‘Matlock’ Boss Explains Wellbrexa Ending & Reveals Season 3’s Mystery

Michael Yarish / CBS

Were you trying to decide between whether it would be Senior and Julian?

In the first season, we were deciding between Senior and Julian, and then we were like, it’s got to be Julian who removed it, because it means more, and interrupts more, and is so much more dramatic. And then in the storytelling of this year, we wanted to activate Julian, have him know what was going on, then we wanted to start rebuilding that relationship unexpectedly between him and Matty in slow, slow pieces, so that she could get to the point where she’s saying, “Maybe we could lay down the sword,” you think it’s believable that he means something to her. And we knew that Olympia was going to want to pivot, that Matty was focused on justice, Olympia was going to want to save her husband, they would both focus on Senior. So, making certain choices in the first season necessitated certain decisions in the next one, and then it was just about how that would unfold and unfurl.

Jason and Skye told me that they didn’t know about the Senior and Eva twists until they got the scripts at the table read, because they said they can’t be trusted with the spoilers. But they said that, Kathy, as an executive producer, was read in, so I wonder when she knew that it would be Senior. Did she know in Season 1?

Yeah. I work with the writers for the first two weeks, and we plan out the whole season, a lot of detail, and then we write that up into this document that I pitch to the studio network, and it’s 20 to 30 pages. It’s the season laid out, and she gets that, too. So, she knows all the big moves, and all of the pieces, and all of that, and I sometimes pitch a little bit to her, but it’s better to give her this document, because it’s so complete, and it goes through the emotion, and the actual logistics, and the crime, and the cases, so, I shared that with her.

How did she like the twist?

Oh, yeah, she liked the twist. She was really, really happy with the finale, which makes me happy.

It’s pretty impressive how you make everything work out, and the touch that I really liked is that what gets Senior in the end is the recorder pen, just like in Season 1.

I’ve got to say, I resisted that. I was like, “Wait, no, we’re going back!” And they were like, “No, it will be good,” and so, thankfully, I had a great room of writers. But yeah, it’s the recording pen, you go back to that. I really I resisted that for a while. The hardest thing to figure out was how does she stay Matlock and making sure that was a choice that resonated, that came from an emotional place, not a story logistics place, because that was the only piece.

That piece, I had originally thought, oh, that’s the end of the show. But if that’s coming out, she would have to be part of it, so from there thinking about what would happen to her life was important, but then also rooting it in the friendship that you don’t have to come forward in Olympia saying that to her, and Matty realizing what Matty Matlock meant to her, and who it allowed her to be in the world, and how she interacted with people differently, and so people interacted with her differently.

We knew we had to solve it, we didn’t know how it would be solved. I was really proud of the work that the writers room did in getting that to be really the emotional crux of it, and really unpack what this living under this other name has done and meant to her, and not just a gimmick, but it’s given her something real emotional.

Michael Yarish / CBS

Just to clarify, you said that you imagine her dropping the Matlock persona would be a series end thing?

Yeah, I always knew certain people would know who she was. Olympia, and then Julian, but I didn’t think that it would be out in the open that she could be Kingston. But then, once we started breaking this, the ending, and she’s going to go to The New York Times, it was like, well, she would have to give them her real name, or would she? That became the question, because when I was originally thinking about the ending of the series, I had thought it was going to be, “I can lay down my sword. I think my daughter brought me here to you.” That was going to be the ending, but really, we came to that at the end of the second season, with their friendship. Olympia and Matty’s friendship was forged in fire and meant so much, so we were able to get them to that point.

Then we had to solve the, how does she stay Matlock, and then what that’s opening up is really interesting things for our third season. So sometimes when you get to where you thought you were going to land, it pushes into, oh my gosh, what’s new? What’s underneath that? Now what? It’s leaving us with a lot of fresh snow in the third season, and I don’t like to get bored. I don’t like to hold secrets so long so that they just lose. I like to see what happens when the secret’s out there, and then how do people act, and what conflicts come out. It’s letting us keep our storytelling fresh while still, of course, we have a case of the week. That’s, to me, the only part of the show that I want to be predictable, is that we have a case of the week.

Where does the show go from here, now that Wellbrexa is over? I wonder if we’re going to have a trial for Julian and Senior in the future? Is that storyline continuing?

Those things will happen, whether they’re both in trial… There’s specific things in those trials, so those things will happen. But there is a new mystery, and it comes in quite organically as a thread from the old, but not related at all to the old, so it feels fresh. I don’t want to say how it comes in and how they make their decision to interact with it, but it is set up.

Can you give any hint as to what the mystery is?

It’s probably in insurance/healthcare.

Interesting. So, adjacent, familiar, but new.

Adjacent, but new, yeah. I don’t want to say anymore, because we have to bury a big surprise at the end of that premiere.

And you’re moving to midseason, so your premiere is sadly far away.

Sad for audiences, but actually really good for me and the writers, because I want us to plot this new mystery and make sure it’s airtight. We had a lot of pieces going in, so we really had to create this new piece of it. I feel lucky that the network’s giving us time to get it right, because I don’t want the quality to drop, or anything like that.

Was the midseason move something that you asked for?

I asked for it with the network. We had a talk. I just feel like we had so much stuff to think about because we really landed the plane on this and we really thought that was important because we didn’t want to keep dragging out the same story and the characters have to get to someplace real emotionally.

We really, when we took this two-hour finale and really paid a lot of things off, what came with that was I’m going to need time after that to really build the architecture so that we have it for the next seasons. I’m excited about it, but I am also grateful because we needed a little bit of time.

I’m glad to hear that it was part of your plan, and it’s exciting to know that you’re getting extra time to really map this out, because like you said, it’s a big reset that you’re taking on here.

Big reset, so we have an extra long writer’s room before we go to camera, and I really want to do it right. The quality is everything to me.

What can you say about how Sarah and Evelyn will react to the truth about Matty, and does this mean that we’ll see Mrs. Belvin more in Season 3?

Yes, you’ll see Mrs. Belvin more in Season 3, that I can say. We missed her, I remember, at the end of [Season 2 Episode 3], I was like, “You’ll be back, don’t worry. For a while.” You will see her, she will have reacted, but they both have different reactions, and you will pick people up in the beginning of the third season, and everyone’s not all together.

Everyone’s not all together?

Everyone is not all together. There have been feelings had.

Michael Yarish / CBS

And within that, what relationship are you most excited to expand in Season 3?

Listen, the heart of the show is Olympia and Matty, so that’s always what I crave and what our lifeblood is, and the scenes I love writing the most. That said, there’s an Edwin-Matty storyline that I just can’t wait to dig into that is going to be giving a lot of the emotional underpinning of the case.

It’s in a totally different area, because I feel that Ellie — and that’s always going to be something that Matty lives with, but she has accepted her place in her daughter’s death, what she could have done, what she didn’t do, what she wished she’d done, what she had — I feel that we’ve mined that, so really part of the ending of last season and beginning of this one, too, was figuring out that really juicy vein that we’re going to go to a lot that’s going to give us more insight into character and relationships and age and all of those things? And I think we have a really good one with Edwin and Matty that I’m super excited to tell.

Great, I can’t wait to see it. And I’ve also just got to say, fun Jane the Virgin reunions this season.

It’s so fun, right? Yay. I need more.

Is there a chance that they could come back in Season 3?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Matlock, Season 3 Premiere, 2027, CBS