Crafty seventy-something attorney Madeline “Matty” Matlock (Academy Award winner Kathy Bates) has an ulterior motive for bulldozing her way into a job at an esteemed Chicago law firm in this reimagining of legal drama Matlock (CBS, 1986-95). You’ll think you know her motivation by the end of the first hour, but Bates promises the twists keep coming until the final episode of the new Matlock.
“Matlock has an agenda that not everyone knows about. I love playing all those different notes,” says the actress, who is famous for inhabiting characters that make us squirm (like her Oscar-winning breakthrough role as a deranged fan in Misery and her Emmy-scoring turn as a sadistic socialite in American Horror Story, among others).
This time around, In the hands of executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman, creator of Jane the Virgin. Bates is someone more normal. We think. “I wanted to write about how older women are overlooked in society,” Urman says. “I wanted our heroine to be constantly telling the audience that she’s being underestimated, for the audience to enjoy watching her take advantage of that underestimation. And then, by the end, shock the audience when they realize they, too, have underestimated Madeline Matlock.”
This Matty is no blood relation to the original Ben Matlock, a folksy, curmudgeonly lawyer played by Andy Griffith. Part of this show’s humor is that the vintage television series exists, but Matty’s only connection to it is the coincidence of her last name. Broadcast TV barely registers for Matty’s busy boss, senior attorney Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), who loves a good pro bono case. Her ex-husband Julian (Jason Ritter), son of the firm’s head honcho, is intrigued by the smart grandma working alongside the young associates, including charismatic Billy (David Del Rio) and go-getter Sarah (Leah Lewis). (Click on the video to see our interview with Bates and the cast.)
What Matty does share with Griffith’s attorney is she doggedly investigates each case of the week like it’s the crime of the century. And she can play sweet old codger while slyly figuring out her next move. But what’s she hiding? TV Insider put Bates on the witness stand to find out.
Kathy Bates: One minute she’s at the office trying to figure things out, the other she’s with her husband at home and there are very tender moments. All those layers, I love. My mother, God rest her, always wished that I’d not play all these characters that were “afflicted.” She’d be very happy because A), she wanted to be a lawyer, and B), I’m not afflicted.
I can’t give everything away, but she is on a mission. The law firm is not allowed to discriminate against her age. She uses this to get into the front door and ostensibly to create a whole new life for herself. She even keeps things from her husband, every now and then. At the very end, just when you think Matlock has only fooled the people in her life, you realize she’s also fooled the audience.
