Matlock raised the bar when it comes to pulling off consistent storytelling twists — and season 2 will only push that further.
While speaking to Us Weekly at CBS Fest on Wednesday, May 7, Kathy Bates, Skye P. Marshall, Jason Ritter, David Del Rio and Leah Lewis answered burning questions about how Matlock will raise the stakes.
“[Hopefully] people will think it’s even better than the first season,” Bates, 76, exclusively told Us before elaborating on how her character Matty will deal with the introduction of her grandson’s biological father. “I’m really excited about that for a lot of reasons.”
Bates is excited to share more scenes with Niko Nicotera, who was introduced in the season 1 finale, adding, “I worked with him on Richard Jewell. That last scene [on Matlock], I’ve just been waiting for and waiting for it to happen. I love working with him because he’s really scary and you don’t know which way that relationship is going to go.”
While Matty is going to be “really conflicted,” Bates said it will be “crazy fun” getting to bring that for life. Meanwhile, Marshall, 45, hinted at where Olympia will go from here after finding out that her ex-husband, Julian (Ritter), was responsible for hiding the documents that could have taken opioids off the streets.
“We all were pretty shocked [by the Julian reveal]. The writers’ were so clever at the rabbit hole that Matlock was falling into that you just kind of didn’t know what direction she was going to land on,” Marshall teased. “I actually thought that once I opened the safety deposit box, there was going to be nothing and that was going to be the cliffhanger. So I’m so glad that they actually did give the audience that delicious treat to hold us over until fall.”
She continued: “I genuinely couldn’t guess. That’s what makes their writing so phenomenal because [showrunner] Jennie [Snyder Urman] always says, ‘Can any of us figure it out in the writers’ room?’ And if one person can, she makes it harder or makes the twists smarter. So that’s why the audience was always on the edge of their seat at the end of every episode.”
Matlock, which premiered in September 2024, follows a wealthy retired lawyer named Madeline Kingston (Bates) who pretends to be a poor widower named Matty Matlock to get a job at Jacobson Moore law firm. As it turns out, Matty thinks someone at the company is complicit in the opioid epidemic that resulted in her daughter’s death.
The season 1 finale ended with Olympia confronting Julian about the Wellbrexa documents. He begged Olympia not to expose him — not knowing she actually found the documents because of Matty’s mission at Jacobson Moore. Then there was Billy (Del Rio), who found out he is going to become a father and Sarah (Lewis), who was celebrating a big professional win.
According to Del Rio, 37, Claudia’s pregnancy isn’t going to be walked back when the show returns, telling Us, “I’m really excited to see how Billy handles the work balance with the personal balance of it all.”
Lewis, 28, also weighed in on what is awaiting Sarah in season 2.
“I remember reading the finale and hoping at the end that Sarah was going to get away scot free with this wonderful victory. Of course the thing happens with Simone and she might need to take accountability,” Lewis hinted. “To be honest, this is where we really get to see if Sarah can step up to the plate for the thing that she has been begging for, asking for and working so hard for. You want to get treated like a big dog. We’ll start acting like a big dog. I feel like this season we’ll definitely probably get to see her mature a bit more on that aspect. Her professional win is not over yet.”
Matlock is currently streaming on Paramount+.
