There are three realities that define what we know about life in Texas — there’s lots of land, lots of oil, and, of course, lots of football under Friday night lights. There’s a taste of all three in Landman, Paramount+’s newest offering, released on November 16. Set in the Permian Basin boomtown of Midland, Texas, the 10-episode series starring Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, and Jon Hamm, is a modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the not-so-glamorous world of West Texas oil and gas.
At first blush, it is not hard to imagine Landman as no more than Yellowstone-West, set on the dusty Texas plains with steel horses, aka oil pump jacks, instead of cattle horses, and land worked tirelessly by salt-of-the-earth roughnecks as opposed to their distant cousin ranch hands of Montana. But, to do so, according to the show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan, you would be wrong.
Despite its intentions to set itself apart, the not-a-Yellowstone spinoff somehow manages to still fall in line thematically with Sheridan’s previous work, right down to its haunting, sepia-toned musical opening credits sequence. Though, more specifically, the series’ unfiltered deep dive into the boots-on-the-ground life on the modern-day American frontier and the clash between individual aspirations and the broader influences of capitalism and industry unfolds in similar ways to Sheridan’s other fictional think pieces of this type. Moments of familiarity continue throughout each episode as they showcase the unique challenges facing those who work to scratch their feast-or-famine living out of the unrelenting earth.
Much of the storytelling of Landman unfolds in a-day-in-the-life fashion of the titular character Tommy Norris (Thornton) as an oil company crisis executive chain-smoking his way from one all-consuming issue to another, as he faces the unpredictability of the oil industry.
The first two episodes, released during the premiere weekend, waste no time delving into the literal and figurative fires that Norris must confront each day he teeters precipitously between the boon of capital gains and the sobering catastrophic crises that, no doubt, come with this inherently dangerous work, and that’s just on Monday. In the span of five minutes, our anti-hero is at-once a negotiator, a fixer, a therapist, and a walking encyclopedia of market-driven economics, oil rig mechanics, and even cancer rate statistics of Asian populations.
And, not necessarily in that order.
With his hardened-by-life exterior, Tommy serves as the brutally no-nonsense landman for M Tex Oil conglomerate headed by Monty Miller (Jon Hamm). Day-to-day, his work is varied and thankless — from negotiating a service lease agreement with Mexican drug runners while being held their captive to assessing his company’s liability in a brutal clean up of a roadway drug plane/oil tanker collision, all while balancing the needs of his broken family as the wise old patriarch, giving hard truth advice to his coming-of-age son and daughter, as he tries desperately to overlook the repressed sexual tension that remains with his bombshell ex-wife, Angela (Larter). Though, I have to really question the parental skills of any father letting his daughter throw away Whataburger fries! C’mon now. If you know, you know.
Known for bringing a sense of authenticity to his roles, Thornton portrays yet another beautifully nuanced yet flawed, complex individual, who is both relatable and genuine, despite his acerbic personality spraying over you like kerosene.
For those who may not know, Landman succeeds in painting a fairly accurate portrait of the dynamic life in a West Texas oil town, shaped by the ebb and flow of the industry, that gives its existence both purposeful stature and relevance.
Played out, at times, in voiceover narration and heavy on the cinematic drone flyovers of sprawling Texas landscape and urban skylines, the oil field life montages set to country music, do their best to showcase the rugged Individualism of the region and a culture that tends to celebrate self-reliance and hard work, with many residents taking pride in their connection to the land and the oil industry.
The latter is represented onscreen in the roughneck crew Tommy’s son Cooper (Jacob Lofland of Maze Runner fame) is assigned to by his father to learn the ways of the oil industry force.
In foreshadowing detail over an impromptu barbecue of tongue-on-fire Carne Asada tacos, the young Norris is schooled by the Medina Family on the grueling work, yet impressive financial payoff, that comes with life out West “working the patch.” No sooner than Cooper hears these words does he fully comprehend their lesson when he is left as a crew “orphan” day two of his devastating indoctrination into the life of a roughneck.
Nevertheless, the stark realities of the brutal life in the oil field are permentatly etched in the mind as the elder Norris tells the city slicker corporate attorney sent to handle the inevitable litigation cases stemming from the dumpster fires piling up — there’s simply “no time to grieve; no time to mourn,” in this world. Welcome to the Patch.
Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, Landman drops new episodes Sundays on Paramount+ through January 2025.
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