What to Expect in ‘Matlock’ Season 2: Matty-Olympia Evolution, ‘Groveling’ Julian, Alfie’s Dad & More
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Matlock Season 1 finale.]
Matlock started and ended with a bang, delivering major plot twists in both the series premiere and Matlock Season 1 finale that threw the show’s entire narrative on its head. While the premiere twist showed Kathy Bates‘ Madeline “Matty” Matlock in complete control of the narrative, the finale showed her losing it. TV Insider connected with showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman to break down the Season 1 finale, and she detailed how the two-part episode sets up Matlock Season 2 while revealing what burning questions will be answered when the show returns this fall.
Here’s everything to expect from Matlock Season 2.
Olympia will make a tough choice that launches Season 2’s primary mystery
Matlock Season 1’s penultimate episode showed Matty and Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) with their masks fully off. For the first time, these friends were talking to each other with no false pretenses, no fake accents, no lies. The truth about Matty’s secret identity and her Wellbrexa investigation was explained in detail to Olympia, who had no choice but to investigate Matty’s evidence that pointed to Olympia’s ex-husband, Julian Jr. (Jason Ritter), stealing the Wellbrexa opioids study that would’ve gotten the drug off the market years earlier. To Olympia’s horror, Julian was, in fact, guilty.
The missing Wellbrexa study was hidden in Julian’s safety deposit box, to which Olympia got access with Matty and Edwin’s (Sam Anderson) help. It was Julian’s emotionally unavailable father, Senior (Beau Bridges), who told Julian to hide the document to protect their client and the money they’d make on the Wellbrexa case. He was 26 years old when he made that awful choice, and his father orchestrated the fire drill that gave him the time to steal the study from the law firm’s archives.
CBS
Now, Olympia must grapple with her ex violating every moral, ethical, and legal code knowing that she’s also just made partner at the firm. If her ex-husband goes down for this, it could have serious impacts on the lives of their children. She also has more professional stake in what happens to Jacobson Moore now that she’s a partner. She’s now forced to ask herself if the truth or lies are better ways to protect her family’s future. That’s where the drama starts in Matlock Season 2.
Snyder Urman told TV Insider that the Matlock Season 2 premiere will show Olympia making her decision on how to handle the Julian bombshell, and this will launch the primary mystery of the second season. It won’t be an easy or “quick” decision, Snyder Urman explained, but the decision will be made.
“Olympia’s choice is really going to set up certain dynamics,” Snyder Urman noted. “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.” The Wellbrexa case is far from over, and Olympia will continue to be in the driver’s seat alongside Matty.
Julian Jr. will be forced to return to Jacobson Moore and “grovel”
CBS
Julian handed in his resignation letter in the finale after he didn’t make partner at the firm, but Ritter is not leaving Matlock. The professional rejection from Julian’s father, as well as their sordid history in the time leading up to and since they conspired to bury the Wellbrexa study, will make Julian want to create a lot of distance between him and his dad.
“There are certain things that occur” that will force Julian “to do some groveling in order to get back for a specific amount of time,” Snyder Urman revealed, adding that that return will be “really, really difficult” for him and will only put him in another “really difficult place.”
Alfie’s father will play a major role
Matty is also dealing with the unexpected arrival of a man claiming to be Alfie’s father (played by Niko Nicotera). More troubling than his desire to be part of Alfie’s (Aaron D. Harris) life and potentially take him away from Matty and Edwin is the fact that it was Alfie himself who found his supposed dad. Alfie’s intelligence, independence, and inquisitive nature are things his grandparents have fostered in him throughout Season 1, but now they face the challenge of those traits being used to question why his father has been kept out of his life all this time. Matty and Alfie’s relationship has always been rock solid. Season 2 will explore “what happens to Matty when Alfie’s mad at her, and how that feels similar or dissimilar to what it was like with Ellie [Marnee Carpenter],” Snyder Urman said.
This could be triggering for Matty, who Snyder Urman noted “had a contentious relationship” with daughter Ellie “through her teen years” and into her adult life. Matty will struggle with her relationship with Alfie losing its emotional simplicity and steadiness for the first time.
CBS
This is something all parents/parent figures struggle with when their children start to be free thinkers, but here there’s the added weight of Alfie being involved with this high-stakes investigation into his own mother’s death. Edwin has feared the emotional impacts this secret mission could have on their grandson throughout Season 1. The arrival of Alfie’s father will throw more heat onto this, but keep in mind that we don’t know for sure if Nicotera’s character is, in fact, Alfie’s dad. This question will be answered by the end of the Season 2 premiere, Snyder Urman confirmed.
Whether Nicotera’s character is Alfie’s dad or not, the father will be a major player throughout Season 2. So if it’s not Nicotera, then another character will be revealed as the real father. On top of this, Olympia didn’t report back to Matty and Edwin after investigating her and Julian’s joint bank account like she said she would. Matty trusts that she’ll be in touch, while Edwin doubts that she can be trusted. What we know is that Olympia is keeping the truth about Julian to herself for the time being. This, compounded with the arrival of Alfie’s father, will result in Matty’s loss of control. Dealing with this development will create the primary conflict of the second season.
These things will “destabilize” Matty and make her life more “chaotic” than it’s ever been before, Snyder Urman said, adding, “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.”
Matty’s relationships with Edwin and Olympia will face new challenges
Robert Voets / CBS
Matlock has no interest in splitting up Matty and Edwin’s 50-year marriage. “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,” Snyder Urman teased. Their union will face “hard things,” she said, but leaving each other is not in the cards.
Matty’s desire to continue her career conflicting with Edwin’s desire for them to return to retirement will force them to figure out how to evolve their relationship. “What’s at stake is not who’s leaving,” Snyder Urman explained. “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.”
The show’s central love story is still Matty and Olympia’s friendship. It’s “an epic love story,” Snyder Urman reiterated. The finale was the girl-loses-girl moment, and their friendship was too sustaining for both of them to just walk away. “There’s going to be push and pulls” as Matty and Olympia try to repair their bond, the showrunner explained. With Matty’s secret out and Olympia’s new secret in, the questions of “can they find their way back” and “can they get back” to their “magical” dynamic from Season 1 will “be a lot of what the second season is going to be building,” Snyder Urman explained.
Matty’s desire to return to her law career is also largely driven by her connection with her Jacobson Moore team. Working with Billy (David Del Rio) and Sarah (Leah Lewis) has reawakened Matty’s ambition just as much as working with Olympia has, and she’s not willing to give up her chance to return to the career that workplace sexual harassment and motherhood forced her to cast aside all those years ago. Matty wants her third act to continue, but just like everything in Matlock, it’s going to be full of unexpected twists.
Matlock, Season 2 Premiere, Fall 2025, CBS
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