Actor David Del Rio was dropped from the legal drama in October after CBS received a report of an incident involving him, Entertainment Weekly previously reported.
But Billy still appeared in the Dec. 4 episode "Prior Bad Acts," with no hints toward the character's impending exit from the show.
In the episode, Billy played a supporting role (as usual), assisting Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) in the case of the week and offering advice to his friend Sarah (Leah Lewis), who reluctantly conducted some slight office espionage for the firm's head honcho Howard "Senior" Markston (Beau Bridges). Del Rio's character only had a handful of lines across a few scenes in the episode, and nothing in this week's ep indicated anything about where his character might end up when the actor exits the series.
EW previously learned that upon Del Rio's dismissal, the Matlock team intended to write his character out of the show rather than recast Billy. The show also had a pre-planned hiatus in October and November after finishing production on the first half of season 2.
The previous episode, "Harm Reduction," saw Billy anxiously anticipating his second proposal to his pregnant girlfriend Claudia (Bella Ortiz), after his season 1 proposal led to the longtime couple's unexpected breakup. After assisting his superiors with a case involving a convent, Billy has a breakthrough with Claudia in his final scene.
"I was talking to my mom, and I had a revelation," Claudia says. "Billy, I don't care about getting married. Seriously, it's caused both of us so much stress and pain. And I have faith in us, married or not married."
Then, in a bizarre response that sounds like it was cobbled together from several previous line-readings during post-production, Billy says, "Claudia, I do want us to get married."
His partner then responds, "Oh, thank God!" -- which doesn't totally track with the emotional point that she'd just made in her previous line. Why would she be so thrilled about Billy's intentions to propose if she just told him that she doesn't care about marriage? Perhaps this was the final scene that Del Rio was shooting (or re-shooting) when he was dismissed from the show, and the series didn't have the opportunity to lock in Billy's dialogue before the actor's exit.
Then, as the camera moves away from the couple, Billy can barely be heard saying, "We were always meant to be a family."
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Del Rio was a series regular on the first season of Matlock and was seemingly intended to remain one of the show's key supporting players throughout its second season; however, in October, CBS was alerted to an incident involving the actor that prompted an immediate investigation and led to Del Rio's dismissal from the show.
Deadline reported that the incident was a sexual assault allegation involving Lewis. Neither Del Rio nor Lewis has commented on the incident directly, though the actress made a vague statement after news of her former costar's departure broke.
"Mom is here, we're moving forward in love and strength. I'm in good hands," Lewis wrote on social media in October. "Thank you to everybody for any kind of support and care. Truly, we're moving forward in strength. Key word, strength. Please, let that be the takeaway."
On Tuesday, Lewis posted a photo announcing her return to production on the series. "And we back up and running," she wrote on her Instagram Stories.