Taylor Sheridan’s Landman has emerged as the perfect antidote
to Yellowstone‘s perpetual sturm and drang. Set in the oil boom towns of West
Texas, Landman centers on Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton), the
hardworking and extremely knowledgeable fixer for the M-Tex oil conglomerate owned by billionaire Monty Miller (Jon Hamm). Landman contains many of the familiar trappings of Yellowstone, but it’s moving in different directions with a heart missing from the Dutton Ranch in Montana.
Yellowstone nears the end of its fifth season with the Dutton family verging on brutal retaliation for the murder of John Dutton (Kevin Costner). Without the Duttons’ patriarch, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) and Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) face the reality that they will lose their family’s ranch after 140 years of fighting blood feuds to keep it. Yellowstone remains a riveting TV powerhouse, but a black cloud of doom and inevitability hangs over the Duttons’ picturesque ranch. Meanwhile, Landman is showing there are sunnier days in West Texas despite the turmoil Tommy Norris troubleshoots daily.
Landman Improves On Yellowstone’s Problematic Tropes
There Are Good People Working In The Texas Oil Boom
Landman, co-created by Taylor Sheridan and Christian Wallace, is proving to be a refreshing change of pace and a counterpoint to Yellowstone‘s problematic tropes. Landman‘s main character, Tommy Norris, is a working man steeped in hands-on know-how about the oil industry, but Tommy’s not the hardliner John Dutton was. Nor is his boss, Monty, who appreciates and supports the necessity of Tommy’s work for M-Tex. Problems, accidents, theft, and even tragic deaths happen on Landman, but not at Tommy’s behest, and Norris doesn’t automatically resort to violence as a means to an end like the Duttons.
Landman introduced attorney Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace) who joins Tommy to investigate a stolen plane full of drugs destroyed by an oil tanker. Rebecca is smart, and capable, but reasonable, unlike the caustic and volatile Beth Dutton or her hated, spineless brother Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley), the attorney general of Montana. Rebecca dressing down rival attorneys at Tommy’s deposition in Landman season 1, episode 4, “The Sting of Second Chances,” is already a highlight of the series.
Whereas Kacey Dutton has spent five Yellowstone seasons essentially directionless, Tommy’s son, Cooper (Jacob Lofland), is impressive. Cooper is getting his hands dirty working as an oil rigger to gain the experience he needs to understand every aspect of the oil business he plans to run one day. Landman has its share of roughnecks and ne’er-do-wells, but the main characters thus far have proven to be admirable. It’s impossible to imagine Cooper’s sister Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) hating and planning to kill him like Beth does Jamie on Yellowstone.
Landman Is About A Family Coming Together
The Norris Family Is The Anti-Duttons
The Duttons on Yellowstone can be described by many adjectives, but “endearing” isn’t one of them. Yet Tommy Norris’ family on Landman has already shown themselves to be endearing. Tommy can be an “a**hole” who overdoes imbibing beer, but he’s a loving father to his charming teenage daughter, Ainsley, and she loves her daddy right back. Tommy and his ex-wife, Angela (Ali Larter), may be “oil and water” as a married couple, but there is genuine affection and respect between them. The family dynamics between Tommy, Angela, and Ainsley are the beating heart of Landman.
Tommy’s clan reuniting on Landman has been a pleasure to watch.
Even better, Landman‘s early episodes have been about Tommy’s family coming back together, to the amusing chagrin of Tommy’s lawyer roommate, Nathan (Colm Feore). While Cooper’s role in the Norris family dynamic still has to be established, Tommy’s clan reuniting on Landman has been a pleasure to watch, as is how Tommy copes with the sun-haired charms of his two gorgeous girls, Ainsley and Angela, upending his life. But they also aim to improve it too.
It’s still early in Landman’s run, and there are bound to be twists, complications, and hard times ahead, but Landman already feels like a boom town for audiences while the aging Yellowstone struggles to hold onto its reins.
