'Matlock' Premiere: Kathy Bates' Twist Blows Away Fans of Original Series

CBS' 'Matlock' premiered with a twist on the Sunday, Sept. 22 premiere of the series.

By Anna Rumer

CBS' Matlock kicked off with a major twist no one saw coming. As Kathy Bates made her debut as Madeline "Matty" Matlock during the Sunday, Sept. 22 premiere of the reboot, fans were shocked to learn about a whole other side to her character that had previously remained a secret and that explains the reboot's connection to the original 1980s TV show.

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for the Matlock series premiere.]

Bates' character started Sunday's episode by painting herself as a widowed and unassuming former attorney whose debt and ability to be "damn near invisible" due to her age led to her employment at the prestigious Jacobson Moore law firm. However, in the episode's final moments, everything the viewers thought was turned on its head. 

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(Photo: Brooke Palmer/CBS)

Not only is Matty wealthy, but her husband Edwin (Sam Anderson) is very much alive and waiting for her at home, as is her grandson (Henry Allen), and her getting hired at Jacobson Moore was anything but a fluke. Matty, whose real name is Mrs. Kingston, is actually out to avenge her daughter's death due to an opioid overdose, infiltrating the major legal firm that defends pharmaceutical companies on a mission to expose her new bosses for their role in the opioid epidemic. 

"One of those three hid documents that could have taken opioids off the market 10 years earlier," she said in Sunday's episode while looking at photos of the characters played by Beau Bridges, Jason Ritter, and Skye P. Marshall. "I'm gonna figure out who knew what when, and then I'm gonna put them in jail."

The O.G. Matlock connection was also explained, as Matty and her husband used to watch the original Andy Griffith series with their daughter, a tradition they continue with her son. The legal show inspired the couple to take getting justice for their daughter into their own hands, inspiring her undercover alias.

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(Photo: CBS)

Bates told Entertainment Weekly after the twist's reveal that she thought it was important to show the opioid crisis' impact on people "no matter how poor or how wealthy" they may be. "It's a long-term battle, and people get involved just through no fault of their own," the Oscar winner said. 

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Guilt is the "deep marrow" of Matty, Bates explained, and "the fact that she feels tremendously guilty that she failed her child, and was unable to win the battle between the drugs and her child's future, no matter what she did." It won't be an easy mission to expose the people responsible for the opioid crisis, however, as Bates teased it becomes "tremendously complex" for Matty to navigate completing her mission while reviving her passion for her legal career and forming relationships with her new co-workers. "Every day she goes in to work, to continue the mission, to not be discovered, but then to discover all these things she didn't expect to discover," she told the outlet. "Her relationships, the people that she begins to feel close to, and she sees her daughter in the young people."

Matlock will continue to air new episodes on Thursdays starting Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.

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