Matlock episode 14 recap: Matlock makes a stunning discovery

In Matlock episode 14, "Game Day," during a flashback, Julian (Jason Ritter) suspiciously meets Shae (Yael Grobglas) in a parking lot.

Shae tells Julian that there was a mistake. A temp in Wellbrexa’s legal department accidentally sent over 342 pages that were not meant to be included. Julian says he can’t do anything illegal. Shae not asking him to. But if the documents are scanned into Jacobson Moore’s system, Wellbrexa’s opioids will be pulled from the market, the company will lose billions in revenue, and Jacobson Moore will lose millions in fees. Julian removes the documents from the office.

Is this what actually happened? Did Julian and Shae conspire to remove the documents? Will Matlock (Kathy Bates) find out!? Here’s what happened in Matlock episode 14.

Slammed!

The class action lawsuit to take the dangerous alcohol Slammed off the market begins. For Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), it’s the culmination of two years worth of work and millions of dollars spent, and it will decide her partner race against Julian.

Olympia tells the jury that Slammed engaged in a methodical, multi-million dollar marketing campaign that targeted people like Tucker Hall, who went to college on a football scholarship. He drank Slammed one night, blacked out and eventually jumped out of a moving car, because of how quickly Slammed worked and how dangerous it is.

Slammed’s lawyer says Tucker’s is a rare case. Slammed is a safe beverage, and any misuse of it is down to the person, not the product.

A doctor says that Slammed contains five times the amount of alcohol of other products, as well as caffeine. This accelerates inebriation, while stopping the body from recovering. But Slammed’s lawyer says the drink follows regulations and has the right warnings, and the jury seems to eat it up.

Later, Shae and Olympia are worried about one juror, who they discover had a blog, where he criticized people not taking responsibility for their actions

Matlock suggests they put Kennedy (Rae DeRosa) on the stand to get sympathy. In last week’s episode, Kennedy killed her sorority sister Violet when she gave her a Slammed. She’ll only testify if she’s given immunity from future charges.

Olympia asks District Attorney Andrew Park (Andrew Ghai) not to press charges. But Violet’s parent Lydia wants Park to charge Kennedy with killing Violet.

Slammed is hiding something

Kennedy tells Olympia she wants to help, as she didn’t mean to kill Violet. She had no idea Slammed could kill anyone. Kennedy says she first heard of Slammed at a high school party where Slammed was handing out free cans. The party promoters took their phones away before they could get in. Clearly Slammed was targeting minors and trying to make them loyal to the brand from a young age.

Billy (David Del Rio) and Sarah (Leah Lewis) look for evidence of the party. But they can’t find anything online. Everything was paid for in cash so no fingerprints were left. Olympia says this proves they threw a party with minors and hid it.

Sarah finally finds social media photos of the parties, but there’s still not enough of a link that Slammed organized them.

The case falls apart

Matlock tries to convince Lydia to drop the charges against Kennedy. She says Slammed was responsible, not her. But Lydia solely blames Kennedy, saying that she wants someone to be held responsible, not a drink. She asks Matlock to leave.

While the judge won’t allow the photos of the Slammed high school parties in court, Matlock shows them to Lydia instead. This convinces Lydia to drop the charges. Kennedy will testify, plus Billy and Sarah discover that one of Slammed’s high-school parties was broken up by the police in Connecticut. But then …

On the stand, Tucker admits that he wanted to get a little drunk the night of his accident, but not so drunk that he couldn’t make decisions. Slammed’s lawyer has a video of Tucker previously screaming he loves to get blackout drunk, which ruins his testimony.

After his testimony landed flat, Tucker settles for $100,000. With no-named plaintiff, the class action suit is ruined. Olympia retreats to her old office to drink vodka, as she now looks set to lose her partner race with Julian.

Billy and Sarah make a pact

Billy texts Simone (Andrea Londo) and giggles. Sarah asks who he’s texting, but Billy won’t say. Sarah tells Billy she’s just going with the flow with Kira (Piper Curda) after she agreed to be in an open relationship.

Sarah and Billy have learned that Olympia is planning to open up her own office. They promise not to tell another associate about it, otherwise there will be too much competition. But Billy tells Simone, who applies for the position. Billy tells Sarah he split up with Simone as a result. But he lied to Sarah.

Even though they disapprove of their relationships, Billy and Sarah promise to support each other, as they’re both so overworked at the moment.

Bitsy problems

Matlock is snippy because her sister Bitsy (Julie Hagerty) is in New York. She makes little comments about Matlock and Edwin (Sam Anderson) mysteriously moving cross country and uprooting Alfie (Aaron Harris). Matlock knows Bitsy can’t keep a secret, so tells Edwin to keep her away from Jacobson Moore.

But Bitsy finds Matlock, Edwin and Alfie’s Jacobson Moore evidence pinboard. Bitsy is concerned about how this will impact Alfie. Matlock says until Bitsy knows what it’s like to bury a child, she doesn’t need her thoughts. Later, Bitsy tells Matlock that she needs to feel the pain over Ellie’s death, and what she’s doing at Jacobson Moore is just a distraction.

Who hid the documents?

The opening scene was just Edwin’s theory. Edwin says their biggest problem is not knowing what the documents are. Matlock has to figure out where Julian went with the documents.

Using the keycard print-out that shows where Julian went with the documents, she enters a shredding room, which suggests Julian destroyed the documents.

Then Matlock learns Jacobson Moore remodeled seven years ago, so the documents might have been moved to a different floor. But when re-tracing the steps on the different floor, Matlock sees that the keycard was used to go into the women’s bathroom. This suggests that Olympia hid the documents, using Julian’s keycard. Especially since the keycard was then used to go into Olympia’s old office.

Episodes of Matlock are available to stream on Paramount Plus