We’re just a week past the ratings-smash premiere of “Yellowstone” Season 5 Part 2, with more than 16 million viewers across multiple platforms finally learning how the exit of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton would be handled. Now comes yet another star-powered American drama series from “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan — the immediately addictive “Landman,” with Billy Bob Thornton delivering a top five career performance in headlining an outstanding ensemble.
In the various entries in the “Yellowstone” universe, not to mention “Mayor of Kingstown” and “Tulsa King,” Sheridan has proved to be a A-list actor magnet and a master at creating just the right mix of action, rough justice, crackling good dialogue and heavy drama that sometimes veers without apology into soap opera territory. He does it again with “Landman,” which is set against the backdrop of the oil business in West Texas.
This is a high-stakes series in which the oil crews risk their lives on a daily basis in exchange for paychecks that far outshine what they could make elsewhere, while the millionaires and billionaires who control the strings from seven-figure mansions and posh offices and private jets have to contend with everything from geopolitical concerns to risky investments to the cartels working the same territory. (The Paramount+ series serves up a steady diet of violence, blunt language and nudity to easily merit its TV-MA rating.)
Co-created by Sheridan and journalist-screenwriter Christian Wallace (who once spent a year as a roughneck on oil rigs) and based on Wallace’s acclaimed podcast “Boomtown,” the series is set primarily in the Permian Basin and is filled with breathtaking visuals dominated by orange and brown and golden hues, with the music by Andrew Lockington (who has scored multiple episodes of “Kingstown” and “Lioness”) perfectly punctuating every emotionally resonant note.
Thornton (who played the real-life gunman Jim Courtright on “Yellowstone” prequel “1883”) is a deadpan force as the world-weary, whip-smart, resourceful and sometimes self-destructive Tommy Norris, who works as a crisis manager (aka fixer) for a fictional oil company, putting out fires both real and figurative nearly every day (and night) on the job.
“The oil and gas industry makes $3 billion a day in pure profit,” Tommy says in the pilot. “It generates over $4.3 trillion a year in revenue. … But before any of that money is made, you got to get the lease. … That’s my job: secure the lease and manage the people. First part’s pretty simple. It’s the second part that can get you killed.”
Tommy is an alcoholic who still regularly swigs light beer because he says that doesn’t count (Spoiler alert: it does), and his personal circumstances are as volatile as his professional life. Even though Tommy has long been divorced, there’s still a live-wire electricity running between Tommy and his ex-wife Angela (Ali Larter in a scene-stealing performance), and any potential reconciliation will almost surely result in disaster, not that that will stop them.
Their 22-year-old son Cooper (Jacob Lofland) has dropped out of college and has just started as a rookie oil and gas worker, while their headstrong, 17-year-old daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph from “1923”) is crashing at Tommy’s house after a breakup and sports a wardrobe that consists mostly of bikinis and half-shirts. (Her mom, who has never met a shot of tequila she didn’t like, might not be the best influence on Ainsley. As Tommy tells his daughter, “I would warn you about the company you keep, but she does have custody.”)
Jon Hamm is perfectly cast as Tommy’s boss, the Texas oil titan Monty Miller, who has neither the time nor the inclination to rationalize or apologize for the dominance of the oil and gas industry, at one point telling a room filled with colleagues: “We are well diggers. … I care that the price of oil stays between 76 and 88 dollars a barrel. … The world has already convinced itself that … I am evil for providing them the one f—ing thing they interact with every day, and they will not be convinced otherwise.” (Demi Moore plays Monty’s wife, though the role seems relatively marginal in the five episodes I’ve viewed.)
Kayla Wallace is a standout as a young and dazzlingly talented liability attorney who can wipe the floor with her opponents via the theatrical precision and killer instincts of an Erin Brockovich. Another character to watch is Ariana (Paulina Chávez), a young mother whose family has experienced tragedy, and who strikes up what could be a dangerous connection to the aw-shucks Cooper.
Every episode of “Landman” contains at least one major crisis, but with such an expansive cast and so many sweeping storylines, we get the feeling Sheridan and Co. are just getting warmed up. This has all the makings of a long-running hit.