Landman season 2 is ten episodes of Billy Bob Thornton holding up a show that keeps drifting into side plots, saved by one of the best finales Taylor Sheridan has written.
Season 1 left M-Tex in a bad spot. Monty Miller (Jon Hamm) was dead, his widow Cami (Demi Moore) was suddenly running the company, and Tommy Norris (Thornton) was the president trying to keep a cash-strapped oil outfit alive with a cartel financier named Gallino (Andy Garcia) waiting in the wings. Season 2 picks up a short time later and runs ten episodes, from November 16 to January 18 on Paramount+, with Sheridan once again writing every script.
Tommy and Cami Carry the Season
The best thing about this season is the working relationship between Tommy and Cami. Demi Moore is a series regular now, and she fills the space Jon Hamm left without trying to play Monty. Cami wants to prove she belongs, and her big swing is an offshore gas project in the Gulf. Tommy thinks it’s a mistake and tells her so, over and over, in that tired drawl Thornton has perfected. The two of them clearly like each other, which makes the slow breakdown between them sting more than a standard boardroom fight would. When she fires him at the rig launch party in episode 9, telling him the president of an oil company can’t be against the thing that built it, it lands because the show spent eight episodes earning it.
Thornton is still the reason to watch. Every scene with Tommy on a phone, in a truck, or across a table from someone who wants something from him has a pulse. Sam Elliott joins as Tommy’s father, T.L., and he’s a great addition. His flirtation with his physical therapist Cheyenne is a small thread, but Elliott makes the old man funny and sad in the same breath, and his scenes with Thornton feel like two guys who know exactly how to play off each other.
Too Much Time Away From the Oil
The problems show up when Landman leaves the oil business behind. Episodes 6 and 7 are the low point, spending most of their runtime on Angela (Ali Larter) and Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) while the M-Tex story sits on pause. Ainsley heads to TCU for cheer, Angela can’t let her go, and by episode 9 Angela has moved Ainsley’s entire cheer squad into a luxury hotel over a roommate conflict. Larter goes all in on Angela’s excess, and I respect the commitment, but these stretches play like a different, much sillier show stitched into the middle of a crime drama.
Gallino suffers the most from that drift. Andy Garcia was the hook at the end of season 1, and early in season 2 he starts circling Cooper’s leases like a real threat. Then he’s parked for long stretches while the show tends to road trips and family drama. Cooper (Jacob Lofland) and Ariana (Paulina Chavez) also stay thin as a couple. Their story is built to echo Tommy and Angela, but outside of one late incident it rarely gives them anything to do besides argue.
That split shows up in the numbers too. On Rotten Tomatoes the season sits at 83 percent with critics and 48 percent with audiences. I land closer to the critics, but I understand anyone who checked out around episode 7.
Spoilers for the Finale
The finale, “Tragedy and Flies,” runs about 80 minutes, and it fixes most of what dragged the season down.
The man who attacked Ariana dies from the beating Cooper gave him, and detectives bring Cooper in with security footage showing him landing 17 punches. Rebecca (Kayla Wallace) walks in and flips the room, threatening to use the department’s own use-of-force history to bankrupt the county and every officer in it. Tommy adds that he’ll take the story to the local media and make sure the public sees a 22-year-old widow who was attacked. The charges go away. It’s a satisfying scene, though it also clears a murder-level problem in about ten minutes, and I wish the show had let Cooper sit in that danger longer.
Tommy’s arc is where the finale really works. Unemployed and unsure he even wants to be a landman anymore, he comes up with a plan to buy Cooper’s leases back from M-Tex and start a company of their own. Legitimate investors won’t touch the deal because of the legal gray area in the contracts, so Tommy goes back to Gallino, the one person who will. Gallino buys the leases, puts up money for more drilling, and immediately reminds Tommy what happens if he loses that investment. Sheridan had been laying track for this all season, and seeing it click into place made the slower episodes look more purposeful in hindsight.
Along the way Tommy dares God to do His worst and nearly dies in a multi-car pileup minutes later, which is about as Landman as a scene can get.
The season closes on the new company’s lineup: Cooper as president, Tommy as senior vice president, Rebecca as CEO and chief counsel, Nate (Colm Feore) as treasurer, Dale (James Jordan) on exploration, T.L. on drilling, and Boss (Mustafa Speaks) running the crew, everyone with a share of the profits. Ainsley gives dorm life another shot after making peace with her former roommate, and instead of spiraling, Angela pulls closer to Tommy. His last line to her, “Today we win,” is a rare happy ending for a Sheridan show, and it works because Tommy also tells her the hard days are coming.
Season 3 is already confirmed, and it starts with Tommy running a family oil company on cartel money. If the writers keep the focus on that setup instead of padding the middle with hotel drama, Landman has a real shot at topping its first season.
Sources: Taste of Country, The Review Geek, Tom’s Guide, Fangirlish, Rotten Tomatoes, Texas Monthly
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