The Misdirection of MATLOCK

Posted 8:30 AM by Gerald So

Sunday night CBS gave a sneak peek of its Matlock series starring Kathy Bates. Madeline Matlock presents herself as a do-gooder attorney cheated and mistreated by her ex-husband and in need of money as a result.

She hustles her way into a job with a New York firm and proceeds to help the firm with a case. Toward the end of the pilot, though, we learn "Matty" is not at all who she appeared to be.

I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers. Clever as the twist was, I felt egregiously hoodwinked, made to empathize and root for Matty based on an utterly false backstory, down to her use of the earnest, folksy Matlock name. This show shouldn't be called MATLOCK.

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