Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Matlock Episode 8.

Alfie (Aaron Harris) and Edwin (Sam Anderson) are back for the Matlock winter finale, and Matty (Kathy Bates) is once again trying to have it all. This week, Alfie has a mock trial competition where he plays an eyewitness in the fake case, and Matty is determined to see him in action. First, she’s got to sneak into Senior’s (Beau Bridges) office and print out the attachment from the Wellbrexa e-mail, prove it’s the missing documents, and use that to prove Senior helped bury evidence that would have gotten opioids off the street ten years earlier.

Of course, getting to Senior’s desk is more complicated than Matty anticipates, and is only made harder when Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) announces that she’s bringing Matty back to her side of the farm for a case defending a wrongfully terminated nanny. Julian (Jason Ritter) is against Olympia taking the case because the nanny works for one of the moms at the twins’ school, but Olympia is not in the mood to take Julian’s counsel since he just told her that he cheated before they officially separated. Meanwhile, things are on pause with the Wellbrexa investigation, and getting the info she needs from Senior when Olympia is counting on her to run point puts Matty in a very tough position.

Everyone Is a Cheater in ‘Matlock’ Episode 8
Image via CBS

The minutiae of this case is really not important to Matty’s or the other lawyers’ arcs, or even really the curve of the episode, so we’re going to speed run through the basic facts. A nanny who works for a friend of Olympia and Julian, and even has watched their kids before, approaches Olympia one morning while she’s dropping off the twins to inform her that she’s just been fired. Her picture was taken and submitted to a nanny monitoring site that rich moms use to helicopter-watch the people they’ve employed to raise their children. Not only did the pictures get the nanny fired, but the website is using them in a new promotional poster, which is making it impossible for the nanny to find any work.

To get anywhere with the case, Matty and Olympia must thread the needle of their argument without infringing upon the website’s freedom of speech — in part because they are in front of a very pro-First Amendment judge. They manage to get a waiver that requires the website to give them the e-mail address of the person who submitted the photos, and it turns out to be Olympia’s best mom friend and fellow lawyer. It turns out said friend is having an affair with the husband who employs the nanny. When she saw the nanny playing with the children at the park near the hotel where they are hooking up, she took the photo in hopes of deterring the nanny from reporting the affair. However, the nanny never saw the couple and all that drama turned out to be for nothing. Olympia is also not stoked to have a friend who is a cheater, considering Julian’s recent revelation. She pushes her friend to come forward, the nanny gets a wrongful termination settlement that is enough to pay for bringing her own children to America with her, and Olympia gets another win in the books.

The real important development in this case happens between Matty and Olympia. Once Matty learns that Julian cheated, she takes it upon herself to keep an eye on Olympia. Matty stops her from going to school on a day when she might blow up on any of the judgmental moms who might approach her. She’s constantly reassuring Olympia that she has her back and will do what it takes to be there for her. At the beginning of the season, Olympia was hesitant to admit she even liked Matty, and now the two are developing a borderline codependent relationship. It almost blows up when Julian admits he asked Matty to look out for Olympia, but Matty stands firm in the fact that everything she does during this case is because she genuinely cares about her boss. On the one hand, it is heartwarming to see the growth between Matty and Olympia. On the other, as I’ve said before, it makes the Wellbrexa investigation that much more complicated.

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Where Are the Dang Documents in ‘Matlock’ Episode 8?
Image via CBS

After a few hitches, Matty does eventually make it to Senior’s computer and prints off the attachment she and Alfie need to analyze. Unfortunately, she prints the attachment off to the associate pool, and it gets snagged by Olympia’s assistant. Matty blows off going to Alfie’s mock trial to track down the printout, which causes its own share of drama. Alfie is fine with the decision, but it leads to another argument between Matty and Edwin when he says it echoes her old behavior with Ellie. After all the guilt of missing the mock trial, Matty does find the printed attachment, only to find that it’s not the missing Wellbrexa documents: it’s a photo of Senior and a blonde in Sydney. It also helps cover up the fact that someone must have forged Senior’s signature on the release of the Wellbrexa documents.

That narrows our suspect pool down to either Julian or Olympia, which is a much harder pill for Matty to swallow because she’s grown closer to both, especially Olympia. Matty puts her eggs in the Julian basket and plants a recording pen in his office at the end of the episode, which picks up a conversation between him and Olympia about his affair. Matty mutes the recording right as Olympia demands to know who Julian slept with — which is very rude to those of us who want the tea — showing her loyalty to both of them. There are still lines that Matty isn’t willing to cross to solve this case.

However, it doesn’t look like Matty has fully considered what could happen if it really is Julian or Olympia who hid the documents. After swearing that she and Olympia weren’t friends just a few episodes ago, Matty is bending over backward to prove she’s there for Olympia in a real capacity. I’m now convinced that Olympia is the one who hid the documents because it will be the most narratively interesting and complicated option for Matty to navigate. Can Matty really hold Olympia, who she’s grown to respect so much, responsible for the death of her child? On the flip side, can Matty send the father of Olympia’s children to jail when he’s also shown her kindness?

Things are getting messy, and we’re now past the halfway point of the first season. That means we’re closer than we thought to finding out who the culprit really is, and whether Matty can stick to the plan when she finds out the truth. I suspect the answer to all of these questions is going to be something that even Matty could never have imagined.

Matlock is on hiatus for the Christmas holidays. New episodes will return Thursday, January 30 at 9 PM on CBS. Episodes are available to stream the next day on Paramount+.

Your changes have been saved Matlock Matty has to pivot on her Wellbrexa investigation in Matlock Episode 8.ProsMatty and Olympia have really developed a sweet bond.Olympia in the courtroom is always a thrilling time.The Wellbrexa investigation is going to get even more complicated now. ConsBilly and Sarah were obsolete minor players this episode.We don’t get to know who Julian cheated with???

Your changes have been saved Release Date September 22, 2024 Cast Kathy Bates , Jason Ritter , Skye P. Marshall , David Del Rio , Leah Lewis , Aaron Harris , Eme Ikwuakor , Beau Bridges , Sam Anderson , Jordyn Weitz , Henry Allen , Colleen Camp Main Genre Drama Seasons 1 Writers Jennie Snyder Urman Network CBS Expand

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