Matlock Season 1 Finale Included a 'Terrifying' Letter—Read It Here
Sarah, you should know the difference between "tenets" and "tenants"!
Oh, Sarah. The resident Type A at Jacobson Moore, the law firm at the center of CBS’ Matlock reboot (if you’re not watching, then we clearly haven’t spent any time together; I watched the screeners three times before the show even premiered) took a big swing in the final episodes of Season 1 and landed her first client. Albeit without her supervisor’s knowledge or permission. Still, it was a simple cease and desist! How hard could it be? Some spoilers ahead.
As a fellow Type A, I can tell you: It will be exactly as hard as you make it. And Sarah’s ambition got the better of her, leading to a letter that nobody could stop commenting on—in part because it might have led to the death of her client’s business partner, to whom it was addressed. In the first part of the two-part Season 1 finale, a judge called it “incredibly acerbic,” Dino, her gym owner client, called it “hardcore,” and a cop played by Cheyenne Jackson referred to it as “terrifying.”
"You really threw the whole thesaurus at this, didn't you darlin'?" Mattie Matlock tells Sarah upon reading it. And, as is my custom, I immediately hit pause and pressed my nose against the TV screen to see exactly what it said. How scary can one letter be? It depends on your tolerance for typos and incorrect legal language! Read on for (most) of Sarah’s cease and desist, rendered by a hard-working art department employee who had no idea what a nerd I can be.
To whom it may concern,
It has come to my attention, through the perspicacious observances of my esteemed client Dino Coletti, that you have grievously and flagrantly committed a breach of the binding legal obligations enumerated in your partnership, both fiscal and reputational. Resulting in a de facto dissolution or the tenants [sp] of said partnership and intrusting us thereby to demand renumeration, in full and without delay!
You hereby stand accused of GROSS EMBEZZLEMENT and MISAOLLOCATION [likely meant to be MISAPPROPRIATION] OF FUNDS, and thereby on behalf of my client, I am issuing a CEASE AND DESIST—you must immediately cease use of any shared or company funds upon receipt of this communique. Any failure to abide by the tenants [sp] of this will result in a full accounting over the entire term of the entity, in which funds will be justly redistributed to all stakeholders innocent of mis-use [sp].
You, as an individual in this partnership, have embezzled such significant funds as to put the entire viability of the operation into question. An operation in which my client has invested decades of work and social capital, including but not limited to leveraging his own connections and special relationships within the community and beyond to benefit the partnership as a whole. I thereby withstand to reason that said qual partnership should be repaid in kind in so much as equal social capital is invested and spent. And damages of reputation or impact upon future earning will be tallied and amortized of the life of the future of the project, insomuch as is obtainable through the freedom of information act.
Beyond this egregious breach of fellowship, therefore, is also a measurable and easily quantifiable summation of damages and the more ephemeral impact of a breech [sp] of trust when mutual interested [sp] had been pursued. Pursuant to the New York Penal Code 99.82 we shall not rest until justice has been served.
Whether that be near or far, in legal tender or verifiable man hours, all debts shall be repaid, in full, without delay, through reasonable means and of legal tender, within the workings of financial institutions licensed by the state of New York and the Federal Reserve, to be fiscally engaged in matters of embezlement and fraud.
"Mercantile establishment," "obfuscation," and “antiseptic" all appear in the final paragraph (which is, sadly, not shown in full).
I cannot be the only person who hits pause and sees what fills up everything from newspapers to emails to Carrie Bradshaw’s columns, can I?
