With so many TV shows coming out each month, it takes a really big deal to win over audiences and keep them coming back. Though Landman has one major reason why people started watching it in the first place—Taylor Sheridan—plenty of other reasons made the viewers come back each week and find out more about the interesting world of oil.
Overall, though, Landman succeeded by combining Sheridan’s proven storytelling strengths with a fresh, relevant setting, exceptional performances, and great cinematography. Since Sheridan’s been expanding the Yellowstone world for a while, people found it refreshing to watch his work in other contexts, too. Here’s more about all the reasons why Landman has been so popular with audiences and why season 2 is expected to have stellar viewership.
6
Billy Bob Thornton’s Star Power
But Also the Outstanding Ensemble Cast
There’s no denying that the star of the show is its lead actor, Billy Bob Thornton. Portraying a complex, often tired, never-wired, morally ambiguous but still very honest and decent landman, Tommy Norris, Thornton tapped into the parts of the human brain that find show characters relatable and enjoyable to watch. Tommy, and Thornton himself, are also often unintentionally funny, proving he has a brilliant sense of humor and some self-awareness, too. He is the second main reason why people opted for watching Landman; Thornton is rare on TV but always welcome.
Still, let’s not dismiss the importance of the rest of the ensemble cast. Jon Hamm, Ali Larter, James Jordan, and Demi Moore are just some of the bigger names starring in the show; it’s also full of fresh faces that are bound to get more roles soon enough, like Jacob Lofland, Michelle Randolph, and the superb Kayla Wallace, who plays the lawyer Rebecca Falcone in Landman. These people help complete an image of the oil business from the perspectives of those at the top to those at the very bottom of the oiling totem pole. The main cast also has brilliant chemistry, such as Larter and Thornton, who play an on-and-off couple that can’t seem to be away from each other for long.
5
It’s a Fresh, Authentic Look at the American Oil Industry
Including More of Its Challenges Than Benefits
Landman was not written only by Taylor Sheridan. He co-created the show with Christian Wallace, the author of the acclaimed podcast called Boomtown, which focuses on the oil industry. The show took inspiration from Wallace’s stories and created a brilliant insight into the complex world of land deals, drilling rights, and production. It’s technically accurate and written in a way that’s accessible to viewers from all walks of life; this isn’t the first time Sheridan dove deep into a topic when writing something. Sicario was written after Sheridan dug deep into the hierarchy of law enforcement and drug wars across the country and in Mexico, as an example.
What’s really powerful about Landman, though, is the complete coverage of individuals who work in the oil industry, from the perpetually stressed-out CEO of an oil company, Monty Miller (Hamm), right down to the roughnecks living paycheck-to-paycheck, getting their hands dirty and risking their lives daily for another’s profit. Visually, too, the entire hue of the show is yellowish, meant to evoke the heat of the sweltering Texas sun and deserts; the drilling rigs look greasy and complex, and the workers look tired. There’s not just brokerage and negotiations about oil, which are the parts we know about; there’s waking up at the crack of dawn, picking up coffee from bikini-wearing baristas, and staying at the rig until sunset to make sure things are going well.
4
Taylor Sheridan’s Elevated Storytelling
Despite Sheridan-isms, He’s Still Got It
Sheridan is the reason the show is so popular, especially the characteristics he uses when writing his characters. His trademarks include intense confrontations, unexpected plot twists that are built up to during the season, and complex and often wild characters that aren’t always positive but spark a conversation. These I call Sheridan-isms, and they can be a good thing in correct doses. The most interesting thing about storytelling in Landman is the approach to female characters. There’s no doubt each woman in Landman is intelligent, emotionally or intellectually, but a lot of them display characteristics people tend to find annoying.
For viewers, for example, the existence of Larter and Randolph’s characters—Tommy’s wife Angela and daughter Ainsley—feels unnecessary, but they’re there to bring a balance to the heaviness of the landman’s job. Not just that, but they make Tommy’s life more fulfilling, reminding him that work is just one dimension of the wild ride we call life. The ridiculous and humorous approach to life from that side juxtaposes the industrial operations and stark Texas landscapes Tommy’s constantly in. Sheridan understood that Boomtown, the podcast, was vital but that it needed family and community to be compelling, not just interesting. Additionally, I think Angela and Ainsley being beautiful women who know they’re good-looking seems out of context, and sometimes it is, but we’re allowed to have female characters that don’t always embody the “she doesn’t know she’s beautiful” trope. There are plenty of different personalities out there, and Sheridan wrote these two for a purpose.
3
It’s a Balance of Character Drama and High-Stakes Action
A Little Boom Here, A Little Drama There, and Plenty of Industry Terminology
Landman features appearances from the Mexican cartel members led by Jimenez (Alex Meraz). Jimenez’s boss is the ruthless Galino (Andy Garcia), whom Tommy meets in the final episode of season one. The action sequences usually come from Tommy’s confrontations with the cartel, adding another dimension to his already pretty complicated job. The show weaves plenty of personal and professional conflicts on an individual level with industry-wide crises; this way, the tension basically creates itself and doesn’t always feel convoluted or forced.
The biggest action part in Landman, though, interestingly doesn’t come from the cartel’s involvement but rather the oil rig work itself. Well blowouts, equipment failures, and intense and often conflict-ridden teamwork provide some of the most intense moments in the show, rivaling big-budget movies with perfect technical execution. The physical dangers shown on screen that rig workers put themselves through every single day add genuine life-or-death stakes to what is basically a workplace drama. Additionally, there’s even some tension and stress from the financial investments and gambles made by people like Monty and Cooper (Lofland), too; there’s plenty of inspiration for drama and action, and Sheridan even manages to sprinkle some romance in there for Tommy, Angela, Ainsley, and Cooper.
2
Timely Exploration of American Economic Realities
Including the Energy Debate That Goes On
Now, I’m not here to analyze the American and global energy market and its realities, but, for example, there’s a fascinating back-and-forth between Tommy and Rebecca Falcone (Wallace) about wind turbines. In that discussion, Tommy basically explains that wind turbines depend on the oil industry because of all the effort it takes for them to be produced and get them up and running. This is one of the examples of how Landman presents some real-world debates about energy independence, climate impacts, and job creation, making the show feel kind of weirdly relevant in its own way. By showing how sudden changes in the oil industry impact communities and infrastructure, Landman dives into some broad economic forces from time to time.
There’s a bit of life brought to West Texas, too, showing the region for what it is rather than resorting to some stereotypes people might have about the locals there. In fact, most of the show is strictly divided between showing those lower on the ladder and those way above them, not indulging in localizations and broad assumptions. We see Monty wining and dining some fat cats with big pockets and Tommy doing the same with lower-level executives and investors. On the other hand, Cooper interacts with those on the very bottom, the people whose lives are impacted by the oil industry by either losing family members to it or being directly on the line of extraction. It’s a pretty interesting focus on humans making difficult choices and experiencing hardship in a complex industry.
1
It Has Universal Themes Within a Specific Setting
Showing People Have Similar Ambitions In All Walks of Life
Though Landman is set in a highly specialized world of oil acquisition and production, its core themes include ambition, compromise, family versus career, and community. These are the most important parts of the show that resonate with people everywhere. The characters face moral gray areas in both personal and professional parts of their lives, and viewers often relate to such things because they tend to wonder what they might do in a similar situation. I know my dad likes to prompt the characters on what they should do with each new episode of the show, as if he were an oil expert himself.
It seems, though, what Landman does best is make the blue-collar work feel relatable without glamorizing it. You know when you watch a movie about a barista in a cute café, enjoying the smell of coffee and pastries while working on her fiction novel, and you’re like, “that would be perfect?” It avoids telling you that the smell of coffee is in everything, you need to wash the dishes, customers are sometimes rude, and you have to wake up at the crack of dawn to open and set up shop. I know that doesn’t compare to an oil rig worker’s job, nor is it the hardest job in the world, but it takes a toll, like everything else. That’s why Landman ensures you’ll see how oil rigs work, what the workers go through, and what exactly happens on them when there are problems. We’re often not shown the realities of blue-collar work, and because this show does that well, it’s popular and works well for most audience members.
