Every season, there’s a show people snark about before even seeing an episode. Sometimes, that’s understandable. Do you really need to watch yet another version of 90 Day Fiancé to know what awaits?
Sure, some people hear linear network procedural, and they’re out. Well, give Matlock a shot if for no other reason than Kathy Bates is constitutionally incapable of giving a bad performance.
Yes, your grandmother likely watched the original starring Andy Griffith, which ran from 1986-1995. Ignore the buzz that “it’s not your grandmother's Matlock.” It is. And that’s its charm.
Bates stars as Madeline “Matty” Matlock, a smart lawyer with a Southern, homespun charm. And while it’s technically a procedural, at its heart, this is a show about what a grandmother does for her family. Which, of course, includes conniving, playing dirty, and outmaneuvering anyone who dared hurt her loved ones.
Thursday night marks the third airing of its pilot on CBS, following sneak peeks on Sept. 22 and Oct. 8. The drama’s second episode premieres on Oct. 17. The show has already provided viewers with some surprises. Matty projects herself as guileless and just a tad addled but in a sweet, harmless way. In reality, she’s about as harmless as a viper.
“This is a show defined by contradictions,” says Jennie Snyder Urman, creator and executive producer. “It’s something new, but it’s based on something old. I wanted it to feel folksy, yet sophisticated; nostalgic, yet modern; comforting, yet unsettling.”
“So, when I wrote this originally,” she adds, “I had a guiding principle. I wanted to write about how older women are overlooked in society, and I gave myself a challenge. I wanted our heroine to be constantly telling the audience that she’s being underestimated, and then I wanted the audience to enjoy watching her take advantage of that underestimation. And then, by the end, even though she said it constantly and we watched it happen over and over again, I wanted to still be able to shock the audience when they realize that they, too, have underestimated Madeline Matlock.”
As Matty says in the pilot, “This funny thing happens when women age. We become damned near invisible. Nobody sees us coming.”
Jason Ritter, Kathy Bates, and Skye P. Marshall
Sonja Flemming/CBSAt 76, Bates relates. Although she worked steadily, when tourists took trams around the studio lot, she would wave. Folks ignored the gray-haired woman. After earning an Oscar for Misery, Emmys for Two and Half a Men and American Horror Story: Coven, notching four stints on Broadway, many more off-Broadway runs, and 132 acting credits in film and TV, the veteran performer has done it all. But her accomplishments have won her more respect than celebrity.
“I’ve never been like an A-string movie star, you know, up there with Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson,” she says. “But that's never been my thing. I’ve always felt that I’m a character actor, and I’m trying to just hone my craft. And that’s why, and truly, this experience that I’m having on Matlock is unbelievable. I’m getting a chance, finally, to bring everything to the table for the very last act of my career.”
Bates says that Matlock will be her last project. She is serious about winding down, too. Before the Matlock offer, “I had one foot out the door,” she says. “I have a friend who lives in France. And so, I really was thinking about it. Okay, I’m going to sell my house and get as much money as I can for that, and then move to France. Or back to New York, as my dearest friends are there from the days that I was in the theater.”
It’s a career, her mother loved to joke, that was apparent at birth.
“My mother tells this very corny story that when I was born, the doctor smacked me on my behind, and I thought it was applause, and I’ve been looking for it ever since, she says. So, I think I learned very early on that’s what I loved to do.”
That Southern accent she uses in Matlock is not an affectation. Bates was raised in Memphis and attended Southern Methodist University in Texas.
“I remember a very seminal moment was being in the orientation for the School of Humanities (at SMU), and the dean of that school was a wonderful speaker, very impassioned,” she says. “When he started talking, he made the point that this was where we were going to begin living for the things that excited us most. And for me, then the whole playing field changed. I started raising my hand and saying, ‘Can I be an actor? Can I be in theater?’ Exasperated, finally, he gave me my folder, and he said, ‘You’re in the wrong school. Go down the hall, last door on the left. That’s the art school. That’s where you belong.’”
And with that one turn, she was off.
After school, Bates headed to New York and started working off-Broadway. That was more than 50 years ago, and she hasn’t stopped since. After health scares, including battling cancer twice, she’s in a great place now. She’s shed 100 pounds. She’s also having a blast with this character, who lies in the pursuit of justice.
And revenge.
“She’s very genuine at her baseline,” Bates says. “She is lying for a reason.”
Matty lands a job in a white-shoe law firm in New York City most unconventionally. No committees of associates interviewed her. Instead, she proved how cagey she is by crashing a meeting and instantly outsmarting everyone else.
Antony Starr, Kathy Bates, and Giancarlo Esposito at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards
Leon Bennett/WireimageThe firm is based in one of those gleaming glass structures of the Manhattan skyline. The set is on the Paramount lot, and Adam Rowe, the production designer, explains that each room is used seven times, representing different places. The same set was also used in Glamorous and Good Sam, taking recycling to a new level.
“Post-strike, it is more economical to have a set that can do things, making a show that feels big and grand and glossy,” Rowe says.
For the gotcha viewer who loves spotting fake Manhattan streetscapes, this does not precisely look like Hudson Yards, where the firm is located. The offices do, however, have the feel of one of those places where lawyers bill four digits per hour.
Co-stars include Beau Bridges, who plays the firm’s founder and the father of Julian, one of its attorneys played by Jason Ritter. Bridges, who usually comes off as avuncular, can be a cold SOB in this role. “He has a very affable quality, and when he turns it off, it’s bone-chilling,” Ritter says.
“It’s been great, working with a mostly female cast,” Ritter says from the set staged as his office. “And I love this character. One of the things about Jennie’s writing is that they are all three-dimensional characters. I love playing a guy that even in the episodes I am reading, I think, ‘Wow, this guy needs some therapy.’”
Matty’s boss is Olympia, played by Skye P. Marshall. She’s cold, perpetually annoyed, and on guard. Matty knows she must gain her trust.
“My first vision board had a CBS drama procedural on it,” Marshall says. “I drove to LA with my corporate savings. I was a background actor on CSI: NY six years ago. This is my Cinderella story.”
Matty is hellbent on finding out who in this firm helped big pharma cover up how addictive opioids are. It’s hardly a spoiler to say the legal team that can best this granny has not been invented.
Nicole de Boer, Kathy Bates, David Del Rio, and Leah Lewis
Brooke Palmer/CBSWhen the script was given to her, “I read it, and I said yes,” Bates recalls. “Then I went in, and I met with Jennie, and that was it. And then it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying, when I started with the pilot. The memorizing of the lines, the digging for the character, the creation of the character, all of that was just absolutely terrifying.”
The result is a series that some sneered at before seeing but quickly gained traction with those who have watched. Having an old woman who’s earned her place in a rocking chair decide instead to forge an adventurous new path is compelling. Unlike some youthful TV heroes, there is a fullness to Matty, a depth of knowledge gained over the years.
“I think the characters certainly that I’ve been playing recently have been written that way,” Bates says. “And I enjoy doing that now because I’m older. I just turned 76. My friend and I were just talking about it the other night. Maybe you know, the wisdom takes the ouch out of getting old. I can’t say I’m wise about all things but I’m enjoying having the opportunity to play those characters that say the things that I wish I could say in the moment.”
