So far, this Matlock reboot has been only fleetingly Matlock -y. We’ve had just one murder case, and Matty herself has been more like one of Ben Matlock’s investigators, digging up damning evidence, and not like Matlock himself, tricking criminals into confessions in court. In this week’s episode, though, we get two “classic Matlock ” moments.
One involves Matty’s husband Edwin, who takes Alfie’s place as her assistant in the Jacobson-Moore pharmaceutical investigation. In their mansion’s study, Edwin lays out the evidence they’ve gathered so far in a presentation a lot like the kind Andy Griffith used to give to juries: so detailed and persuasive that Matty herself says, “You go on one mission, and suddenly you’re Matlock.” The other moment involves Olympia, who engages in another old Matlock tradition: effectively testifying while grilling a witness.
In the Griffith show, Matlock would often blow past any objections from the prosecution to explain his theory of the case to the person he’d fingered as the actual guilty party, ending his speech by saying, “Isn’t that right?” or something similar, to frame it all — sort of — as a question. Olympia doesn’t go quite that far in this episode’s case-of-the-week, but she does pull the trick of calling a seemingly friendly witness and then confronting her with a series of damning revelations until she breaks. That scene’s dramatic, for sure.
But it’s also indicative of the overall flimsine.