Matlock, CBS' reimagining of the iconic '80s legal drama, wrapped its second season on April 23 with a two-part finale that delivered some long-awaited justice.
Kathy Batesleads the cast as Madeline Kingston, a retired lawyer who adopts the moniker Matty Matlock while infiltrating a law firm, Jacobson Moore. Why? Because she believes that the law firm conspired with the drug company WellBrexa to keep dangerous opioids on the market. Her daughter, we come to learn,died from an overdose. This is Matty's way of honoring her.
Season 1 ended with the reveal that senior partner Julian (Jason Ritter) was the one who discarded a landmark study that could've helped slow the opioid epidemic. In season 2, a remorseful Julian works with Matty and Jacobson Moore attorney Olympia Lawrence (Skye P. Marshall) to help pin down the architect of the cover-up — his father, Howard "Senior" Markston (Beau Bridges).
The final episodes introduce a ticking clock: Jacobson Moore is on the cusp of a merger that, if it goes through, will free Senior of any liability.
So, does Matty deliver the smoking gun in time? And what's next for Jacobson Moore (and its lovable cast of lawyers)? We break it all down below.
Who was involved in the Wellbrexa cover-up?
Coming into the final episodes, Matty and Olympia thought they had everything needed to implicate Senior in the cover-up. They even recruited Lida (Gina Rodriguez), an agent with the Department of Justice (DOJ), to help bring him down.
But it's soon revealed that Senior, who's been pretending to have dementia, is more aware of their investigation than they realize. He's been playing them, serving up evidence that steered them in the wrong direction. Oh, and that study he had Julian steal from storage way back in 2010? Well, he returned it.
"If it's back, he can claim the whole thing was a clerical error," Julian laments as all three realize that it now looks as if no crime has been committed at all.
Now, they have just four days to rebuild the case from the ground up while scrounging up new evidence untainted by Senior's meddling. The strongest path to pinning him down is through a $350,000 hush money payment to the author of the study, which they learned was handed off during a layover in Dallas.
But in making that discovery, Matty and Olympia also find that the plan was orchestrated not just by Beau and his head of security, but alsoallof the senior partners in charge at Jacobson Moore. The rot runs deep, Olympia notes.
To prove that everyone was involved in the cover-up, they'll need security footage from the Jacobson Moore offices, which only a senior partner in charge can obtain.
How is Eva involved?
Eva (Justina Machado) is Senior's ex-wife and a senior partner in charge at Jacobson Moore, though she wasn't in a leadership position at the time of the cover-up. When Olympia meets with her to share the evidence and ask for her cooperation, Eva plays along at first, but her preference for a Tom Collins with extra cherries outs her as being complicit. (A receipt from the lunch where the handoff occurred shows that one attendee ordered that very drink.)
"Now we both know that we both know," Eva says.
Eva reveals that she learned of the cover-up during the same meeting when she was promoted.
"And suddenly I understood," she says. "Howard wasn't promoting me, he was implicating me."
Sure, she could've walked away, but Eva justifies her complicity by saying that she wants to be an agent of change among leadership. She implores Olympia to stop working with the DOJ. When the merger goes through, Senior will retire and she'll "cut the old guard loose" so she and Olympia can rebuild the firm as they want to see it. No, Senior won't pay for his crimes, but he'll be "old, alone, and irrelevant," Eva says.
Do Matty and Olympia take Eva's deal?
They consider it. The case isn't coming together as they'd hoped. When they fail in their efforts to secure testimony from a previous informant. Matty suggests "laying down the sword."
"What about Ellie?" Olympia asks, bringing up Matty's late daughter. "You're doing it for her."
"You know, i think I was looking at it all wrong," Matty replies. "I think Ellie led me here to you. When we first met, I was only looking at the end of my life. And now there's just so much possibility."
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Julian, however, isn't satisfied. He volunteers to wear a wire, but Matty worries about it all blowing up in their faces.
Does Julian wear a wire?
He does, but it doesn't go so well for him. As the office celebrates the merger's completion, he charges into his dad's office and says DOJ has approached him with evidence about the cover-up. He's not particularly subtle when he loudly brings up the study — "the one you told me to take."
Senior sees right through it, ripping open Julian's shirt to expose the wire. He rips it off and stomps on it, then sneeringly mocks his son for thinking he could outsmart him, all while owning up to his role in the cover-up.
Does Senior pay for his crimes?
Senior may have destroyedonewire, but that wasn't the only recording device in the room.
In a flashback, we see Julian decide to wear the wire.
"If I don't make this choice, I'm just like him," he says.
But then we also see their contingency plan, which involved Matty slipping a wire disguised as a pen into Senior's pocket while riding the elevator with him.
With his confession now recorded, Lida and her fellow agents break up the merger celebration and slap cuffs on not just Senior, but all the senior partners in charge. That includes Eva, who's quick to say she'll snitch. Julian, too, is arrested, but he says it's "worth it."
Will Matty continue using the name Matlock?
Matty was initially intent on unmasking herself as part of the Wellbrexa case, which she knew would invite ample scrutiny (and even legal repercussions) into her life. But it turned out this wasn't necessary.
The question, then, became whether or not she would continue her double life — Kingston at home, Matlock at work. Her husband, Edwin (Sam Anderson), would love to be her husband again publicly. (Part of Matlock's backstory is that she's a widow.) But Matty also confesses that she likes this new version of herself.
"She smiles more, she judges less," she says of her alter ego. "She's not a bull in a china shop."
Edwin is reluctant, but eventually comes around to the idea of her continuing as Matty Matlock. She seems "lighter," he says. And maybe he can do a bit of pretending himself by playing her new boyfriend. It's very cute.
How doesMatlockseason 2 end?
The merger has the entire firm on its toes. Who will stay? Who will go? What will the future look like? Earlier in the season, Olympia and Matty floated the idea of opening their own firm: Lawrence and Kingston (or is it Kingston and Lawrence?).
By episode's end, they seem even more determined to carve out their own path. Now, however, their new venture will be called Lawrence and Matlock (or is it Matlock and Lawrence?).
Will season 3 center around their new firm? That's still unclear, but it looks likely.
Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman has teased a"big reset"for season 3, andpreviously toldEntertainment Weeklythat the season 2 finale "really propels the third season... into a very different area again."
Where can I watchMatlock?
Matlockairs on CBS and streams on Paramount+.
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