‘Landman’ might be the stupidest fracking show on TV | TV/Streaming

Taylor Sheridan’s television empire can be marked by a few recurring themes: Western or neo-Western thematic architecture, casts stuffed with aging former stars cashing checks from Paramount to attract older viewers, and the crazy, atonal mix of prestige drama and campy soap opera antics. He’s like Ryan Murphy, but for straight lines. When its first season debuted last year, “Landman” was one of the strangest entries in its non-“Yellowstone” catalog, transferring the pragmatic politics and internal political/relationship struggles of the Dutton family to the West Texas oil boom. Now, with its second season underway, the series is struggling to find new reserves to probe and is going in some crazy directions to do so.

When we last left oilman Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton), he had just recovered from a beating by the Mexican cartels, saved at the last minute by cartel boss Gallino (Andy Garcia, now promoted to regular status), who spares him in order to get involved in the landman’s multi-billion dollar business. However, that company has been in dire straits since its president, Jon Hamm’s Monty, died at the end of season 1, leaving Tommy as VP of Operations and his widow, Cami (Demi Moore), in charge. Together, the two men attempt to carve out a place at the top of the hierarchy, from disguising lazy investors to looking into the company’s incredibly unstable finances. (Lots of men in suits look at our heroes and talk about LLCs and oil rights. Exciting stuff.)

That’s just the tip of the oil derrick for this second season, which oscillates between real-life oil deals and the soap opera events of our main characters: loved ones die and are mourned, characters make drastic romantic decisions for better or worse, the list goes on.

Then there’s the tone, which contrasts the mournful drama (accompanied, of course, by Andrew Lockington’s plaintive country guitar and more than one stirring ballad about drone shots of oil plants) with a sitcomy momentum that captures conservative humor. In scene after scene, Billy Bob delivers one deadpan critique after another about the sissification of modern society; the season’s opening scene sees him lash out at a waitress over cornflakes (“You think our ancestors ate breakfast?”). His sarcasm borders on searing observational comedy, but is somewhere along the lines of “Tim Allen gussié stand-up act.”

And then, of course, there are the women, who are both “Landman’s” greatest strength and greatest weakness. Certainly, there’s perverse entertainment value in watching Ali Larter and Michelle Randolph transform into Tommy’s oversexual MILF wife and jailbait-y nymphomaniac daughter, Ainsley, respectively. Both are peas in a pod, ogling the bulges in their college sweatpants and chatting about sex while conquering the nearby escalators in the gym.

I admit that there is great entertainment value in watching these actresses sink their fangs into incredibly sordid material; If I trusted Sheridan more, I’d say these are roles that emphasize radical sex positivity among women, young and old. But as written (and compared to Thornton’s shattering judgment of the two), these characters read like case studies in the psychosexual hang-ups of Sheridan and his team. An entire episode revolves around Angela’s rules literally driving her crazyand Ainsley is campaigning to go to an expensive private school because it’s explicitly gold-digging for any hot college football player who has NFL prospects.

These are scenes that, putting aside their regressive nature, play like high-octane comedy (especially for Larter, who throws himself into Angela’s tantrums with all the gusto of a Real Housewife). At least Moore survives relatively unscathed, with Cami taking over with devilish eyes and a venomous tongue in one verbal confrontation after another. But “Landman’s” worldview fits firmly into the “women are crazy” mold.

A few glimmers in the season’s first three episodes, however, break up the diazepam business drama “Dallas.” Sam Elliott appears as Tommy’s estranged father, TL, and he gets some moving scenes reflecting on the beauty of the world and how time can gradually take it away from you. The third episode actually introduces a new disaster setting relevant to the dangers of oil drilling (hello, hydrogen sulfide!) which evokes, among other things, Shyamalan’s “The Happening”. It’s those moments that make you perk up your ears and sit forward in your chair, when you don’t laugh when Larter says lines like, “When properly motivated, man can achieve anything… That’s why God created breasts.”

“Landman” somersaults between camp and grinds his teeth at the speed of a burst oil pipe, which is part of his frustration: I wish it was still funnier, and I wish I didn’t just laugh in disbelief at what I was seeing. It often feels like Sheridan’s humor works best when it’s inadvertent, which I suppose follows his crude digging principle: Sometimes you find oil in places you don’t look.

Three episodes screened for review. Aired weekly on Paramount+.