Taylor Sheridan’s Best New Series Takes A Major Step Backwards

Many of Taylor Sheridan’s shows find their debut seasons on the rockier side as they find their footing, but Landman was such a welcome change of pace. The exploration of the West Texas oil business through the lens of Billy Bob Thornton’s stretched-thin industry veteran, Tommy Norris, was the funniest of Sheridan’s lineup, even as it mixed in some genuine stakes for its characters.

Landman season 1 wasn’t perfect, either. The hypersexualization of Tommy’s 17-year-old daughter Ainsley, played by 1923 vet Michelle Randolph, was increasingly off-putting as the season progressed, while Ali Larter’s Angela Norris, Tommy’s on-again/off-again wife, too often felt like an over-the-top version of a Texas-set Real Housewives cast member. One of the biggest sins was having a killer performer like Demi Moore relegated to less than a full episode’s worth of screentime and minimal dialogue.

Coming into Landman season 2, the story thread lingering from season 1 certainly paved the way for some improvements in its storytelling and characters. In the wake of the death of Jon Hamm’s Monty, Moore’s Cami Miller finds herself in a bigger position of power, while Ainsley graduating from high school means her more mature storylines would feel a little easier to invest in.

From the jump, though, season 2 finds itself on rocky ground (at least based on the first two episodes provided for review). Moore’s larger role definitely comes as a welcome change from the show’s first season, but many other characters are either stuck in the same tired storylines, or going backward in a way that makes this outing a mixed bag.

Demi Moore Finally Has An Actual Role In Landman Season 2

Moore’s so-called “role” in season 1 came at an interesting point for her as she kicked off her onscreen acting resurgence that same year with Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans and continued with Sheridan’s series and her Oscar-nominated turn in The Substance. Unlike these other roles, Cami might as well have been arm candy for Hamm’s character, with her most involved work being her worry about Monty’s declining health.

While it’s unclear if Sheridan always intended a proper arc for her this season, or learned from season 1 critiques, it is nonetheless such a refreshing change to see Moore get a proper spotlight in Landman season 2. We get a better sense of her self-reliance and ruthless business acumen as she faces a banquet room full of bankers ready to pounce on her company in the wake of Monty’s debts and death, delivering a speech eviscerating them and the young women who tried to emotionally tear her down moments before.

Even as the first couple of episodes keep Thornton in the spotlight and establish what he and his family’s latest string of conflicts are, Sheridan never fully lets Moore’s presence be forgotten, nor does he let her be the atypical grieving widow. While we certainly get glimpses of her continued heartbreak and struggle to process Monty’s death, she doesn’t rest on her laurels as she immerses herself in the company in fascinating ways.

Sheridan Forgot Women Don’t Have To Be Nagging Worrywarts?

Despite all the steps to improve Moore’s character this season, one area that Sheridan and his writing team have chosen to unfortunately double down on is how inconsequential many of the other female characters are in season 2. One thing that wowed me about Yellowstone‘s five-season run was just how well-rounded its female characters were, even beyond Kelly Reilly’s Beth, never solely serving as a victim or antagonist to their male counterparts.

A few of Landman‘s key female characters in season 1 weren’t given all that much to do, making the show feel like a very machismo-driven effort, apart from Paulina Chavez’s Ariana and Kayla Wallace’s Rebecca. Coming into season 2, the latter continues to prove a firm contender for the men, holding her own in everything from litigation meetings in which she’s unfamiliar with the territory, or phone calls in which she’s condescended to by those around her, with Wallace bringing a sharp wit and presence to every scene.

For Ariana, though, she’s undergone something of a character assassination in the gap between seasons 1 and 2. Chavez continues to give a compassionate performance for her widowed single mother, but, without getting into spoilers, her and Cooper’s relationship has taken an unexpected turn since we last saw them; it feels too jarring and is more tell than show.

Ali Larter’s Angela, however, remains a problem in the way she’s written. That’s not to say she’s not playing the role well, as it’s really Larter’s performance that keeps Angela from feeling like a character who needs to be cut out right away. And yet, even with everything that happened in season 1, and the little bit of growth she showcased, all of it has been thrown out, as the writing has regressed her to a nagging trophy wife caricature.

The fact that so much of the first episode is about her and Tommy’s disagreement about needing a realtor to look for a place in Fort Worth to live near Ainsley as she attends college feels so misogynistic in the way it plays out. Tommy not only fails to come up with any justified reason why they shouldn’t move, but also complains to anyone who will listen that she’s simply on her menstrual cycle, and therefore should just wait it out for her to change her mind about moving.

Exploding into a stereotypical dinner-disrupting fight, followed by sexual reconciling, Sheridan seems to not only have no interest in allowing Angela to grow, but is content with making his male characters the more emotionally level-headed ones of the series. No more evident is that than in Angela’s retort to Tommy’s concept of skipping the “crazy” and going right to sex, pondering “Where’s the fun in that?” I couldn’t agree less, as toxicity isn’t needed for a relationship to be fun.

Season 2’s New Characters Make For Some Solid Worldbuilding

While the first two episodes provided didn’t quite capture me the way season 1 did, season 2 has at least laid out some interesting paths forward with the introductions of a few new characters. Sam Elliott, already a Sheridan vet after being one of the leads in the Yellowstone prequel 1883, joins this season as Tommy’s estranged father, who lives in an assisted living facility.

Much of the first two episodes fail to necessarily establish any genuine emotional stakes for its characters until Elliott shows up onscreen, pondering the way he’s lived his life as he’s given some heartrending news that further hammers home his existential quandary. The Oscar nominee brings such a fascinating depth to his heartbreak that it made him all the more compelling to watch, and left me eager to see more of him and Tommy together.

Though not technically a new character, Andy Garcia is a welcome new player. Having made a cameo appearance in the season 1 finale to set up bigger things between his character, Gallino, and Tommy, he proves a menacing presence this time around, particularly as he gets more deeply involved in business with someone else close to Tommy, creating a real range of stakes for Thornton’s character going into the rest of the season.

Landman season 2 premieres on Paramount+ on November 16.

Release Date

November 17, 2024

Writers

Taylor Sheridan, Christian Wallace

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  Billy Bob Thornton

  Tommy Norris

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Pros & Cons

• The new characters create some exciting new conflicts for Tommy and co.
• Demi Moore gets a much better and more well-rounded role this season.
• Much of the humor remains effective.

• Many of the female characters continue to lack growth or better characterizations.
• Ali Larter’s Angela, in particular, is an atrocious trophy wife caricature.