SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details about the premiere episode of Matlock on CBS.

Viewers expecting a simple version of the classic TV series starring Andy Griffith were in for an unexpected twist at the end of the episode.

Instead of seeing sweet old Madeline “Matty” Matlock return to her humble home and cat, we learn that this brilliant 60-something lawyer is actually on a secret mission to take down the law firm that could have prevented opioids from killing so many people (including her daughter, whose son she is now raising with her husband.)

Matty’s targets are Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), a senior attorney and major financial backer with a hunger for justice; Olympia’s ex-husband/attorney Julian (Jason Ritter); and his father Julian Sr. (Beau Bridges), who runs the company Matty wants to destroy.

In this article, creator and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman explains why she decided to revamp the remake and what we can expect at the end of the first season of the CBS drama series.

DEADLINE The pilot episode starts off with, ‘oh, this is a story about a sweet older lady who goes back to work to get a holy sh*t! this comes with a hardcore twist. Was that all part of your original pitch? How did you get there?

JENNIE SNYDER URMAN It was part of the original pitch. When I was thinking about what I would do if I were to change this title, I thought, what would be different? Of course I would start with a female protagonist, but I didn’t want to just make a gender-swapped version that wasn’t interesting. So I started thinking maybe they using the name Matlock. I gave myself a challenge of sorts. I can keep telling the audience that they’re underestimating her, but then they’re fooled at the end. I knew that I wanted her to have a spine of steel throughout the show, that there were real stakes, that there was something real and deep that we could explore in terms of grief and loss and our responsibility to each other, the responsibility of the legal profession in terms of what is your responsibility to the public health versus your job as a lawyer to not do anything that would harm your client. I had read an article about a law firm that had been sanctioned for hiding documents during the opioid crisis, and that really stuck with me. I had read all these books for Dopesick, and I remember trying to get the rights early on, so that was all in my head at once. You never know what the soup is going to look like, how the synapses in your brain are going to connect. Why would a woman like that want to go back to the law firm? What could be deep and meaningful enough? Then the story unfolded. So I pitched it, from beginning to end.

DEADLINE So the sweet little lady we see at the beginning… are we going to find out outside the law firm that she’s far from that?

URMAN In the pilot, you really have to feel like you’re enjoying a fish-out-of-water comedy. And then all of a sudden the ending comes and you’re surprised. From episode two on, you’re on the inside with her. So you get the privilege of knowing that she’s on her secret mission. She’s essentially a spy. Does she get caught? Does she not get caught? We expand the family life and you start to learn more about who Madeline Kingston is. You start to learn more about her family, about her marriage, about her grandson, about her daughter. You meet her daughter eventually in flashbacks and kind of go to that core, that moment when Matty decided she had this plan. Does she get caught and excited when she outsmarts someone, or worried when she doesn’t?

DEADLINE The hardcore part is absolutely not a comedy.

URBAN No. I like a range of tones in one piece. We can have a laugh, and then we can go into something much more serious, as long as we take the character and her circumstances seriously and are honest about her emotional life.

DEADLINE Will we see Matty at home talking about how much she hates having to play the nice old lady at work?

URBAN Well, at the end of the pilot she’s like, “These f–king butterscotch candies.” She’s not a fan, but they’re selling her the little lady. Madeline Kingston is a much more direct, much more driven, much harder character than Matty Matlock. We do get into the differences in who she is, where the Matty Matlock persona comes from. You’ll learn more about that. We really try to keep revealing things as the show goes on.

DEADLINE Can I assume there will be a series portion of the season, but that each episode will also contain B and C stories about the cases she’s working on?

URBAN There’s going to be a big, robust legal case that Matty will be working on episodically. So that’s really the story. Then we have the spy, the undercover agent that’s always ongoing, and the serialized aspect. The relationships are the serialized aspects, and the central love story, for me, is the relationship with Olympia and Matty — and how they come together and how they break up. When Matty goes on this mission, people are kind of players on a chessboard. As she gets deeper into the story, they’re real people with real feelings. She gets emotionally attached, and all the reasons why being undercover is a challenge for her, so that becomes a big part of the story as well.

DEADLINE Can you address the challenges of portraying an older woman in the workplace and ensure the language does not sound ageist?

URMAN I followed my gut and tried to play on people’s expectations before I undermined them. A lot of times we say things so that other people can’t hurt us. That’s kind of true. Matty plays on that. She plays on the fact that people are going to underestimate her. People are going to think that she’s this nice, sweet little woman who doesn’t have much to do other than pay her bills. And she runs with that. It’s like, underestimate her if you dare. We had fun with the jokes, because humor is a big part of the show, and I hope we find that balance where we can say things and have fun with it, but ultimately what we’re also doing is paying tribute to what an older woman can do and what she’s capable of. And that’s really exciting to me.

DEADLINE How long do you want to keep the secret? Will you solve it before the end of the season?

URBAN Matty doesn’t want to be unmasked, that’s what I’m saying. I wanted the mystery we start with to be 100% solved by the end of the season. It’s going to leave us with new problems.

DEADLINE What is it like working with Kathy Bates?

URBAN It’s just a dream come true to witness her process and the depth that she goes into the scripts. It’s truly an honor to work with her and see her rigor apply to the words that the writers and I have put together. It’s inspiring. With such a complex character, you need someone who is masterful at the helm, because often she’s telling the audience one thing, but I need her eyes to tell the audience other things.

An encore from the Matlock The pilot episode will air on October 10, and episode 2 will air during CBS’s official premiere week on October 17. Matlock will also be available on Paramount+.