Review: The ‘Landman’ Season 2 Finale Is Wild, Bold, and Weirdly Aspirational

The fantasy of Taylor Sheridan's TV shows is rooted in characters having cool speeches. Seriously. In the Landman Season 2 finale, Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) and the extended Norris clan get to say things that are clear, to the point, persuasive, true, and ultimately badass. And in saying those things, these people change their lives for the better. It's a world in which people get to say things like "today we win," and it doesn't feel fake because, god damnit, they do win. Who wouldn't want to live like that? Is it even possible?

If Landman weren't a fictional TV show based on some real oil companies in Texas, the finale would make you think it was a self-help program designed to motivate you to live your best life and never believe in the no-win scenario. The trick isn't that the Landman Season 2 finale disguises its corniness; it's just brilliantly corny on purpose. Spoilers ahead.

What Happened in the Landman Season 2 Finale?

The Landman Season 2 finale was, in essence, one very long day for Tommy Norris, as he attempted to solve several problems at once: He's been fired from MTex, his son, Cooper (Jacob Lofland), has been accused of murder, and he has to figure out how to make a deal with Gallino (Andy Garcia), which will put him connected to a borderline criminal for the foreseable future.

The final episode also touches on how Ainsley Norris (Michelle Randolph) is dealing with college, and what Ariana (Paulina Chávez) and Cooper will do with their future.

And that's where all the big speeches come in. Tommy gives no-bullshit speeches to the cops, to Gallino, to his wife Angela (Ali Larter), and even to God. Superstar lawyer Rebecca (Kayla Wallace), schools the police, Jacob lays out how he sees the future for Ariana, and even Ainsley tells some bullies to go to hell. In nearly every single scene, an impossible or thorny problem is fixed by the heroes of the Norris clan talking straight and being smarter than everyone else.

How did Landman Season 2 End?

The aspirational quality of the Landman Season 2 finale is everything, and it's perfectly exemplified by the very end. Tommy's final plan is basically to just start a brand new oil company, using his son's super successful oil wells as the basis for the starting profits. On paper, this sounds maybe a little bit dull; a show about an oilman and his family has a big finale in which he gets a new oil business.

But this is where the audacity of Landman works in ways it probably shouldn't. Through sheer, relentless force of will, Tommy gets what he wants, and each of his speeches turns what could be boring wheeling and dealing into epic, heroic moments. Thornton delivers each of his monologues with such moxie that he could be reading his grocery list, and you would think it was amazing.

This is the power of Landman. It turns the ordinary into a massive adventure and makes real-world challenges into triumphs. The end of the episode finds Tommy in a celebratory mood, but telling Angela that he knows tragedy is coming, because that's the nature of time and getting older. He sees a coyote on the horizon and says, "You can't have today. Today is mine."

That's what Landman was saying in the end: The bad stuff might be coming, but you have to celebrate any victory you get. It's life-affirming with a good dose of schmaltz, but only a true hater would say it didn't work perfectly.

Is Landman Season 3 Coming?

There will be a Landman Season 3 at some point in the future. Right now, not much is known about it, but when Men's Journal spoke to Billy Bob Thornton in late 2025, he predicted this: "I have a feeling a lot of things are really going to ramp up [in Season 3]. Because the first season was so full of action stuff and danger. The second season was full of the family and business relationships. It’s just a guess, but I’d imagine things will come to a head."

There's no release date for Landman Season 3 yet. Both Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Paramount+.