Olympia Makes a Shocking Discovery

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Matlock Episode 16.We’re in the home stretch of Matlock Season 1, and Matty (Kathy Bates) only has a few more loose ends to tie up before she can hand over her Wellbrexa findings to the New York Times. Unfortunately, Mrs. Belvin (Patricia Belcher) is the one holding the threads that Matty needs, and the Jacobson Moore office manager isn’t willing to hand them over unless Matty reveals her identity.

That forces Matty to play offense to get Belvin to lock down the timeline of the stolen documents so that Matty and Edwin (Sam Anderson) can wrap up the case. However, Matty is so focused on Belvin that she doesn’t realize she’s the subject of a different investigation. She and Edwin make massive progress in the Wellbrexa case, but Olympia also discovers a lot more about her best work friend, jeopardizing Matty’s entire scheme.

The Team Gets a Righteous Win in ‘Matlock’ Episode 16

Skye P. Marshall, David del Rio, and Leah Lewis in Matlock Episode 16 — Image via CBS

Before those revelations are unveiled, Olympia’s law school bestie and public defender, Amina (Azie Tesfai), comes to the team with a wrongful conviction case. Isabelle Sanchez (Blanca Arceli) was on a jury 21 years prior and believed that she and her fellow jurors had convicted the wrong man of murder. Olympia and Matty go to the prison to visit Gene (Del Zamora), a doorman who was accused of murdering a tenant after she complained about him failing to bring up her dry cleaning. Gene’s statement and the nine-minute murder window convince Olympia and Matty of his innocence, and they agree to take the case, despite the fact that it might worsen Olympia’s chances at partner.

The first obstacle is that Gene has already exhausted his appeals, so Olympia and YouThree have to get creative about reopening the case. They have Isabelle attempt to sue the foreman of the jury who bullied her into agreeing to a conviction, and use that case to access all the evidence from Gene’s trial so they can prove Isabelle’s reasonable doubt. They’re also given 48 hours to figure out a new angle. The search leads the team to Cheryl Clawson (Kara Gibson), the next-door neighbor of the murder victim, who was never asked to testify at Gene’s trial. She heard the victim arguing with her grandson about money the day before she was killed. The cops investigating the case at the time never got the grandson’s alibi, despite him being a better match for the eyewitness description of the killer than Gene.

YouThree head to said grandson’s sprawling estate and steal a DNA sample to compare to the antique spoon that was left at the crime scene, while Olympia goes to ADA Park (Andrew Ghai) for help. He initially refuses, but she’s able to appeal to his need for justice. He approves the DNA testing, and the results reveal that the caterer for the murder victim’s 70th birthday was the one who broke in and killed the victim in an attempted robbery. Park’s office then starts taking the necessary steps to get Gene released from prison.

Kathy Bates as Matty Matlock sitting in a chair in the law office in Episode 6 of Season 1 of Matlock

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Olympia Makes Her Next Move in ‘Matlock’ Episode 16

While YouThree works on Gene’s case, Olympia also receives a mysterious file about the “Johnson Case” from Amina. It immediately triggers Sarah’s spidey senses because, as Olympia’s mentee, she keeps meticulous records of all of her boss’s cases. The arrival of this new file sends Sarah into a spiral, believing that Olympia is gearing up for a jump to public defense if the partner race goes south — and you know Sarah can’t spiral without bringing Billy along.

Sarah uses her connections in the IT department to go through Olympia’s billables for the past 15 hours and confirms there is no Johnson case. She turns to Matty for help because tagging along with Olympia to be a public defender is not the law career that Sarah signed up for. To her credit, Olympia admits she’s considering the move when Matty asks about it. She also gives a touching monologue about how close she and Matty have become over the past several months. However, no one should count Olympia down for the count. She uses a press conference after Gene’s trial to help Park get a public profile and put herself back in the partner race by being the lead story on New York 1.

‘Matlock’ Episode 16 Reveals a Twist in Matty’s Plan

Skye P. Marshall in Matlock Episode 16 — Image via CBS

When I say Matty went on offense this week, I meant it. The woman comes for Mrs. Belvin’s dog, implying grievous bodily harm to Barry Manilow if Mrs. Belvin doesn’t pick up Matty’s incoming phone call. The threat doesn’t work, though. Mrs. Belvin just brings her dog to work to keep an eye on him, which sends Matty into rage mode. After that, Matty puts on her sweet old lady act and convinces Mrs. Belvin to let her babysit Barry Manilow. The poor office manager would never suspect Matty of being her mystery caller, so she hands over her dog. Matty has had to do a lot of sneaky and underhanded things to figure out this Wellbrexa case, but threatening Barry Manilow is one of the worst, second only to deleting Olympia’s final voicemail from her dead dad.

Mrs. Belvin insists they meet once she thinks Barry is safe, and Matty leaves Barry with Edwin while she continues at work. Edwin tries to warn her that he isn’t a dog person, which we should have known was trouble. Matty never goes to meet Belvin, but does inform her that “Adam” has come to pick up Barry Manilow, which prompts Belvin to call the burner phone that Edwin is monitoring. He is able to convince Belvin to shore up the timeline of the missing Wellbrexa document, with the confirmation that it was taken during a fire drill at 11:30 AM. A fire alarm meant that all doors were open, so no key cards were necessary to access the documents.

The new info means that Olympia and Julian (Jason Ritter) are back to being equally suspicious, since either of them could have taken the documents during the drill. Senior (Beau Bridges) is eliminated from suspicion because he was in Australia when the documents were stolen. Matty uses Olympia’s laptop to look at her billable hours from that day – hat tip to Sarah – and finds that Olympia was allegedly in court. Since billable hours are so easily faked, Matty needs to find proof to confirm that fact, which Edwin successfully does.

Matty is so over the moon about the confirmation that she is in no way prepared for Olympia to be waiting at her bus stop when she gets home from work. The “Johnson Case” isn’t a public defender file, but Olympia’s investigation into Matty after she discovered Julian never left the recording pen in her office. She had Amina run the plates of Matty’s car, which she found on the courthouse CCTV after Bitsy (Julie Hagerty) appeared during the Slam’d case and Olympia knew something was off. The results led her to confront Matty — and now, we have to wait and see how Matty will get out of this one.

Matlock continues Thursdays at 9 PM on CBS. Episodes are available to stream the next day on Paramount+.