{"id":2160044,"date":"2025-11-16T13:36:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T13:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2160044"},"modified":"2025-11-16T13:36:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T13:36:05","slug":"landman-season-2-episode-1-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/landman-season-2-episode-1-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Landman’ Season 2 Episode 1 Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The following story contains spoilers for Landman <\/em>season 2, episode 1, “Death and a Sunset.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

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LANDMAN <\/em>WANTS YOU <\/strong>to know that being a petroleum landman in 2025 will drive you headlong toward alcohol. Even if, like Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton, somehow looking even more hungover this season), your liver is begging for you to put the Michelob Ultra down for good. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely gonna have to start drinking again,\u201d Norris says to no one, reemphasizing a line from season one\u2019s finale as he attempts, again, to duck away from the swirl of work and family drama that consume him (not to mention the Anthony Garcia-led cartel hovering in the background). <\/p>\n

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But if last season\u2019s bow went more There Will Be Blood<\/a> <\/em>than conference room dealmaking, then \u201cDeath and a Sunset,\u201d despite the episode title, reverts to, well, a lot of conference room table-setting.<\/p>\n

Stream Landman <\/em>Here<\/a><\/p>\n

Cami Goes for the Kill<\/h2>\n
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Emerson Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

What\u2019s on the table? First, our landman Tommy is no longer just a landman, having been officially anointed president of M-Tex Oil by Jon Hamm<\/a>\u2014err, I mean Monty Miller\u2014on his deathbed. The main dilemma, which Tommy only tends to after paying a busboy to fetch him cigarettes at dawn (apparently he\u2019ll smoke \u201canything but menthol or those little skinny ones,\u201d which doesn\u2019t seem in keeping with the character\u2019s single-mindedness, but we\u2019ll give co-creator and episode writer Taylor Sheridan a pass on this one and guess that Paramount didn\u2019t want to cut a product placement deal with Big Tobacco on a show that\u2019s already about Big Oil): How to quell the worries of M-Tex Oil\u2019s business partners in light of Monty\u2019s untimely death (which proved once and for all that an Apple Watch\u2019s health metrics will not save you). Following his death, Monty’s wife, Demi Moore\u2019s Cami Miller, gained full ownership of the company. <\/p>\n

All the hubbub goes down, naturally, at a high-end West Texas hotel. One such skeptical M-Tex Oil partner is apparently as undiscerning in his vices as Tommy, ordering a whiskey double and telling the waitress \u201cI couldn\u2019t care less, honey\u201d when asked for his preference. (Not that everything in Landman <\/em>has to be pure realism, but who wants to do business with a guy who will pay $30 for bottom-shelf moonshine?) <\/p>\n

Anyway, they should all shut up, because a trophy wife Cami\u2014and Moore\u2014is not. Both character and actress don\u2019t let us forget it, to breathless effect. After reapplying lipstick in what can only be a subtle wink to The Substance<\/em>\u2019s memorable makeup-smearing meltdown scene, and being insulted by two younger cluelessly bitchy oil biz groupies in the bathroom, Cami ascends the stage at the company luncheon to show everyone what true corporate cold-bloodedness looks like. She threatens to steamroll her competitors while reaping the fortunes of the new oil boom, then encourages the crowd to enjoy their meal, \u201cwhich I bought with your money.\u201d Quick, somebody call Oliver Stone, because suddenly a Moore-starring Wall Street <\/em>reboot is exactly what I need. She might as well have smashed the heel of her Louboutin into the S&P 500. <\/p>\n

Props to Sheridan for giving us a female character who is at least as savage as any of the boys on the screen.<\/p>\n

Ainsley\u2019s College Cheerleading Gets $2,800 Cacio e Pepe<\/h2>\n
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Emerson Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Other than that, the most pure fun in this episode comes courtesy of Tommy\u2019s always active domestic life. Ainsley visits her new college of choice, Texas Christian University, apparently after ditching previous pick Texas Tech University as soon as she remembered it was tainted by the attendance of her scrawny brother Cooper (Jacob Lofland). She wastes no time in shocking an admissions administrator by making an argument for football-player-and-cheerleader eugenics, but she already has priority acceptance thanks to said cheerleading, so she gets to keep the purple pom-poms. <\/p>\n

The whole family celebrates with a lavish dinner cooked by matriarch Angela Norris (an always amusingly tongue-in-cheek Ali Larter). Angela has lovingly prepared cacio e pepe with $2,800 white truffle (which would mean she bought a lot <\/em>of white truffle<\/u><\/a>) that she hilariously shaves onto the plate of everyone except Ainsley, the ostensible honoree, because we all know her palate doesn\u2019t deserve the added expense.<\/p>\n

Cooper Strikes His Own Oil<\/h2>\n
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Emerson Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

But all Tommy can talk about are the \u201cwonky hormones\u201d produced by Angela\u2019s period, thereby further enraging those hormones until the whole dinner erupts into Mom throwing plates against the wall. So Cooper will have to wait to talk to Dad about the fact that he\u2019s struck oil to the tune of $10 million a year in future profits, which girlfriend Ariana (Paulina Chavez) seems oddly indifferent to. That being said, I would probably also be distracted if I was forced to bring my crying baby to an oil drilling site.<\/p>\n

Sam Elliott Enters as One Summabitch<\/h2>\n
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Emerson Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Maybe the menstruation-negging was all strategy, because Tommy and Angela end up on the floor making out and having almost-sex, until he\u2019s interrupted by a call. Somebody better have died to stop this action, Angela protests. And indeed somebody did: his mother Dorothy, who also happens to be the wife of Tommy\u2019s father T.L., both of whom we knew nothing about until now. <\/p>\n

Better late than never, since in a separate scene, T.L. shows up embodied by none other than 81-year-old mustache icon and acting legend Sam Elliott<\/a>. T.L.\u2019s dedicated sunset gazing is rudely interrupted by a retirement facility aid and the news of his wife\u2019s passing, causing him to deliver an expletive-filled, declarative tirade. Evidently the apple\u2014or the summabitch\u2014doesn\u2019t fall far from the tree, and we can\u2019t wait to see what Elliott does with it. <\/p>\n

But for now we\u2019ll take this perfectly Taylor Sheridan-y revelation from T.L., which could sum up this whole bitterly loveable neo-Western drama series: \u201cI recommend you find a way to die quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notes from the Patch<\/h2>\n
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\"billy<\/p>\n

Emerson Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n