The entire first season of Matlock has been building up to a finale that introduces a “huge change” for the show.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Jason Ritter previewed the upcoming two-episode conclusion, teasing, “There’s a lot of satisfying answers but it ends on a huge cliffhanger — in which all of the main characters’ lives hang in the balance. They could go in so many different directions. It’s so exciting.”
Ritter, 45, is just as excited to see the fan reaction.
“I am thinking of all these different versions of what could happen,” he added. “I’m worried for everybody involved because there’s some real world consequences that can come with this. Even interpersonal relationships will never be the same. There are things that you just cannot unlearn or unsee about another person. You can heal but it’s going to be really interesting to see how they all navigate this bombshell news.”
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The insight comes after the Thursday, April 3, episode revealed that Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) has been onto Matty’s (Kathy Bates) lies for a while. But that was just the set-up for an epic conclusion as Matty’s hunt for the person who hid documents at Jacobson Moore continues.
While most viewers have wanted answers to some of the show’s biggest questions since the premiere, Ritter wasn’t as eager to get to the finish line.
“There’s always a part of me that just wants to know everything. But with something like this, it felt OK to not know,” he admitted. “It felt fun to try to unravel the mystery every time we got a new script and be along the ride with the audience.”
Ritter has loved getting to enjoy the hit CBS series as a fan. In fact, he shared some of his own theories about who was responsible ahead of the show’s season 1 conclusion.
“It was just exciting to watch it all unfold,” he told Us. “It was like, ‘How heartbroken or satisfied or a combination of both am I going to be when it’s finally revealed?’”
Matlock, which premiered in September 2024, follows a wealthy retired lawyer named Madeline Kingston (Bates) who pretends to be a poor widower named Matty Matlock to get a job at a firm. As it turns out, Matty thinks someone at the company is complicit in the opioid epidemic that resulted in her daughter’s death.
The plan to take down Jacobson Moore doesn’t exactly go as planned when Matty finds herself growing closer to Olympia, Billy (David Del Rio), Sarah (Leah Lewis) and more of her coworkers — people who don’t seem to be aware of the corruption that exists at the firm.
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According to Ritter, one of the best parts of wrapping up the season was finding out the twists as a group.
“We do table reads for every episode and we had all gotten the scripts the night before. We were texting each other but there are definitely some people who want to hear it out loud for the first time,” he recalled. “So there was a lots of gasping.”
Ritter continued: “And I’ve loved reading the different fan theories. We have a very smart audience and they’ve been able to adapt. I think initially they were completely in Matty’s corner of, ‘It’s got to be one of these three people.’ But then they started to think, ‘Well, what if it’s somebody she hasn’t thought of yet?’ Some of them have been very close [with their theories]. I’m excited to see what they all think when the truth comes out and how it measures up to what they thought.”
Matlock airs on CBS Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET and is currently streaming on Paramount+.
