Matlock Recap: Pharma Woes

Have a merry Matlock Christmas, everybody! How marvelously twisted is it that the holiday episode of this supposedly light-hearted, cozy legal mystery show is heartbreakingly bleak? Aside from one fleeting moment of sweet romance, “Belly of the Beast” is a crusher.

I loved every excruciating minute of it.

To be honest, I don’t know what Matty was expecting when she asked — pleaded — to work for Wellbrexa. Julian’s pharmaceuticals team at Jacobson-Moore isn’t doing the kind of righteously satisfying social justice work that is Olympia’s current forte. Plus, “being put on a big pharma case” doesn’t mean Wellbrexa’s going to let her just rifle through their files. In order to get close enough to find what she’s looking for, Matty will need to be on the side of the same amoral corporate villains she’s trying to take down. And she’s going to have to do an exceptional job for them.

I have to give some praise here to the writers (including the one credited for the script, Hennah Sekander), the director (Tessa Blake), the cast, and the Matlock casting agents for making Matty’s opponents simultaneously sympathetic and not that hard to root against. Wellbrexa is facing Jessie (Dominique Gayle), a cellist who participated in a drug trial at age 21 and who, by age 23, was dealing with persistent health issues that left her with mental fog, shaky hands, an upset stomach, and a bad kidney. She’s represented by her roommate, Paige (Zamani Wilder), who encourages Jessie’s inclination to share every step of her medical and legal journey on social media to put more public pressure on Wellbrexa. As a result, Paige is often infuriating during meetings and depositions, dropping youth speak like “gaslit” and “my guy” while taking the kind of aggressive posture that looks impressive on video and fires up followers.

At the end of the day, though, these kids have a strong case, and Matty knows it. She’s hoping that in her position as Jacobson-Moore’s “good cop,” she can persuade Jessie and Paige to take a settlement generous enough to cover some medical bills and student debt — but not so big that Wellbrexa thinks the firm failed. Matty has three additional challenges: the Wellbrexa in-house lawyers are rude pharma bros; Senior cut his vacation short so he could closely monitor this case alongside the Wellbrexa CEO Don Halverston (Harry Zinn); and Julian doesn’t know Matty well enough to trust her methods or hunches.

It’s all too much to overcome … at least at first. The plaintiffs aren’t impressed with “Grandma Death.” Not only do they reject her escalating offers (first $50,000, then $150,000, then $250,000), but Jessie puts Wellbrexa on blast on TikTok for “mansplaining the cost of my suffering.” The pair announce their plan to get the judge to shut down the drug trial while they convert their lawsuit into a class action.

As I mentioned, this is ostensibly the Matlock Christmas episode, which means there’s something especially brutal about seeing Matty suffer some of her worst setbacks while everyone in the office is wearing goofy sweaters. After the settlement talks fail, she tries one of her Matlock tricks, getting Alfie (who is spending the holidays in Florida with Edwin) to look closely at one of the ladies’ videos. That’s how she finds out they may be in cahoots with the ex-girlfriend of the doctor running the trial. But she can’t get Julian to give her more time to investigate, and when the doctor’s ex’s damning texts come out in a deposition, Senior drops both his son and Matty from Wellbrexa — and right before the big office Christmas party, no less.

The party provides a backdrop for this episode’s one unequivocal win. The human lie detector Shae is back, apparently having been hired on to J-M full-time, and she’s using her skills on Sarah, who is ducking out of the firm’s a cappella group (The Acaquittals!) out of fear that she’ll look uncool in front of her potential new girlfriend, Kira. When Shae threatens to tell Kira that Sarah has “severe identity issues,” Sarah reluctantly joins the group for their version of Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” (or rather their version of Pentatonix’s version of Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal”), which impresses Kira so much that she asks for a private performance in the stairwell. A Hallmark-worthy romance!

Alas, elsewhere at the party, people are miserable. Billy has been convinced by Sarah and Matty to stop stalling and propose to Claudia, a choice made easier by the enchanting Christmas atmosphere and Claudia being all dressed up for the occasion. But despite a heartfelt speech in which Billy talks about meeting his true love in third grade (selling bootleg Missy Elliot CDs!), Claudia rejects him, saying they’re only still a couple out of habit and should have broken up long ago.

Julian, meanwhile, isn’t just smarting because his dad tossed him aside without a second thought to save the Wellbrexa account, but also because Olympia and Matty chastised him for not standing up to Senior. (“Don’t talk about it; be about it, baby,” Olympia urges.) It doesn’t help that Senior isn’t enthused by the news that Julian has reconciled with his wife. He warns, “Make sure you clear all the rot from the foundation.” After the party, Julian takes his father’s advice, telling Olympia back at their condo that he had an affair not long after they started having marital troubles. The confession doesn’t go over well.

Eventually, while nursing a drink and a bruised ego, Matty comes up with a solution to the Jessie and Paige problem. Thinking about all of these romantic couples at J-M makes her wonder about the situation with the Wellbrexa drug trial doctor and his ex. With just a little bit of digging, she realizes the two of them met the legal requirement for common law spouses when they were texting each other, making that communication privileged. In a late-night meeting with the judge — dragging Jessie and Paige from their own holiday party in Christmas pajamas — Julian is able to get those texts excluded, effectively killing the ladies’ case and saving his and Matty’s big pharma careers.

So … Happy Holidays for Matty? Not really. Amid all of these shenanigans, Matty does trick Senior (and Senior’s assistant) into sharing his computer password. That’s good. But any hope that Jessie could get some proper compensation is crushed after Matty’s common law marriage move. That’s awful.

Throughout the episode, Matty fiddles with a “MAMA” bracelet that Ellie once made for her. When the Wellbrexa bros laugh off the idea of giving Jessie even a token settlement, she fiddles so hard that the bracelet breaks. She’s been relying on her righteousness as an anchor during the sleazier parts of her mission. Now that tether is snapping.

Hot Doggin’

• I considered giving this episode my first five-star rating of the season, but honestly, I still think this show falls short on the “legal” part of the legal drama genre. Specifically, it’s a little silly that Matty and only Matty keeps coming up with solutions like the common law marriage gambit in this week’s case. There are teams of lawyers working for Wellbrexa and Jacobson-Moore. She’s really the only one staying up late, cracking the books?

• This episode makes Edwin and Alfie’s absence relevant to the story, framing Matty’s fragile emotional state. Still, as someone who thinks a lot about the budget restrictions in modern network television, I couldn’t help but wonder if Sam Anderson and Aaron D. Harris were missing this week because the production needed to redirect their pay to the less frequently appearing supporting players Yael Grobglas, Patricia Belcher, Francisco Chacin, Piper Curda, Bella Ortiz, Beau Bridges and Eme Ikwuakor (as Elijah, back from Dallas!).

• As if this episode needed another wrenching emotional beat, we get a moment where Matty listens to an old voicemail from Ellie, announcing she’s pregnant with Alfie and adding, “And I’m clean, Mom, I promise.” (Copious tears emoji.)

• Matty Matlock, Reformed Dirtbag, Anecdote No. 1: Talking about marriage proposals, Matty says her fake late husband “proposed to me on a fishing boat on Lake Lanier over a twelve pack of Coors, right after telling me about three bodies that had been found there.”

• Matty Matlock, Reformed Dirtbag, Anecdote No. 2: When Julian and Olympia admit they’re back together, Matty insists she “won’t be part of your throuple” because she tried that 30 years ago and it involved “too much multitasking.”