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It has to be fairly common knowledge by now that the Paramount+ streaming series Landman is returning for a Season 2. Yes, by sometime in November you can once again follow your favorite Permian Basin-based characters as they carry on with their winsome ways, inspiring values, and wholesome antics. JUST KIDDING!! They’ll be as decadent as ever, drinking, fighting, dealing in (or fending off) skullduggery, spewing their blistering profanity, piling on the raunch, and forever topping one another in crudeness. This Taylor Sheridan-produced show is Yellowstone set in West Texas, so let’s face the (honkytonk) music.
Billy Bob Thornton plays Tommy Norris, the landman in Landman.
Filming started in April. Information is in short supply on this coming season, but the biggest news seems to be the addition of new cast members. Sam Elliott has been signed to play a part, though his role has not yet been clearly defined. Meanwhile, Deadline.com says that Stefanie Stampinado joins the cast as the wife of the character we know only as Galino (played by Andy Garcia). Galino is the cartel head who spared Norris’s life at the end of Season 1. And Jon Hamm’s character, Monty Miller, is gone—having been killed off in a medical emergency at the end of Season 1. Apparently too much heart stress from dealing with the Permian Basin.
The makers of the show state that it was streamed by more than 35 million people, making it the most-watched global premiere in Paramount+ history. Thornton told the Los Angeles Times, “I’ve been in some iconic movies over the years where the response has been pretty big. But I’ve never seen anything like this. I have people coming up to me every day, everywhere I go, reciting lines. We’re blown away by it, in other words.”
That’s a Basin-sized testimonial.
I’ll admit—I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the series from the start. In previous coverage in this space I’ve called out its trashiness, like so many other folks have, but I’ve also had to admit to its credence to the Permian Basin’s realities. And I’ve been drawn in by the show’s compelling story lines.
Where the Permian Basin is concerned, as an industry constantly striving to fend off undeserved criticism and blame from would-be worldsavers and dark money and Blackrock and whatnot, Landman is a gift from the gods.
Landman does for the Basin what no other source could do. It takes viewers—millions of them—into our small corner of the world, a place they’d never venture otherwise. And that will do for the Basin what decades of pro-industry pronouncements have not quite managed to do.
I’m not talking here about Tommy Norris’s rousing speeches about the true worth of the Basin or the misinformation he exposes about claims by oil’s adversaries. Honestly, Norris’s messaging on those themes is the same as we do here in this magazine and the PBPA does in its efforts all year ’round.
The character Monty Miller (played by Jon Hamm) is gone—killed by the stress of Permian Basin work life.
No, Landman will bring people to the Basin’s side not by defeating the anti-oil narrative but by bypassing it. Sidestepping it. You can’t win people over with reason when the people you are dealing with are not swayed by reason. The population we’ve had the most trouble winning over in the culture wars—these are not the logical, facts-driven people. If they were, we’d have made more ground long ago. The side we have the most trouble winning over is the emotion-driven side.
This Landman production is a drama, not a documentary or a white paper, and as a drama, an entertainment, it hits people on a completely different level. It’s all about feelings, sympathies, and sentiments. While someone might never change their mind about hydrocarbons when confronted with data, that same person could very well form fond feelings about the Permian Basin and its people and its ways—and its worth in the world—because that person feels a kinship with this region and its people—a kinship he or she never expected to form.
This post appeared on May 23 on the Facebook feed of radio station 99.5 The Wolf, in the metroplex. Elliott, in his newest role, is flanked by co-stars Ali Larter (left) and Michelle Randolph (characters Angela Norris and Ainsley Norris).
Meanwhile, I’m not saying that logical appeals have no value, nor am I saying they shouldn’t be continued. Logical appeals must be carried on at all times. But in the straits we’ve found ourselves in, it helps to have every possible tool working for us.
So the best thing that can happen, where the Permian is concerned, is for this show to get bigger and bigger audiences. And what is the key to big audiences today? Sex. Violence. Explosions. Vulgarity. Body counts. That’s what the public wants, especially the public in the megalopolises of the world. They want decadence. They want thrills.
Can’t say they’re not gonna get it.
Jesse Mullins, Editor
Jesse Mullins, editor of Permian Basin Oil and Gas, would knock the bleep out of Landman, if bleeps could be knocked out, and if he were a capable bleep knocker. But it’s probably a “no” on both. And there’s no bleeping in shows today anyway, so… who the bleep cares?
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