[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Matlock Season 1 finale, “Tricks of the Trade.”]
The person who hid the Wellbrexa study was revealed in the bombshell ending of the two-part Matlock Season 1 finale, but that was only the beginning of the mysteries this series plans to unfold in this already renewed series. One of the most successful new shows of the year ended its freshman season on a high note, delivering dramatic tension between Kathy Bates and Skye P. Marshall‘s Matty and Olympia, as well as heartwarming moments between their team of four at Jacobson Moore throughout.
The goal for this finale, as showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman explains to TV Insider, was to solve the season’s primary mystery but break open the unavoidable turmoil that was always going to follow once Matty and Edwin (Sam Anderson) and Alfie (Aaron D. Harris) solved the case. Edwin was ready to give their findings to reporters, move back to Chicago, and leave this chapter behind them, but the show’s central love story — the friendship between Matty and Olympia — won’t let them go so easily.
Now that Olympia knows it was, in fact, her ex-husband, Julian Jr. (Jason Ritter), who hid the Wellbrexa study, her life is changed forever. She can’t just separate herself from this bombshell finding, and neither can the regretful Julian, no matter how hard he tries. Hiding this document in his safety deposit box was done at the urging of his father, Julian Sr. (Beau Bridges) — who really did orchestrate the fire drill for his son to take the document — but that doesn’t absolve him of moral or legal guilt. Olympia has a big choice to make in the second season, and Matty’s home life received a shocking twist in the final moments as well.
Alfie’s supposed father (played by Bates’ Richard Jewell costar, Niko Nicotera) came knocking on their door at the end of the episode. Jennie Snyder Urman reveals to TV Insider that a paternity test will prove whether or not this man really is Alfie’s father by the end of the Season 2 premiere, and she details her response to Kathy Bates pitching Nicotera for the role herself. Here, Snyder Urman breaks down the Matlock Season 1 finale and teases what’s ahead when Matlock Season 2 premieres this fall.
You’ve called the relationship between Matty and Olympia “a love story” — is this finale the “girl loses girl” part? Can they get back together and trust each other?
Jennie Snyder Urman: Exactly. It’s an epic love story. I want to keep reminding people. If you’re building your show around an epic love story, and that’s how we want to treat this friendship, because friendships are so epic in our lives and so sustaining and huge, huge, there’s going to be will they-won’t they. There’s going to be push and pulls. There’s going to be secrets and separations, and you’re going to be longing for them to find their way back to each other because of how magical they were. So this first season was about building that and having them unexpectedly discover each other and learn from each other and realize this unexpected friendship has given them both so much, but there’s been this secret in the middle, and now the secret’s out. And yet Olympia is now holding this other secret, and can they find their way back, and can they get back to that place, is going to be a lot of what the second season is going to be building.
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Olympia made partner and now has a stake in everything that happens at Jacobson Moore. How will that change her behavior? Can she stay a partner after what she finds out about her ex-husband? Is she more like Senior than she is like Julian?
There’s going to be so many questions. What is her responsibility to the firm? What is her responsibility to herself, and what is her responsibility to her family? She’s going to be weighing all of those things. She’s not going to be making any quick decisions because so much is at stake, but everything is more complicated by her being partner. And also, she really, really did not think that her ex-husband could do something like this. And so she’s just reeling emotionally and has to sort through that before she can get to the more practical next steps.
I will say I did not expect it to be Julian Jr., but the explanation really does make a lot of sense. It’s believable that at that point in his life, the pressures to please his father would break him a little bit.
And then, because Jason just gave such a beautiful and vulnerable performance, you feel for him and you’re just like, oh my gosh, yes. Don’t define him by the worst thing he’s ever done. And he feels so terrible he kept it [all] this time. It’s his tell-tale heart. It’s the worst secret. And your heart is kind of breaking, which I think is the most exciting way you want to feel about the revelation, not that aha, we have a villain, but aha, we have a deeply flawed human, and what’s next for all of our characters? How do they react to that? Because even in our writer’s room, [we asked] if you found out your husband had this thing in a box, would you shred it? Would you come forward? There’s a lot of different points of view on what to do.
Like Matty said, two things can be true at once. You can completely understand how Julian was led to act that way, but at the same time, what he did was awful and impacted the lives of so many people. So he is guilty.
Exactly, and yet he’s saying, my father told me to do it. And so then if he’s turned in, Senior lawyers up immediately and never touches him, and is that justice? That’s going to be coming into their minds too. So it’s really complicated at the beginning of next season for everybody.
With the Wellbrexa document culprit revealed, what’s next for the investigation? Edwin is ready to pack it up, but it doesn’t feel over for Matty.
Edwin wants to pack it up and go home. It’s hard for me to answer this without giving too much away about what the premiere is going to look like, but Olympia’s choice is really going to set up certain dynamics. There is a big mystery that is launched at the beginning of the second season that we will be following that does extend from the first season. It’s not suddenly a brand new mystery.
It seems like Olympia is in the driver’s seat for this investigation now. Is that a that right gauge?
That’s a right guess.
The moment Olympia finds the telltale document in the safety deposit box was a shock. What’s Olympia thinking in that moment?
The minute she hears there’s a safety deposit box, her heart is in her stomach. And when she sees it, it’s really the worst thing. It’s the things she couldn’t have imagined. Complete disbelief, shock, terror about what it means for her family. It’s really her life in a box is what it feels like to her.
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The scene between Jason Ritter and Beau Bridges was heart-wrenching, where Senior explains why he didn’t give Julian the partner role. What would get Julian to come back to the firm after this? Where would he go?
He does not want to be back in the firm. He definitely wants to be away from his father, but there are certain things that occur, and he has to do some groveling in order to get back for a specific amount of time. And it’s really, really difficult, and it puts him in a really difficult place.
The scene where Matty says it’s her turn to prioritize her career feels like just as much of the show’s thesis statement as righting the wrongs of the opioid crisis and the Matty-Olympia love story. How important is this marital conflict moving forward?
It’s incredibly important, but it’s also, I have said I’m as committed to their marriage as I am to my own. And it’s like I’m joking, but I’m not. They have to confront hard things, and they have to get through it. This is a hard thing. They both want opposite things, but they’re in a 50-year marriage. So, what’s at stake is not who’s leaving. I don’t feel that. It’s what are we going to do, and how do we work through really hard things, and what is the compromise? And then from that compromise, from that hard decision, new dramatic avenues open up. It’s not that their marriage is going to be smooth sailing, but I don’t think it’s like, I’m going to work, and so we’re going to break up. It’s more, I want this and I do not want this. Well, then what do you need to make your life feel as good as you wanted it to? And then that leads them into a lot of different areas, which I think is interesting for our second season and explores the marriage further.
Matty has been challenged by the younger generations at work just as much as she has challenged their perceptions of old women. What was the genesis of this idea of having these generational differences help Matty realize she wants to redefine her life in her old age?
It’s a bunch of things I wanted. One was, when you age, there can be a feeling of like, oh, the new generation, they have this easier, or they have this, and a separating of generations. I think really what is the best is if we look up and we look down and we learn from both places. We’re looking up to our models who are older than us, but we’re also looking to our models that are younger than us, and our blind spots. I wanted that to run through the series so that, as you said, Matty’s learning as much from them as they are from her. And what it has shown Matty is not specifically generational, but it’s just feeling seen and feeling part of the fabric and feeling like what she does matters, and she’s part of a team, and that she loves her job.
All of that gets reawakened for Matty over the course of the first season, and it’s the last thing she ever expected to happen. She had given up her career, and she’s in the process of raising Alfie. She just thought that part was done. And in re-finding and having these relationships with Olympia and with Billy and with Sarah and feeling valuable and winning cases and being part of a team, suddenly a huge shot of life has just reawakened every sense, I would say, and made Matty want that and not want to go quietly into the night, but really want to keep contributing because her point of view is important. She’s smart and she feels needed and useful in ways that are really life-sustaining for her, for all of us.
Matty took down her crime board and replaced it with a picture of her family in the finale. What was that like for Matty, and what does it say about her next move?
The picture was like she’s taking down all these pieces, and she’s just reminding herself what she did it all for. If she can bring this to a close, she feels like she has paid this debt that she has dreamed up that she owes for her daughter. It’s something that she’s holding herself to, and then she can move forward. She’s going to move forward with her family, but her dream is also to keep working and make that a really big part of her next 10 years.
Kathy Bates brought in the actor, Niko Nicotera, who plays the character claiming to be Alfie’s dad. What was that process like?
It was awesome. She told me right away, she knew who could play him and how wonderful he was. And I really do trust Kathy Bates with her taste in acting and actors. So, all I had to do was say yes, and he’s wonderful. I had seen Richard Jewell, where they worked together, and I’m really excited for where we’re going to go.
Can you say anything about how much of a role he’ll have in Season 2? With him showing up in the cliffhanger ending, I imagine that’s you squaring up the next mystery that’ll go along with the continuation of Wellbrexa?
Yeah, so the first question is, is this man his father? And that will need to be figured out in a DNA test. You will know that [answer] one way or another at the end of the first episode of the second season. But more than that, the avenue to Alfie’s father, so whether it’s him, whether it’s not, Alfie’s father is now going to be in the mix and in their lives. And what it’s going to do is destabilize Matty’s entire home life. This is a character who was so in control. Our show is entirely built around her control. She’s the mastermind. We see her pieces at the end. She’s always a little ahead of the audience, and she’s always the one that has all the cards and is dealing them out. And suddenly Olympia has something that Matty does not know about, and her home life is also put under pressure and potentially much more chaotic than it’s ever been before. And this character, who has control over everything, suddenly finds herself out of control. That’s going to be really interesting to watch and see how she behaves and what comes of it, and the new areas for drama and comedy that come from that.
Alfie is a smart kid, but he’s been through a lot — even tracking down his own dad. Is that going to start weighing on him?
Yes, it definitely is. And the relationship with the father, it’s one thing to dream of, and then it’s another thing to actually have. It’s a complicated person who’s coming into his life, so it’s going to be really difficult in entirely different ways.
CBS
Can you give a glimpse of how it could impact Matty and Edwin? Will this bring them closer together, or is this going to be another area where they have conflicting perspectives?
They’re on the same page, I think, in the beginning, vis-a-vis Alfie’s potential father. But any stress in the household is going to bring both of those things. It’s going to bring conflict, and it’s going to bring moments where they’re closer together. The stakes are so high. Alfie is Matty’s whole world, and they’ve also always been in lockstep. She’s had fights with Edwin, but she and Alfie have been on the same page. They’re doing this thing together. This was their scheme, all of that. And so I’m interested in knowing what happens to Matty when Alfie’s mad at her, and how that feels similar or dissimilar to what it was like with Ellie because they had a contentious relationship through her teen years, and what that brings up when the relationship is not as simple, emotionally, as it was.
Is there potential for more flashbacks with Ellie [Marnee Carpenter] now that the possible father of her child has entered the mix?
Definitely. I know one I definitely want to do, and we’re playing around with another as we plot out the second season, so I definitely want to see her again.
Before we wrap up, I have to say that Kathy and Skye’s acting in the penultimate episode was just so good. The scene where Olympia’s grilling Matty in that meeting room, and the shot specifically where it’s Olympia facing the camera, and you’re looking over Matty’s shoulder. Olympia says something along the lines of “you were my friend,” and you can see a microscopic flash of heartbreak in Skye’s eyes right then. Acting.
I know. They’re just incredible. They’re incredible, and they’re incredible together. We were all just so excited to get to that episode where it’s just the two of them without the masks, and so I’m so happy that people responded to it.
And then the Misery joke you threw in there was great.
[Laughs] How could we not?
Matlock, Season 2 Premiere, Fall 2025, CBS
