From ‘breastaurants’ to clashes with brutal drug lords, the true stories behind Jeremy Clarkson’s favourite show Landman
MOVE over Dallas, an anti-woke TV show is revealing the risky and raunchy side of the Texas oil business.
Landman was described by Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson as “the best thing I’ve seen on television in years” and is the most watched series on the Paramount+ streaming service.
In the first episode alone, oil workers are blown up, a cocaine-laden plane crashes into a truck and a bikini-clad blonde sells coffee from a drive-thru named Babes And Brew.
While this might sound like a work of fiction, much of the show’s storyline was inspired by real events.
The multibillion-dollar oil industry has brought “breastaurants” to Texas, clashes with brutal drug lords and the deaths of more than 200 workers in just five years.
The series revolves around Billy Bob Thornton’s “landman” Tommy Norris, whose job it is to secure drilling rights and to make sure the black gold keeps pumping.
It also features Mad Men star Jon Hamm and recent Golden Globe winner Demi Moore.
The series was written for Billy Bob, 69, who was Oscar-nominated for A Simple Plan and whose six marriages include one to Angelina Jolie.
His character is the type of guy who throws a half-smoked cigarette in a swimming pool, drinks at lunch because “it’s Friday for somebody somewhere” and says things like: “It’s easier than selling p***y in a men’s prison.”
Billy Bob says of the real-life landmen: “I have met them. If you’re in that world, it’s a dangerous business. You understand the risk involved.”
‘Drill, baby, drill’
Thanks to 1980s soap opera Dallas, the US state of Texas has long been known throughout the world for its oil.
The first well was drilled in 1921 and by 1973 two million barrels were being produced every day.
But at the turn of this century it seemed like the much-valued commodity was drying up.
That was until improvements in fracking allowed prospectors to tap into new reserves and by 2019 the Permian Basin, which also reaches into neighbouring New Mexico, was providing 40 per cent of the US’s oil.
The biggest deposits are near the city of Midland, Texas, the area in which Landman is set.
With new US President Donald Trump promising to “drill, baby, drill” production is sure to go up.
The dangerous nature of working with a highly combustible substance means that “roughneck” oil workers can earn around £150,000 a year.
Many of these young men don’t have families and that has led to a rise in the local sex industry.
There are strip clubs and prostitutes, but also milder forms of adult entertainment.
A podcast called Boomtown, which inspired the TV show, talks about “breastaurants”, where scantily clad female staff serve food.
One in Odessa, the city adjoining Midland, has a back room called Club Crude and a sign reading “Odessa: No Dry Holes”.
The coffee shop Boomtown Babes, which promises “our bikini baristas take the espresso experience to a whole other level”, features in Landman.
They have little pink drive-thru huts to serve workers at all times of the day.
Both Demi and Ali Larter, who plays Tommy’s ex Angela, parade in revealing clothes in the series.
It brings back the kind of glam to TV that was seen on screen in Dallas in the less politically correct Eighties.
Billy Bob says you’ll find that type of woman in Texas, commenting: “It’s hard to look that good, but some of ’em do.”
The reason roughnecks pull in such high wages is that death is an occupational hazard.
Figures released in 2023 revealed that 219 oil and gas industry employees died between 2014 and 2019.
That was more than four times higher than the total in the next most fatality-prone state — Oklahoma.
The biggest cause of death was being hit by an object, such as a wrench from one of the tall rigs.
A restaurant in Odessa has a back room called Club Crude with a sign ‘Odessa: No Dry Holes’. Coffee shop Boomtown Babes promises to ‘take your espresso experience to a new level’
But the kind of explosion seen early on in Landman is also a reality. In 2015 three men from the same family were killed at a well near Midland.
Talking about the terrible deaths in the show, Hamm, who plays Tommy’s boss Monty Miller, says: “We forget that in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, this is the consequence.
“We’ve seen all season the danger of what these guys do in ‘the Patch’.”
Christian Wallace, who co-wrote Landman and created the Boomtown podcast, used to work in the oil fields, as did his relatives.
A journalist on Texan Monthly mag, he used stories he’d heard for the script.
He said: “Some of the scenes are directly from that, such as the pipe crushing scene.
‘Scene from Mad Max’
“That’s a real story that I heard from my uncle growing up. It was a pipe rack that fell on the victim and not pipes, but he really did call his wife before he passed away.”
One of the other dangers is travelling along Route 285, which has been nicknamed Death Highway, due to the number of crashes.
Christian said: “Now that it’s become the nation’s, and perhaps the world’s, most critical artery for crude oil, it looks like a scene from Mad Max.”
The southern part of the highway saw ten people lose their lives between 2015 and 2019.
Also travelling along those roads are the illegal substances carried over the border from Mexico.
Earlier this year a smuggler’s tunnel was found in El Paso, and in July Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was captured in the same Texan city.
Illegal substances
Christian said: “I didn’t address the cartel issues very much in the podcast, but drug trafficking is a real issue through that region.
“There’s oil theft, there’s equipment theft. It is kind of the Wild West.
In the TV series Billy Bob’s character has to deal with the Mexican gangsters, one of his crew dying and an aeroplane being stolen.
It is unlikely a real-life landman would have so much on his plate, but their job is to make sure operations run smoothly by dealing with the law, landowners and local residents.
Clarkson wrote that he loved the series because there was “not even a hint of political correctness”.
And certainly, Billy Bob’s character is a non-nonsense Texan who does not care who he offends. But he shares the insults equally, making rude remarks to a police officer, a landowner and a lawyer alike.
‘Clean’ energy
One scene from the series which went viral was when Tommy delivered a monologue about “clean” energy.
The scientific consensus is that burning petroleum is one of the chief causes of Earth’s rising temperatures.
But Billy Bob’s character points out that the lithium batteries powering electric cars are not clean and that wind turbines come with a significant carbon footprint.
Tommy also says that oil is in “tennis rackets, lipstick, refrigerators, antihistamines, pretty much anything plastic.”
The actor, though, does not think Landman is defending the petroleum industry.
He said: “It’s not a politicised series. It’s neither for nor against.
“It tells the details, the ups and downs, the bad side and the ugly side of the oil business.”
There is no word yet whether there will be a second series of Landman.
But given its popularity, it seems likely that co-creator Taylor Sheridan, who is best known for making TV hit Yellowstone, will write another one.
The anti-woke audience is clearly out there. Billy Bob, who also starred in Armageddon and Bad Santa, said: “I’ve been in some iconic movies over the years where the response has been pretty big.
“But I’ve never seen anything like this. I have people coming up to me every day, everywhere I go, reciting lines. We’re blown away by it, in other words.”
- Landman is out on Paramount+ now.