Don’t ever accuse Billy Bob Thornton of not being able to Billy Bob Thornton his way out of a burlap sack. Especially with Taylor Sheridan’s particular brand of writing on his side. This is where we begin with Landman, Sheridan‘s first project post-Yellowstone, a Texas oil biz drama which he writes and directs while sharing executive producer duties with Christian Wallace, host of the Boomtown podcast from which it is adapted. For Tommy Norris (Thornton), that his present situation could kill him is just another problem to overcome. Lots of things in the Permian Basin oil patch kill. These cartel guys holding Tommy, who sits shrouded and bound to a hardback chair in a sweltering Quonset hut? They’re gonna need to get in line.
From inside the sack, Tommy tells Jimenez (Alex Meraz), the cartel boss, how things are. Yes, the criminal group legitimately owns the land out here. But M-TEX, the oil company Tommy works for as its manager on the ground – the designated “landman” for M-TEX boss Monty Miller (Jon Hamm) – they own the rights. And with those rights they’ll extract wealth from beneath the ground at a rate of six million dollars a day for the next 50 years. The sheer scale of it overpowers any other interest, no matter its influence, no matter its legality. And in this boomtown moment, almost anything goes. “Here’s the deal,” Tommy tells the cartel. “And it’s the only deal. You don’t fuck with our product, we don’t fuck with yours.”
Not only does Tommy get his message across – he survives, and celebrates by sucking down a few Michelob Ultras in his work truck, chased with chain-smoked cigarettes. And six months later, the cartel’s understanding of the deal is revealed when they land a private plane (stolen from M-TEX) on a road (built by M-TEX) to unload a shipment (illegal drugs from Mexico). The deal would have worked, and they might have even “returned” the plane. Until a tanker from TTP, a competing oil company, barreled down the road instead, and cleaved the plane into two burning halves.
While Tommy deals with the aftermath of a fireball – it’s a mess, he tells petroleum engineer Dale (James Jordan) and oil & gas attorney Nathan (Colm Feore), his roommates at the corporate housing rental; but at least their stolen plane has been found – it’s the first day in the patch for Tommy’s son Cooper Norris (Jacob Lofland), who left college to work in this dangerous place. Cooper’s on-the-job training begins as Luis (Emilio Rivera) and his nephews Armando (Michael Peña) and Elvio (Alejandro Akara) pick him up from his residence pod in the M-TEX man camp. Cue a Sheridan-O-Verse favorite: an exaltation-of-work sequence, set to music, that switches out “cowboy shit” for “roughneck shit.”
As Landman sets up the day-to-day of Tommy’s life, it also seeks to disturb it. Not just with the loveable domestic crassness of Dale, played by Taylor Sheridan regular James Jordan. (What’s up, Two Cups?) But with Angela (Ali Larter), the ex-wife he still calls “honey,” and the arrival in Midland of their high school senior daughter Ainsley. (Ainsley is played by Michelle Randolph, another member of the Taylor Sheridan Players). Tommy and Angela’s relationship is sarcastic, combative, and also weirdly like they’re still married; “as wrong as we were for each other,” Tommy tells Ainsley, “I loved her. Shit, I still love her.” But there’s also the stress of a father dealing with the emerging sex life of his daughter, who shows up in town with her BMOC jock boyfriend.
As the rookie “worm” on their crew, Cooper’s roughneck training involves as much jobsite hazing as it does acculturation. So he experiences how even getting coffee in the morning is an exercise in gendered boomtown opportunism. (“Babes N Brew,” where young women in bikinis operate a kiosk drive-thru for a line of oil biz pickups two blocks long.) But he wins over his new crew with eagerness – “He didn’t say no, and he tries – that’s something,” Luis reports to Tommy – and when they’re back at the man camp, Armando and Elvio share their food and teach him some Spanish. These are guys who accept the daily risk of their work environment because of what it gives: a real salary. A living wage, where a kid in his 20s like Elvio can get married to Ariana (Paulina Chavez), buy a house, have a baby, and pay off his truck.
In this oil & gas boomtown, the work is as honest as you make it. And so Cooper heads out for his next shift on a pumpjack work crew, and stands by as Luis, Armando, and Elvio fight with a rusted-over valve, banging on the unit with a hammer. This pipe is under pressure, and its seals are aging. (Keeping equipment operating, so it will continue to generate revenue, is at the heart of the job description for M-TEX people like Tommy, Dale, and the four-man work crews.) Cooper is sent to the truck for a larger-gauge wrench. And that’s when one more strike to the pipe causes one too many sparks. The second fireball in this lead episode of Landman is a monstrous gout of flame that engulfs the pumpjack and takes the lives of three men in less than a second. Cooper, who was returning with the wrench they asked for, is thrown from his feet and knocked unconscious. On his second day on the job, Cooper has learned the most harsh lesson: in the Permian Basin oil patch, lots of things kill.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
