Matlock co-stars Skye P. Marshall and Jason Ritter make a bit of beautiful music together at the top of the TVLine red carpet video above.
After harmonizing a few bars and then amazingly speaking in totally perfect unison, the on-screen exes got to revisiting some of the freshman CBS hit’s biggest twists.
When Olympia in Season 1’s antepenultimate hour confronted “Matlock” with the litany of lies told by one Madeline Kingston, “It was like going into the ring with Tyson,” Marshall says of the instantly iconic two-hander with the Kathy Bates.
“There were no other actors, it was just me and Kathy Bates in the room,” the actress tells TVLine West Coast Bureau Chief Dave Nemetz in the video above. “I just had to breathe outside of that [office] door, and every time I walked in was very much, ‘Don’t try to nail it, just be honest. Just listen to what she’s saying and respond wholeheartedly.’”
As Marshall notes, “It’s the not acting, that’s what makes great performances.”
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Ritter then steps up to survey Julian’s “incredibly complicated relationship” with his father, Senior, who 1) passed Julian over for a promotion to partner 2) years after tasking him with stealing a legal document that was damning for Welbrexa, Jacobson Moore’s Big Pharma client.
“As much as Senior drives him crazy, as much as he’s been hurt by Senior, I think there’s a part of [Julian] that still would love Senior to say, ‘I’m proud of you, son,’ one time,” Ritter posits.
But will that longing for approval get in the way of Julian possibly allying with Olympia and Matty to pin the Welbrexa cover-up on Senior in Season 2? “It’s going to be fascinating seeing what happens next season,” Ritter ventures. “I can’t wait to see what the writers come up with.”
To hear Marshall tell it, scores of other actors also would love to wield the Matlock writers’ words, coming off the not-a-reboot’s success as the TV season’s most-watched new program.
Whereas everyone, when the show was first announced in spring 2024, mocked the need for a “reboot” of the late-1980s Andy Griffith courtroom drama, “Now everyone’s like, ‘Can I please get on Matlock?!” says Marshall.
“Matlock means something completely different now, in such a short time,” she attests. Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman “flipped” the script on everyone, while executive producer Eric Christian Olsen, who had rights to Matlock and brought them to Urman, “hit a lottery,” Marshall marvels. “He built a universe for us and brought all of us together. I feel like we’re the Avengers!”
