Skye P. Marshall Offers an Update on ‘Matlock’ Season 2 [Exclusive]
Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Matlock’s Season 1 finale.
Season 1 of Matlock is coming to an end as a massive success. CBS’s new legal drama starring Oscar-winner Kathy Bates and reimagining the original Andy Griffith-led program from 1986 closed out its inaugural run tonight, on April 17, as not just one of broadcast television’s biggest new series, but one of the most-viewed shows across all networks with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, to boot. As Matty finally gets to the bottom of who among the Jacobson Moore hid evidence in a pharmaceutical case that could’ve saved the formerly retired lawyer’s daughter, attention is turning toward the future. It only took two episodes for Jennie Snyder Urman‘s smash hit to earn a Season 2 renewal, and, according to Skye P. Marshall, the writers are hard at work deciding what’s next for the fan-favorite con artist attorney.
During an interview about the two-hour Season 1 finale with Collider’s Christina Radish, Marshall was asked if there was any schedule or expectation of when she would get her first scripts for the next season. Unfortunately, she’s just as in the dark as everyone else about the work that’s going on behind closed doors, though she’d certainly like to know. “I put a few AirTags in Jennie Snyder Urman’s car,” she joked. “No. Our writers are back in the office. I’m going to breach the security somehow, maybe as a DoorDasher, and just hover outside the door to see if I can see a drawing board or something.” Regarding the creative team, she added that “They keep it Matlocked” when it comes to any details of Season 2 and revealed that it may be a minute before she gets to lay eyes on the new material. “We’re probably not going to find out until a week before our first table read.”
Whatever Urman and her team have cooking for Season 2, it figures to be a bit of a departure from Season 1 with the Wellbrexa cover-up solved. Matty’s, aka Madeline Kingston, whole purpose for stepping out of retirement and back into law practice was to find justice for her daughter. The titular lawyer will have a new arc to follow going forward, but Marshall doesn’t expect to hear much about it, even once filming begins for the series. She described the process behind scripting for Matlock, which keeps most everything Madeline does with her family to solve the overarching mystery secret from everyone who solely works at the law firm. However, she considers Urman a very generous collaborator who’s more than willing to let the cast have plenty of input on the direction of their characters and implement more of themselves into their personalities to give them all plenty to work with:
“It’s more like, ‘Here’s your case and here’s what you have going on.’ At the beginning of Season 1, because it was our first season and we had to collaborate on our characters’ backstory, they said, ‘Here is this person and the world that they came from. What are your thoughts?’ And we were able to share our thoughts on the creative process. I really loved that. Jennie, our showrunner, is very collaborative. She has such a dynamic ability to surround herself with unique and eclectic individuals that give her well-informed ideas, as to how someone from a certain culture or a certain generation might react or respond. I love the way they write Olympia because it’s so true to how I would react and respond, and that always makes me smile and laugh when I see it. It’s not about just making the lawyer Black. They write for a Black woman who happens to be a lawyer, and that was very important to me. They were open to any little delicious slogans or sayings or mannerisms that I, myself, am used to or accustomed to.”
‘Matlock’s Cast Has Defined Who Their Characters Are
Since its inception, Matlock has been taken to the next level through its cast’s input and the creative team’s openness, according to Marshall. The actors’ own interests and skills beyond acting become part of the story over time. “They’re open to it, the same way you see Kathy Bates saying the younger generation’s slang, or the fact that Leah Lewis, who plays Sarah, got to sing because she is an incredible singer in real life,” she continued. “We’re able to share our talents, our gifts, and our special skills, in case they can find places to plant it in the storyline, so that we can continue to shine outside of what they have already magically created, which is enough.” That creative philosophy is likely to stay in Season 2 onward, ensuring the current cast and any newcomers can make their characters feel more real.
For Olympia, that extra effort was implemented all the way down to her wardrobe. Marshall shared how little things like her bags act as nods to her culture and represent the extensive work done by the team to get the show right down to the smallest detail:
“We’re just adding a little extra secret sauce. Even with my Telfar bag, I wear a different color to match every suit. That was important to me because it’s a Black designer. I remember when I saw Beyoncé wear the bag and everybody in my community and culture went nuts and it was sold out forever. I challenged our costume designer to get a Telfar bag to match every suit because, for me, that’s giving a little wink to the culture, and they did. They found over 12 of those bags in different colors. And while a lot of audience members may not catch it or see it, there are a lot of Black people that do. That adds to the character of Olympia, that she doesn’t forget where she came from. She doesn’t need a $5,000 bag to prove that she’s worth $1,000 an hour.”
Matlock‘s supersized Season 1 finale just aired on CBS; you can stream it tomorrow on Paramount+. Stay tuned here at Collider for more about the future of the show as the writers continue planning out Season 2.
