Landman Recap: The Rules of the Game

Maybe I should adjust my rating scale for this season of Landman, because I’m quite enjoying myself! The show’s pacing isn’t perfect, but it’s finding a decent groove by juggling a few solid character-centered stories and dialing up the crises at M-Tex. I’m certainly more entertained (and emotionally invested) than I was for those last couple of Yellowstone seasons.

We’re halfway through the season now, and M-Tex finds itself in quite a few sticky situations, starting with the driver in the pickup from last week’s cold open. The man had already committed suicide before the M-Tex truck hit him, but that doesn’t mean a lawsuit is out of the question. Another still-present cause for concern: the H2S leak at one of the company’s abandoned pump jacks that left multiple hunters dead.

But by far the most pressing and prominent mess is the one left behind by Monty. The missing $400 million is still a major problem — and despite Rebecca’s impressive bluster a few weeks back, the attorneys at the insurance company suing M-Tex are digging their heels in, insisting the new rig start operations in the next 45 days. They’ll require weekly progress reports to ensure M-Tex is cooperating, and if it doesn’t happen, a grand jury will determine the company’s future. Heads will roll (or at least a lot of people will lose a lot of money) for embezzlement, insurance fraud, and wire fraud.

So finding the money is imperative. But there are no great solutions, as we see in another somewhat confusing but narratively important scene where Tommy, Cami, Nate, and Alan discuss the particulars of their predicament. To make a long story short, the missing money was shifted to an insurance company (and Monty maxed out coverage on the house and planes) to avoid paying any income tax. Currently, the money is invested in private equity funds, and it can’t just be pulled out now; withdrawing before the funds are called would mean a huge loss. So Cami has the money, but she can’t access it.

Alan’s realistic suggestion for Cami is to file for bankruptcy. Sure, she’d lose the company, along with some leases and royalties from mineral rights. But her debt would be wiped clean. She could even pivot to the insurance business and buy back her planes from the bank. As you might expect based on that forceful speech from the season premiere, though, Cami isn’t keen on the idea of losing everything her husband worked so hard for — and losing her own opportunity to blossom as a businesswoman. She’d rather get the money to drill from Danny Morrell and keep M-Tex afloat.

This is not music to Tommy’s ears. He already paid an unpleasant visit to Danny early in the episode to inform him that M-Tex bought Cooper’s leases and will pay any debts, and Danny didn’t love that. But I appreciate that neither the script nor Andy Garcia’s performance leans into the cartel boss’s rage too much. Sure, he yells that he’s “the fucking solution” to M-Tex’s money problems, but the subtext of his words is more “why won’t you love me?” than “I will kill you.” He just wants to partner up! Come on, Tommy, this could be a great bromance.

The real payoff to this conflict is the big fight between Tommy and Cami. Even after he privately explains M-Tex’s recent history with the cartel and lets her in on Danny’s real background, she doesn’t change her mind. She’s willing to risk looking like the cartel’s premier money launderer if it means holding onto the company and her husband’s legacy. Tommy and Cami’s friendship is one of the show’s most complex and refreshing dynamics, so this blow-up actually has weight behind it, especially with her final insistence: “From now on, meetings come to me.” It’s another great scene for Demi Moore, the easy MVP of the season so far.

We’re finally getting into the meat of this season’s overarching storyline, but a big part of Landman (and most Taylor Sheridan productions) is the smaller-scale domestic drama, which is also working decently well so far. Look, Cooper and Ariana have never been the most entertaining part of the show for me, but it makes sense that these two would get serious and talk about marriage now, even if it’s extremely early. Ariana is very keen for Cooper to prove himself as a gentleman, so she wants to be asked properly after Cooper gets her dad’s approval. It’s 2025, though, even in Taylor Sheridan’s America, so Cooper doesn’t actually need his permission in the end. (It was just a test.) His future father-in-law just asks that he not die. Ariana has already experienced a lot of loss, and her mother has cancer. She needs a break.

More upsettingly, Cooper’s get-rich-quick plans are already dying. He used M-Tex’s name to talk the crews into drilling, so now M-Tex has received $44 million in invoices. Sonrisa’s loan doesn’t cover all these bills; in theory, he’d make money eventually from the oil, but more likely Sonrisa would foreclose on his leases and flip them, leaving him with nothing. So Tommy will buy the leases, cover costs, and hire Cooper back on to run a crew and learn the ins and outs of business. This is a pretty huge life change for a guy who thought he would be rolling in dough like Huell Babineaux before the month was out, but the news barely seems to rattle Cooper, I guess because marrying Ariana is all that really matters.

Most impressively of all, “The Pirate Dinner” is another episode that manages to make Angela and Ainsley tolerable. As a welcome dinner for T.L., Angela decides to make his death row meal: seafood boil. And what does shellfish make us all think of? Pirates! Thus, the “pirate dinner” theme that keeps confusing Tommy.

If T.L. serves a specific purpose in the plot, that’s still unclear. But it makes sense that he’d get some time in this episode to relax and adjust to living with the Norris clan (including Dale and Nate). He even forms a little bond with Ainsley’s friend, their neighbor Shelby (played by Audrey McGraw, daughter of 1883 stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill). I’m not totally sure why that scene exists or why we see him bring Shelby up to Ainsley later, but for now I suppose it’s a nice touch.

The most moving moment of the episode for me might be T.L.’s reaction to Angela and Ainsley’s conversation (shit-talking Nate). He’s overwhelmed and happy just to witness the hustle and bustle of domestic life, to see people who are “happy with each other.” And that feeling continues in the tender final scene, when Tommy finally arrives home after his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I was getting ready to complain about how little we see of the titular pirate dinner throughout this episode, but maybe the event isn’t important in and of itself. Maybe what matters is that this is a safe haven where Tommy can come after a crisis — a safe haven that T.L. is discovering, too. Tommy might call this “the Broadway misery musical of my life,” but we see how delighted he is by Angela’s (and even Rebecca’s!) commitment to the bit. In the final shot, surrounded by the people he loves the most, he’s beaming.

Boomtown

• Before the pirate dinner, we get a “surprise” (in quotes because Angela knows it’s coming) “birthday party” (in quotes because it’s nowhere near Angela’s birthday) at the nursing home. This is kind of a throwaway scene with more of the usual “old people are sexual, too!?” comedy — Angela is gifted multiple sex toys, and she learns that her elderly friends found the “naughty channels” recently — and I would’ve rather just spent more time on the dinner.

• Tommy visits Jerrell in the hospital, but this time we don’t even see it on screen.

• “You look just like her.” “Like who?” Come on, Ainsley, who do you think?

• No explicit mention of Rebecca’s one-day stand with Charlie, so we’ll have to wait to see what purpose he served.

• Tommy says he shattered his nose on a derrick mast at 30 and has no sense of smell or tastes. Does that square with what we know about him? I feel like he’s always talking about the taste of beer.

• We get a break from the Michelob Ultra product placement this week with multiple shout-outs to EIGHT, Troy Aikman’s beer.

• Tommy leaves Ariana a huge tip, so that’s nice.