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

Viewers who expected a simple gender-reversed version of the classic television series starring Andy Griffith were rewarded with an unexpected twist at the end of the episode.

But instead of seeing sweet little old Madeline “Matty” Matlock go home to her modest house and her cat, we learn that this brilliant lawyer in her sixties is actually on a secret mission: to take down the law firm that could have prevented opioids from killing so many people (like her daughter, whose son she is now raising with her husband).

Matty’s targets are Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), a seasoned attorney and major financier with a thirst for justice, Olympia’s ex-husband/attorney Julian (Jason Ritter), and his father Julian Sr. (Beau Bridges), who runs the law firm Matty wants to destroy.

Here, creator and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman explains why she decided to turn the remake on its head and what we can expect from the end of the CBS drama’s first season.

DEADLINE The pilot goes from “Oh, this is a story about a nice older lady who goes back to work” to a Holy shit! This has a hardcore twist. Was this 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 adapted this title, I wondered what would be different. Of course I wanted to start with a female protagonist, but I didn’t want to just do a gender-swapped version that would be uninteresting. So I started thinking that maybe she with the name Matlock. I set myself a kind of challenge. I can keep telling the audience that they’re underestimating her, but in the end they’re fooled. I knew that I wanted her to have a backbone of steel throughout the show, that there’s real money at stake, that there’s something real and deep that we can explore in terms of grief and loss and our responsibility to each other, the responsibility of the legal profession in terms of what your responsibility is to public health and what your job is as a lawyer to not do anything that might harm your client. I had read an article about a law firm that was sanctioned for concealing documents during the opioid crisis, and that stuck with me for a long time. I had read all those books before Dopesick, and I remember trying to get the rights early on, so that was all in my head at the same time. You never know what the soup is going to look like, how the synapses in your brain are going to be connected. Why would a woman like her want to go back to the law firm? What could be deep and meaningful enough? Then the story unfolded. So I imagined it from beginning to end.

DEADLINE: So, the sweet little lady we see at the beginning outside the law firm, will we find out that she is far from it?

URMAN In the pilot, you really have to feel like you’re enjoying a comedy where you’re in a situation that you’re not comfortable with. And then suddenly the ending comes and you’re surprised. By episode two, you’re in the thick of it. So you have the privilege of knowing that she’s on a secret mission. She’s basically a spy. Will she get caught? Will she not get caught? We start to expand on the personal life and you learn more about who Madeline Kingston is. You learn more about her family, about her marriage, about her grandson, about her daughter. You eventually get to know her daughter in flashbacks and kind of get to that core, to the moment when Matty decided she had this plan. Will she get caught and excited if she outsmarts someone, or worried if she doesn’t outsmart someone?

DEADLINE: The hardcore part is definitely not a comedy.

URBAN No. I like a range of tones in a piece. We can laugh and then move on to something much more serious, as long as we take the character and their circumstances seriously and are honest about their emotional life.

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

URBAN Well, at the end of the pilot she says something like “those damn butterscotch candies.” She’s not a fan, but they sell her the little lady. Madeline Kingston is a much more direct, much more ambitious and tough character than Matty Matlock. We get into the differences of who she is, where the Matty Matlock personality comes from. You’ll find out. We really try to reveal more and more things as the show goes on.

DEADLINE: So can I assume that there will be a sequel part to the season, but each episode will also contain B and C stories about cases she’s working on?

URBAN There’s going to be a big, tough legal case that Matty will be working on in episodes. So that’s really the story. Then we have the spy, the undercover agent, who is always there, who is the sequel aspect. The relationships are the sequel aspects, and the central love story for me is the relationship between Olympia and Matty – and how they come together and how they break up. When Matty starts this mission, the people are kind of like players on a chessboard. As she gets deeper into it, they’re real people with real feelings. She builds an emotional bond, and all the reasons why it’s challenging for her to go undercover become a big part of the storytelling as well.

DEADLINE Can you overcome the challenges of portraying an older woman in the workplace while ensuring the language doesn’t sound ageist?

URMAN I went with my gut and tried to meet people’s expectations before subverting them. A lot of times we say things so others can’t hurt us. That’s a bit like that too. Matty takes advantage of that. She takes advantage of the fact that people are going to underestimate her. People are going to think she’s a nice, sweet little lady who doesn’t have any big plans other than, like, paying her bills. And that’s what she does. It’s like, you’re supposed to underestimate her if you dare. We had fun with the jokes because the humor is a big part of the show too and I hope we find that balance where we can say things and kind of have fun with it but also ultimately be a tribute to what an older woman can do and what she’s capable of. And I find that really exciting.

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

URBAN Matty doesn’t want to be exposed, I can say that. I wanted the mystery we start with to be 100% solved by the end of the season. It will leave us with new problems.

DEADLINE How was it working with Kathy Bates?

URBAN It’s just a dream come true to be able to witness her process and the depth with which she delves into the scripts. It’s truly an honor to work with her and see how she applies her precision to the words that the writers and I put together. It’s inspiring. With such a complicated character, you need someone who can masterfully guide the helm because often she’s telling the audience one thing, but I need her eyes to tell the audience other things.

An addition of the Matlock The pilot will air on October 10, with episode 2 airing during CBS’s official premiere week on October 17. Matlock will also be available on Paramount+.