Landman Season 2 Strikes Oil: A Bold, Mythic Texas Epic

Landman is back, and yes, it is exactly the Taylor Sheridan cocktail you think it is: tough-as-nails, politically prickly, big on swagger, and sneakily funny. You might roll your eyes at the show’s right-leaning vibe, the broad strokes around gender and masculinity, or even the chatter about it borrowing from the great Paul Harvey. But it also cracks open a world plenty of viewers don’t agree with and still makes it compelling. If Game of Thrones didn’t lose you with its murder and misery, you’ll survive some West Texas roughnecking.

Where season 2 picks up

• Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) got bumped up to president of M-Tex Oil after Monty (Jon Hamm) died following a heart attack and a failed heart transplant. Monty’s widow, Cami (Demi Moore), is now running the company.
• Tommy’s celebration got cut short when a henchman for cartel boss Gallino (Andy Garcia) abducted him. Gallino himself stepped in, saved Tommy, and proposed a partnership that’s lucrative for both – even if Tommy can’t stop telling the guy off.
• Home front chaos: Tommy is trying to keep Angela (Ali Larter) on his side while pushing his daughter Emma (Michelle Randolph) toward TCU, despite the fact she’s nowhere near qualified to get in.
• His son Cooper (Jacob Lofland) has been learning the oil game the old-fashioned way – laboring in the field – while putting those engineering and geology degrees to work. He strikes new fields pumping hundreds of barrels a day. Great news, except his mystery investor isn’t who they claim to be.

So how’s the show itself?

Only three episodes were screened for critics (Paramount+ and Apple TV+, please stop doing this), which makes it tricky to judge the full season arc. Still, Sheridan has banked a mountain of goodwill with hits like Yellowstone and Tulsa King, and Landman keeps that character-first focus humming.

Thornton is outstanding here – prickly, funny, worn-in, and weirdly lovable in a role that should not be lovable. He finds the quiet, tender beats, then turns around and steamrolls a scene with a one-liner. Ali Larter and Michelle Randolph both lean into roles that could read as cliche, and make them snappy and genuinely funny. Larter, especially, sneaks in a tough, unsentimental emotional core that lands harder than you expect.

Demi Moore’s Cami gets a killer opener: two younger women talk down to her, and she calmly reminds them that brains, beauty, and payback can happily share the same room. Meanwhile, James Jordan is in the mix, and Sam Elliott shows up as Tommy’s father; his scenes are spare, lovely, and sad – there just aren’t many of them yet to fully judge.

The vibe

The show lives on reprisal, revenge, and retribution, set against an oilfield backdrop that looks like poetry at golden hour but is basically sweat, steel, and bruises. Sheridan’s dialogue snaps, and he’s not afraid to let a scene breathe with a long, awkward silence. If you’ve seen him do his tough-guy thing before, you know the drill – though he’s also the guy who swung hard into a different gear with the female-driven Lioness. Here, it’s rugged masculinism front and center.

If you’re nervous about the politics or the stereotypes, that’s fair. The show leans right, it likes its cowboys mythic, and it’s catching heat for supposedly lifting from Paul Harvey. But Landman also works as a sharp tour through the mindset of people you might not agree with. It plays like a Texas-sized graphic novel – bold, mythic, larger than life – and still grounded in messy, human choices.

Worth watching?

Yeah. Even with only three episodes, it’s an engrossing ride. Thornton delivers one of the year’s most entertaining performances, and the ensemble (Moore, Larter, Randolph, Lofland, Garcia, Elliott, Jordan, plus Paulina Chavez) has depth. I don’t know where season 2 lands yet, but the journey is absolutely worth it – on craft alone, and, sure, on Sheridan’s reputation for sticking the landing.

Release details

Landman season 2 streams exclusively on Paramount+ starting November 16. Note: only the first three episodes were provided to critics.