Olympia and Matty’s mission gets muddled just as they were circling back to figuring out how to trust each other.
Photo: Michael Yarish/CBS
Julian Markston has been a ticking time bomb throughout this Matlock season. Ever since Olympia found the damning Wellbrexa documents in his safety-deposit box in the season-one finale, he’s been scrambling, trying to stay out of jail and save his job (and maybe even to get back together with his ex). Because the Kingstons’ grudge against Julian has kept Olympia from telling him everything he needs to know, he keeps flailing blindly about, trying to piece together what he does know into something that could help him.
Well, in this week’s “Call It a Christmas Gift” — the midseason finale — Julian finally makes those dangerous connections. An explosion is imminent. But we’ll deal with those repercussions next year. And frankly, I’m looking forward to Julian adding some fresh energy to the Wellbrexa story line, which has been getting stale.
Specifically, this big piece of the Matlock plot — rooted in the relationship dynamic between Olympia and Matty — keeps rolling back to the same place of caution and mistrust, over and over. At the end of last week’s episode, the ladies’ investigation reached a real breakthrough when Julian swiped a cache of information related to Jacobson-Moore’s Australia retreat. Their biggest find is a photo showing Senior’s hand resting near some Wellbrexa papers. But to check if these are the papers — the ones Julian was supposed to shred but didn’t — Olympia will need to retrieve her cached copy. Can she trust Matty to continue to be a faithful friend and partner once she finally has those documents in her hands? Can Matty and Edwin trust Olympia if she doesn’t share the docs?
So, yeah, we’re back here again — another Matlock trust-off.
There’s a new wrinkle this time, though, even beyond Julian figuring out that Olympia has been in cahoots with Matty. At the start of the episode, Senior suffers a stroke and is put into an induced coma. Suddenly, the whole point of Olympia and Matty’s mission is muddled.
For Matty, nothing has changed. The truth of what Jacobson-Moore did to hide the dangers of opioids must come out, even though the crime ultimately ends up getting pinned on a dead man. But she’d rather exact justice from someone living, so she’s still game to go after Julian.
For Olympia? Well, it’s all very complicated. Senior is the grandfather of her children. He spotted her legal talent and nurtured it. He pushed Julian to marry her. Plus, she still believes Julian to be a good man. Intellectually, she can understand that her ex-husband and her ex-father-in-law committed crimes that led to devastated families and wasted lives. (All Olympia has to do to understand the Kingstons’ pain is to look at the empty “Ellie” stocking they still hang up at Christmas.) But part of her still resents that Matty has pressured her into targeting these two men who have meant so much to her.
Unsurprisingly, our case-of-the-week has something to say about this quandary. Olympia’s client is Diego Castillo, a firefighter who claims that he was mercilessly mocked and hazed by his peers after bringing his husband to a company cookout. He also claims that his boss, Captain Mac Wilson — a decorated officer, beloved in the community — dismissed his complaints and dubbed him “too sensitive” even after Diego went out on a call with a faulty breathing apparatus, disconnected by his bullying colleagues. The defendants counter that there’s no proof Diego’s equipment was intentionally sabotaged and that he actually is overreacting, especially given that he, too, has played pranks on his fellow firefighters.
The legal-drama aspects of Matlock have been better lately, with cases that involve some clever TV lawyering. That’s not what we get this week, alas. Diego’s case is pretty thin, relying mainly on the participation of a witness who ends up changing his mind about testifying. In the absence of corroboration, Olympia’s team — mostly led by Matty, since Olympia’s dealing with the family-health crisis — tries to tarnish Captain Wilson’s legacy, suggesting he’s lax about safety because he’s buddy-buddy with the inspectors. But they lose their zeal for this attack when they find out the captain is very sick and could lose his health insurance if dishonorably discharged. (This is also why their witness bailed.)
Olympia and Matty lose the case — a rarity for this show. But there’s a lesson in the loss. Matty keeps pushing for justice for Diego, even if it ends up hurting a man who — on balance — could reasonably be called “good.” Olympia sees her point and also sees the hurt in her client’s eyes when nearly everyone (jury included) sides with Captain Wilson. Diego gets tagged as a spoilsport and a danger to the established order, while the captain is the guy who invites everyone over to his house for barbecues. Ruining Captain Wilson doesn’t seem worth it for the sake of one misfit.
It’s Olympia’s empathy for the underdog that eventually leads her to trust Matty and Edwin with the Wellbrexa documents. (“Call it a Christmas gift,” she says.) She still hopes Matty will take it easy on Julian, but she also realizes that some kind of justice must be served. Based on their investigation so far — including the Debra Palmer photos and the Sydney NDAs — only Senior and Julian have been clearly connected to the burial of the Wellbrexa study. So if Senior dies …?
I’ll admit this is a fascinating dilemma for Olympia, who wants Jacobson-Moore’s Wellbrexa malfeasance exposed but without it causing her any personal harm. I just wish Matty and Edwin — especially Edwin — were more sympathetic to what Olympia’s going through. Their callousness about Julian has become tiresome.
Thank goodness then for this episode’s closing “gotcha” montage. As Olympia hands Julian’s unshredded Wellbrexa papers to Matty, we see Julian is right outside the brownstone, listening to everything being said. It seems he baited Olympia by showing her a fake phone contact for “Australia” in Senior’s cell. Olympia gave that number to Matty, who called it, exposing her involvement. Then Julian dropped one of his wireless earbuds into Olympia’s purse, using it as a crude bugging device.
What will he do with this knowledge? Will he confront Olympia and Matty right away or work behind their backs to smother their investigation? Either way, I’m just glad that in the New Year something new may finally be happening on Matlock.
• This is, ostensibly, a Christmas episode, as evidenced by all the tree-trimming and twinkly lights. (Alfie even makes a little Christmas-tree collage out of photos of Jacobson-Moore’s board.) But my favorite little Christmasy detail comes when Matty and Sarah question a bartender at a joint selling a “Rum Rum Rudolph” cocktail. ’Tis the season!
• Welp, we’ve all been waiting for the moment when David Del Rio and his character, Billy Martinez, would leave the show, and how it would be handled. The answer? Fairly unceremoniously! Billy is absent throughout this episode, aside from a couple of scenes in which Sarah calls him. (His voice on the line remains unheard.) During the second call, Billy apparently tells Sarah that Claudia has had a miscarriage. I suspect that in the next episode, we’ll hear that Billy is taking a leave of absence. Then he may never be spoken of again.
• Notwithstanding the awful reasons why Billy’s being written out of the show, it does simplify the series’ larger story quite a bit, providing a way for Sarah to be reintegrated into the main plot without the writers having to worry about where to stash Billy. In this episode, the Diego Castillo case (coupled with an embarrassingly large Christmas bonus) inspires Sarah to come clean to Olympia about spying on Julian for Senior. Olympia immediately drops her from her team. Want to bet she ends up working for Julian again, just as he starts actively working against his ex-wife?
