Critic’s Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
3.5
With Matlock Season 2, you never know what you’re going to get.
The once-brilliant series has let the Welbrexa intrigue drag on for way too long, and Matlock Season 2 Episode 9 was a prime example of why this story needs to end.
The cat-and-mouse game with Julian took up far too much screen time, interfering with the development of an interesting case, yet it all led to a cliffhanger that hopefully will end this nightmare storyline for once and all.
Another Day, Another Convoluted Plot
The biggest problem with all of the Julian stuff is that it tends to get so convoluted that it stops making sense.
I guess I missed something, because I have no idea why Matty was hanging out in a Queens rental while her family was entertaining Joey’s.
I can understand her hiding from Joey’s detective brother-in-law, but it seemed like she wanted to stop Juilan from showing up at her house uninvited.
Okay… but Julian ALREADY knows where she lives, doesn’t he? Isn’t that where he spied on her and Olympia during the midseason finale?
I spent most of the Queens apartment scenes distracted by this obvious flaw in the plan.
My brain doesn’t do “plot point just because” very well, and when I see logical inconsistencies, I can’t let them go to focus on the episode.
On top of that, the Julian stuff has been done to death, and this mutual destruction plan made no sense, since Julian already knows everything except Matty’s real name and the reason for her vendetta against him, and if he didn’t have proof, they would have nothing to fear.
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That made these scenes more tedious than exciting.
At this point, this storyline is going around in circles, and even though the final beat was a strong cliffhanger, it wasn’t worth yet another round of Olympia and Matty trying and failing to find a way around Julian.
I was especially annoyed with the scene where he called Matty into his office and demanded that she and Olympia not look at each other.
He was throwing his weight around, but what power did he really have?
Maddy and Olympia are supposed to be top-notch lawyers who know their way around aggressive adversaries, so why were they forced to sit there and confess to him just because he said so?
This Nonsense Was Especially Annoying Because It Took Time Away From The Stronger Storyline
The thing I loved about Matlock Season 1 is that it blended cases of the week with the ongoing investigation, but sadly, that balance has been lost lately.
That was especially grating this time around.
Matlock Season 2 Episode 9 featured an immigration case that is incredibly topical, given everything going on in the news about questionable immigration arrests and deportations.
This case should have been the focus of the episode, not an afterthought.
Did you think the case got enough time on Matlock Season 2 Episode 9?
Hit the comments with your thoughts, and don’t forget to share this article with your Matlock-loving friends.
Instead, it was rushed from start to finish.
Jeff’s arrest and the reveal that his parents were undocumented happened quickly, which was appropriate given the way such things work.
However, it seemed like we got one court scene, one witness, one realization that the burglary accusation was unfair, and one plea deal scene that came out of nowhere.
That wasn’t a story. It was sound bites in between scenes about the struggle to outsmart Julian and visits to Senior’s hospital bed.
The plea deal scene was especially rushed.
It didn’t make any sense that the government would offer this deal, and less so that Jeff would take it.
Olympia had given the judge a mountain of evidence that Jeff had not committed a crime and therefore there was no obstacle to his remaining in the United States, yet she told him that choosing to continue fighting was a huge risk.
I get that the writers wanted to make a point about the unfair choices people caught up in immigration proceedings nowadays face, but this wasn’t the way to do it.
It was contrived, and anyway, since they would have to pay millions of dollars while Jeff could not get work in his field anymore, it seemed like accepting deportation would be a better option if they didn’t want to fight.
If the writers wanted to write a story about the immigration process being unfair to those caught up in deportation hearings, they should have written one, not a few scenes strung randomly together to make a point.
The Sarah Subplot Was Both Annoying And Funny
Sarah’s conflict with the consultant in charge of layoffs was amusing, but the fact that she was rewarded for pretending she was still on Olympia’s team aggravated me.
I don’t like it when characters behave badly and don’t face consequences, and it’s even worse when they are rewarded for lies.
Olympia had solid reasons for firing Sarah from her team, and Sarah forcing her way back in shouldn’t have worked.
Layoff threat or no layoff threat, trust takes time to rebuild, and Olympia has been established to be the kind of person who doesn’t get over betrayals easily.
The Sarah subplot was resolved way too easily, and I didn’t appreciate that.
Similarly, there seemed no point to Joey’s family visiting if his brother-in-law was going to let Alfie off the hook after one question about hackers, but hopefully this will come into play later.
Over to you, Matlock fanatics.
Am I being too hard on Matlock Season 2 Episode 9, or did you also feel it was too convoluted and out of balance?
Hit the comments with your thoughts, and don’t forget to share this article with your friends so they can join the conversation.
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If you enjoyed this article, check out our coverage of other CBS mystery shows like Elsbeth and Watson.
Matlock airs on CBS on Thursdays at 9/8c and streams on Paramount+ on Fridays.
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