like the audience version where they don’t know any kind of twist is coming, and they’re just sitting there and they’re watching, and then they’re like, “What?!” But that has to be balanced because we want to create the sense of people wanting to see it. 

I am obsessed with the last CBS promo, with Britney [Spears’ “Oops!…I Did it Again”]. That, to me, was gold—it made me excited. I did have to let go of the fact that people are going to know there’s something, but I don’t think they will know what it is. It gave it such an exciting tone; I thought it just struck the perfect balance. But it’s always a balance, right? Because those test audiences who go in knowing nothing, and watch it and watch it and watch it, and then go “Holy s—”’ you don’t get that if you tell the people that there’s a twist, which we have to do.

What conversations did you have with your network and studio partners about keeping the twist intact pre-air?
They led with that, which was great. They led with protecting the twist and in every marketing meeting, they’re telling [us] how they’re protecting the twist, but also how they’re building a sense of anticipation. And I feel like they do a great job. I love the promos. I feel like they really capture a lot of the spirit. They don’t give it away, but they tease just enough. I have, in the past, had to be like, “Don’t spoil this, don’t spoil that.” I haven’t had to do any of that [with this show]. They’ve been protective of the twist since the beginning.

Now that it’s out there, what can you share about how this mystery will play throughout the first season?
We’ll solve that mystery by the end of the first season. So you will get an answer. You’ll know who did what, when, and where. That will be satisfied. 

I think what Matty does not anticipate is what it feels like to be a valued member of this law firm, and how it changes how she sees herself, how much the work starts to mean to her; that’s surprising. 

The central love story that we’re playing with in this show is the love story between Olympia and Matty—that relationship and how they come together, and the complexity of that because Matty is holding so much away from Olympia. I’m excited about that. 

I’m excited we constantly have twists and surprises—that is built into the fabric of the show. And I will say, over the course of the season, there are some that I feel rival the pilot…at least one. We are gonna trade in that. And just when you think you understand the pattern of how we’re doing things, we are gonna flip things a little bit, structurally, which I think is gonna be exciting. 

And we’re always gonna lead from character. You’re always going to be with Matty, and understanding this mission gets incredibly difficult as she gets closer to the people involved.

She had a list of three suspects: Senior (Beau Bridges), Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), and Julian (Jason Ritter). Can you say if it’s one of those people?
Yes, it’s one of those.

That’s a twist in itself! Matty is also very supported by her family in this mission. What can you share about crafting that dynamic? 
I have a kid Alfie’s age, who is my computer genius, and there’s no day that I pick up my phone that it doesn’t do something to me that I was not expecting. And I’m having him continually read Alfie and tell me if he could do it, if he could figure it out in certain ways. 

But it’s really about the relationship. It’s about the relationship between the husband and wife—and they’re not always on the same page. Matty has more resources than we think she has at the beginning, right? She’s got money, so she can get things done as she needs to. And she and her grandson, their relationship is really also a very central vein in our show. 

Her husband starts to—you learn that he is not as on board with what they’re doing as she is. And she and Alfie have really driven this, so that starts to complicate things, too. We want to look at the relationship and what it’s like raising one’s grandchild when you’re in your 70s, and what parenthood at that age looks like, because there are so many families that do that now. And so it just gives us an added layer, I think, of complexity, and a way to deepen stories and continue to expand the universe and expand her world. And ground it in relationships and family.

She has this mission, but she’s also now working with these lawyers, she’s becoming a part of the team. What can you tease about her office relationships with the lawyers and how they are impacting both her quest to find the truth and her life in general? 
It’s the generational impact that we’re looking at with Matty: How her age is a huge gift that she can give to others and how their youth is also a huge gift that they can give to her.

What I think is so exciting for Matty is that she is learning again and she is actively participating. I’m 50—I look to people who have more experience than me, and also I look to the younger [people] because I’m like, “I have to keep learning. I have to keep learning. Oh, this is not how we do things, we do them differently now. Okay, let me learn, let me adapt, let me figure out what you’re giving me, too.” 

I think that the intergenerational pull provides us [with] a lot of comedy and a lot of drama. Those relationships really deepen over the course of the season. 

Olympia and Maddie really end up in unexpected places emotionally together. And the writers and I really worked to craft that relationship, because we had such a monster actress in Skye Marshall and Kathy Bates. We’re doing an episode now [where] a lot of it is just a two-hander between them. And the work they’re doing is just [leading to us] sitting on a couch like, “Whoa.” This is incredible to watch and how lucky am I?

MATLOCK, Time Slot Debut, Thursday, October 17, 9/8c, CBS

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• MATLOCK: New Trailer for Kathy Bates-Led CBS Drama Teases Matty Isn’t What Viewers Are Expecting
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