If I could travel back to when I first heard that CBS was rebooting Matlock, I’d love to tell myself how much I was going to enjoy this series. While I wasn’t sure how much I’d include it as part of my current 2025 TV schedule obsession, I did know that merely the presence of Kathy Bates was going to get me to watch at least the pilot episode.
My decision to stick with the series after that first huge Matlock twist had already paid off time and again. Now, an EW interview with showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman came across my desk, containing the tidbit that this week’s Ellie Kingston flashbacks were influenced by Ms. Bates, through this key decision she suggested to her boss:
…when I was talking to Kathy Bates early on, before we started doing the season but after we had done the pilot, she was the one who said to me, ‘I think when Matty tried to get custody, that's when Ellie died." … I hadn't known that Ellie was going to die around the custody battle. So when we came into the writers' room, then we developed that it was the day of the hearing, and that Ellie wouldn't be there — all those plot points.
The Jane the Virgin creator felt that something had “unlocked” once her Matlock lead suggested the exact result we saw in the Season 1 episode “This Is That Moment.” In case you haven’t caught up through CBS or a Paramount+ subscription, we’re about to drop a mild spoiler.
You see, the twelfth chapter in this initial season finally showed us Ellie Kingston (Marnee Carpenter) in the flesh, right before her life was cut short by her struggles with addiction. Unfortunately, that plot line also includes the last time Madeline Kingston (Kathy Bates) spoke with her daughter, promising her unlimited supervised visitations after going clean for a year.
Providing the motivation for the woman also known as Matty Matlock, the flashbacks to this contentious custody battle between mother and daughter put more of a face on hunt for Jacobson Moore’s potential big bad. And as Jennie Snyder Urman discussed how Matlock’s award-winning lead came to land on that suggestion, the answer proved just how perfect Ms. Bates’ skills are with this team:
When [Kathy Bates] was doing her homework for the character and developing the character and what would propel her to do such an insane scheme and infiltrate a law firm and try to expose them — we knew that there had to be something so deeply painful. And I think probably in creating that character, that circumstance came up for her.
Six episodes remain in Madeline Kingston’s introductory season, and with Matlock’s early Season 2 renewal, we shouldn’t necessarily expect all of the answers we seek by time the season finale airs. For now, I’ll settle for next Thursday's episode (hopefully) showing Madeline and her husband Edwin hugging and making up; because I hate to see those two fight, and it’s too distracting from trying to learn the truth about Shae Banfield. I’m onto you, Meerkat!
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