The Billy Bob Thornton-led series borrows a lot from Yellowstone, but in a fun way
In the past six years, outrageously prolific writer-director-producerTaylor Sheridan has created seven shows — eight, if you count the reality series The Last Cowboy — and has more on the way. He's stretched thin, but he's not slowing down. While much has been made of his prolificacy, his versatility is often underrated. Outside of a general Sheridan-ness of tough, foulmouthed people in difficult jobs doing things their own way, his shows are pretty different from each other. The soapy Western Yellowstone is not like the bleak crime drama Mayor of Kingstown, and they're both different from the tense spy thriller Lioness. Sheridan has a lot of different interests, and he's used the opportunities Yellowstone's success has granted him to pursue them all, trying out different genres and styles without repeating himself. But after singlehandedly writing dozens of episodes across his empire of shows, he's finally entering his Dick Wolf era of making variations on a signature type of show with Landman, his new Paramount+ drama. Landman draws from many familiar Sheridan elements in a way that doesn't exactly feel fresh, but it's more fun than any other Sheridan-penned show.
Landman is set in the modern-day Wild West of the Texas oil industry. Billy Bob Thornton stars as Tommy Norris, an oil company "land manager" whose job entails dealing with every crisis that pops up in the daily business of keeping the black gold flowing: lawsuits, accidents, fatal explosions, a cartel stealing the company's jet to transport drugs and landing it on a roadway where a tanker truck that isn't even supposed to be using that road crashes into it and kills everyone, and so on and so forth. Tommy is a lot like Jeremy Renner's Mike McLusky, running around from problem to problem trying to keep them from getting worse, but he's drunker, world-wearier, and funnier than the mayor of Kingstown.
Landman's sense of humor is what most differentiates it from other Sheridan shows. It's the only show he writes that has a funny main character (Tulsa King is a comedy, but Sheridan is not the primary writer; Terence Winter is). Yellowstone has some humor, but it's mostly confined to the bunkhouse, and it's not particularly funny. But Thornton is laugh-out-loud funny when he taps into that melancholic crankiness that's so specific to him. Sheridan wrote the part specifically for Thornton, because Thornton is Tommy, a larger-than-life personality with an affinity for American Spirits. Nobody else could deliver the line "I must be out of my f---ing mind" while getting back together with an ex with the same combination of bemusement, dread, and hope. He flicks his cigarette butts into the pool of the house he shares with his oil industry roommates, petroleum engineer Dale (Sheridan regular James Jordan) and attorney Nathan (Colm Feore, having a great time in an unusually lighthearted role), and argues with a bartender about whether or not the Michelob Ultras he's constantly slugging down count as alcohol. His tempestuous relationships with his fiery ex-wife Angela (Ali Larter) and their teenage daughter Ainsley (1923's Michelle Randolph) provide laughs, too. Larter also is clearly enjoying getting to cut loose in an over-the-top but emotionally authentic role.
Like
- Sense of humor
- Great performance by Billy Bob Thornton
- Interesting setting
Dislike
- Derivative of Yellowstone
- Underused supporting cast
Overall, even when Landman is dealing with death and destruction and hot button cultural issues, it's more fun and less heavy than other Sheridan shows. It's tonally similar to Yellowstone, but without Yellowstone's melodrama and self-seriousness. Sheridan's flagship show has gotten unwieldy with lackluster side characters, go-nowhere subplots, and shark-jumping twists, and the more grounded Landman feels like a welcome refresh as Yellowstone winds down. The plot, at least through the first five episodes, is fast-moving, focused, and mostly plausible.
The series offers a fascinating look into the morally relative world of oil extraction. Sheridan is interested in the contradictions and gray areas of things, and Landman looks at the petroleum industry as a necessary evil. It satisfies the demand for the product society is oriented around. "I care that the price of oil stays between $76 and $88 a barrel," Jon Hamm's oil tycoon character tells other oil executives during a board meeting, and everything else is immaterial to him. "The world has already convinced itself that you are evil and I am evil for providing them with the one f---ing thing they interact with every day, and they will not be convinced otherwise. Stop wasting your time." Landman's cynicism toward both sides of the fossil fuel vs. renewable energy debate makes it of a piece with Lioness, which takes an ambivalent view of the CIA. Landman also borrows one of Yellowstone's signature elements: just pausing the narrative to watch guys work for a while. Oil drilling isn't as romantic or visually appealing as cowboying, but Sheridan's respect for the roughnecks who do the difficult and dangerous work of drilling in order to provide the best life they can for their families comes through.
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You may have already picked up on this, but Landman recycles a ton of ideas from Yellowstone. Both shows are in love with their mean women — Larter's hot-blooded romantic Angela and Kayla Wallace's ruthless, hypercompetent young lawyer Rebecca Falcone are different sides of Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) — and their troubled young men — Tommy and Angela's scraggly son Cooper (Jacob Lofland), who dropped out of college to be a roughneck, is a mixture of Kayce (Luke Grimes) and Jimmy (Jefferson White). The roughnecks are like the ranch hands. The dialogue is full of Sheridan's trademark hardass wisdom and macho argot. There's even a scene where grizzled old pragmatist Tommy explains how the world really works to young city-dweller Rebecca, like John Dutton (Kevin Costner) did to vegan protester Summer (Piper Perabo) on Yellowstone.
As is the case with all of Sheridan's shows since 1883, Landman has a star-studded supporting cast, but they are curiously underused here. Hamm, who plays Tommy's boss, M-Tex Oil's billionaire owner Monty Miller, doesn't do much besides talk to Tommy on the phone, and Demi Moore as Monty's wife Cami has about five lines. Moore was obviously cast in this role for a reason, but the show is taking its time in revealing why.
Landman doesn't break much new ground in the Sheridanverse, but it's a satisfying twist on the formula. As Sheridan imitators proliferate, there's still nothing like the real thing. Like fossil fuel, the Taylor Sheridan industry isn't going away anytime soon, whether you like it or not.
Premieres: Sunday, Nov. 17 on Paramount+, with the first two episodes
Who's in it: Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Michelle Randolph, Jacob Lofler, Jon Hamm, Demi Moore
Who's behind it: Taylor Sheridan
For fans of: Yellowstone, swearing, wide open landscapes
How many episodes we watched: 5 of 10
