SPOILER ALERT: The following interview includes spoilers from “Sixteen Steps,” the November 14 episode of CBS’ “Matlock,” now streaming on Paramount+.
This is a jig actually up for Madeline “Matty” Matlock (Kathy Bates) in this week’s episode of freshman legal drama when someone from her before who saw from her her real title, Madeline Kingston, pushes the means to her now.
In the previous episode, “Claws,” a dating app profile was created for Matty, which he could not forestall, because he was pretending to be the widow of Matty Matlock while undercover as a lawyer in the Jacobson Moore Legislation Agency. The photo on the dating profile is seen by a man named Stanley (Henry LeBlanc), and Matty isn’t too happy. This week, we find out that Stanley is not concerned about Matty, but his father or mother with a child who is addicted to drugs. He insists on seeing her, bringing back painful memories in addition to interfering with Matty’s plan to implicate his employer in order to withhold evidence that will pull the opioid that killed his daughter, Ellie, off the market. However, all the pain may be worth it when, in the final moments of the episode, Matty suggests he be added to the agency’s pharmaceutical group.
To help break down the events of this episode, and where “Matlock’s” many storylines are headed, collection creator Jennie Snyder Urman spoke with Election.
Now come here out of the strong gate, and you’ve got a second season renewal. Did you see this coming?
No, I was surprised and excited. Kathy is an unprecedented individual and presence and actor, so I understand that the explanation that individuals do – she does a wonderful job. So, I really enjoyed working with him, and I love what he’s done with the character.
Jason Ritter and Skye P. Marshall
Sonja Flemming/CBS
We’re only through Episode 6, but why is this the best episode to delve into Ellie’s death, and how effectively the case ties in with the previous one?
As a result we are launching all the characters and have been getting you more in each episode about who they are and what their background is. This season is all designed to have benchmark flashback episodes that fit right into the present and give us more of why, why now, and how did we get here?
This episode is designed right inciting the second that Matty is determined to start the plan, after which how to connect with Olympia (Skye P. Marshall)) and Julian (Jason Ritter). I think the audience is ready to find out what is the last straw: What do they like collectively or put aside? We all thought in the Round 6 writers room we were going to do this. After that there was another one in Episode 12, and they became a space out like that.
As a result of this severe flashback, is one thing you will do repeatedly transfer or extra sparingly?
Sun. But for giant moments or flashbacks or for giant issues that need to be understood, then we’ll give extra time for flashbacks. I really feel like now we have flashbacks a little bit built into the construction of the present, because what occurs at the end of the episode – you can all the time flash back to one thing.
The case in this episode with the contamination of the baby’s method feels very ripped-from-the- headlines. What is the origin of this case?
Yes, positively. It’s all in our minds, after he wants the case that passed dead at one time, and who is now taking a second bite of the apple. And the hyperlink between fathers and mothers and children, and the different ways we grieve, is now very much present. It’s a lot about grief and how you stay after the unimaginable. This is an approach to faucet into that in a deep way for Matty, and in addition to the faucet into for the character of the week. When Julian and Olympia first come on the case, they already have a fragile relationship, and the emotional storm of the case proves too much for them to handle together.
As a result of now being topical, with the results of the presidential election, what do you see that affects the current story transferring ahead?
Of course, Season 1 is wrapped up, so we’re not coming back until next year, but we’re definitely into what happened and how our characters deal with it, he said. So I feel that our characters are very, especially Olympia, in the social point and social justice, and how the new guidelines and legal guidelines are changing is one of the things that, in fact, we will see.
Left to right Leah Lewis, David Del Rio and Kathy Bates
Sonja Flemming/CBS
Because this episode touches so much on Ellie’s story – by seeing footage of her, and what the loss means for Matty – will there be any additions to the case of her death?
What it teaches is more about who Ellie is, and the circumstances of her life and death. Matty is looking for a way to deal with his daughter, but also relates to the many people he thinks should be more aware of the dangers of opioids and prescription drugs. It was Ellie who was his target, and being so close to all of those people made him revisit that wound in a way he hadn’t processed before.
Here, she thinks she’s going to step in and solve this crime, and what she doesn’t know is how she’s opening up emotionally, and looking back at that time in her daughter’s life and when her daughter died and the situation. Episode 6 means that you see another place where you’re determined, “I’m going to continue this,” and you also find out more about that day during the episode. But throughout the season, you will learn more about Ellie and her life, and all about her death.
Stanley shows up as someone who knows Matty Kingston, and can be connected to Ellie and will blow up her full plan. Will we see him again?
An important factor is how Matty feels, like his world is starting to get smaller, and he is starting to have problems that may hurt him to try to sail. So in this episode, in an effort to defend his identification, he has to really show no mercy to this grieving father. He had to say, “Leave me alone and don’t contact me again,” which was a horrible factor to think about, having gone and knowing that the child was lacking.
All the difficulties piled up on Matty. It’s another dramatization of the truth that in the effort to get this justice that he needs, so many moral differences that take compromises along the way, and he or he hurts so many people when he leaves. It’s part of what will bring him to that second when he says, “Maybe too far.”
I used to be ready for Olympia to have another place where she remembered it was Matty who spilled espresso on her in that flashback, and that didn’t happen. What was the level of speech in the writer’s room?
Except that Matty is invisible to him, in seconds. Like, why would he remember the girl who accidentally spilled the espresso? He was invisible. It’s a posh factor, but in this second, Olympia’s desire about marriage and family and this outdated girl spilled one thing in her. He was nothing at the time, which made Matty, in fact, think, “I can do that.”
Talk to me about Olympia and Julian, who have been on a higher floor in the previous few episodes. But are some of the problems coming for him?
Every chapter will be rocky, but they must determine what it was that broke them aside in the first place. They’re in a special home, and that’s the question as they push and pull all season long. There are quite a few that pull them together, and quite a few that push them away. So now he’s the closest we’ve seen so far.
Kathy Bates and Sam Anderson
With Robert Voets/CBS
How will the health of Matty and her husband Edwin (Sam Anderson) play into what’s to come? We’ve already seen the effect Matty’s plan has on him, in addition to his son Alfie (Aaron D. Harris).
He is a grandfather, and this fear is a real name for Matty. We all want to capture the more amazing components of our time, and then turn it into a real human drama. Part of that is in 75, there will be a toll as well which, after treating the extreme – that’s why we take the extreme to go ahead. Edwin and Matty’s death is one thing they think about, especially the girl who died and was responsible for raising the 13-year-old.
Matty’s changed account of his friendship with Olympia, and some modern parenting came to Matty and that made a little fight with Edwin as effective. In addition, just how much contains him constantly in his mind, and one thing they conflict and usually agree.
Will the following episode, aired on December 5, continue what this episode explores?
Of course, it takes up all these threads. The fun factor at the end of this episode is Matty de facto thinking, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this.” So we see the origin of his decision to do this, at the same time he thinks: “Maybe I have made the wrong choice. I hurt people left and right. A lot of pain is being dug up, and it will not solve the fact that my daughter is gone. He was right -actually came close to saying, “You know, what I have to do to avenge my son’s death is to be an amazing father or mother to a little boy.”
But then he offered the prospect of working in pharma at the agency. It was like, “Oh my god, I deserve to be there!” so he said sure, and you will think about Edwin will not be happy as a result of what they want. We’ll pick that up, and we’ll pick up with Matty taking what he’s asked for. He will be working with Julian in the next episode, and he immediately works with the people in charge. It will be more troublesome for him.
Because Matty is such a mendacity and deceives everyone, he also grows closer to individuals in the agency – how do you navigate it so you don’t think he’s going too far?
What’s fun about watching is that you’re just rooting for him, then in a flash, you’re like, “Wait, am I rooting for him to hurt someone? That’s not cool!” They also suck us in. We say the main love story now is Matty and Olympia, and you also don’t know that Olympia is telling the truth, and us understand Matty doesn’t tell the truth. What did he do to the relationship? And the real way can? The massive, long bow.
With Matty’s words and little jokes, is there an inventory of those sayings in the writers’ room whenever you want?
No, we just write to the script and create problems. There is a particular problem that he comes back to. He tells many stories about Cindy Shapiro, and you will hear about her too. He said, “Imagine you are me,” and he had trouble making sure he said enough. Kathy also offered us some good ones.
Do you feel the need, or will we see additional, callbacks to unique gifts?
We will use music sparingly. Every time we now have the opportunity to do one or eat one, it will be a burnt dog and so on. He’ll tell us some jokes about it, but we won’t do anything specific about the unique gift because it’s not. But when he meets a super fan of “Matlock,” then we’ll talk about “Matlock”!
This interview has been edited and condensed.
