Hello everyone
Have you been watching Landman?
Landman is billed as a modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of West Texas oil rigs. It’s one of those shows that I thought might be background watching, but turned out to be far more engaging than that.
Meet Tommy, the Landman
Billy Bob Thornton plays Tommy Norris, the titular Landman. Tommy is the character around whom the story revolves, and the lens through which we see most of the issues.
Tommy is the general manager for M-Tex, an oil company. He’s the man on the ground running day-to-day operations for the company.
In practice, this means he’s a fixer. He’s not someone a thousand miles away wearing a suit—he’s the guy in a pickup truck driving hundreds of miles to sort problems, often with his own hands. He’s the guy in the middle trying to reconcile the competing challenges of running an incredibly tough business in a hostile climate.
So when the drug cartels, whose business is disrupted by the presence of the oil company, want to “borrow” one of the company’s planes to move drugs or dynamite an oil well to make a point, Tommy is the one who gets involved.
And when there’s an accident—a not infrequent occurrence given the limited safety standards that come with the business—and most of a drilling crew are killed, Tommy is the one to make sure the rig is made safe. Then he’s the one to deal with the grieving families.
And in running the business, Tommy is acutely aware of the economics. For the oil companies, there is an optimum range for the oil price:
- If the oil price drops below that range, then the returns will drop, but the costs remain the same, meaning that rigs become unprofitable.
- If the oil price rises, then competitors will enter the market and the costs associated with doing business will rise…meaning that profits will be reduced, potentially to the level that rigs become unprofitable.
Tommy understands the economics better than most, and how close all the oil companies are to financial disaster. He knows this at first-hand having made his money, but when the markets moved, he lost everything. This loss is why he is now working as a Landman when he should be doing something less arduous and far less dangerous.
Creation of the show
The show has a very raw, real feeling to it. And that’s maybe not surprising given the creators of the show.
The show was inspired by Boomtown, a podcast about the twenty-first century oil boom in Texas. Landman was then created by the host of the podcast and Taylor Sheridan (who also created Yellowstone (and its prequels), as well as Mayor of Kingstown and Tulsa King). Bringing the two creators together infuses the show with a sense of reality while heightening the drama.
What is Landman about?
Landman is a story about the Texas oil boom and the people for whom the oil industry is just work. But it’s more than that—under the grime, there’s a much more human tale with big themes.
The following words will give you an indication of some of the direction of the show, but not much that couldn’t be gleaned and extrapolated from the trailer. There are no plot spoilers here, but if you haven’t seen Landman and you’re concerned not to have any hints, then please stop reading here and I’ll see you next month.
Family and Community
Everyone working on the rigs has family. And often the crews working the rigs are family members working together—there are fathers and sons, brothers, and cousins working together. At home, there are wives, children, aunts, parents, and grandparents. Many living together and many living in the same neighborhood.
You can’t get away from family.
The situation for Tommy is no different. His son, Cooper, is at the start of his career as an oil man, and is working on the rigs for M-Tex.
Tommy is concerned about Cooper working on a crew. He knows the work is physically hard and dangerous, and worries whether his son is cut out for the work. Maybe more than any other character, Tommy knows just how dangerous the work is and so—even though Cooper doesn’t live with his father, instead living with the other roughnecks—Cooper’s presence is a constant stress for Tommy, and any business decision Tommy makes could potentially kill his own son.
Then when Cooper gets involved with the widow of one of his dead colleagues, Cooper finds himself at odds with his workmates who are also Tommy’s employees.
Grief
The work is by its nature highly dangerous—this is one of the reasons why it pays so well comparatively. This danger leads to frequent accidents and regular deaths.
The grief cuts through every community. Everyone has lost someone—usually several people, and often several people are killed or injured in one accident.
Like family, grief is something that is always there.
And grief is never simple. Going back to Tommy’s son, Cooper—his woman (woman, because the nuance of the relationship is hard to define, especially without giving too many spoilers), Ariana, is the widow of one of his colleges. Ariana is caught, emotionally, between her dead husband and her new man, Cooper. In any other situation, Cooper would be the perfect husband, but she is torn up by the grief she is feeling for the loss of her husband.
Second Chances
Another big theme throughout the series is second chances.
No one works on the oil rigs by choice—it’s a dirty, dangerous job, and there are easier ways to make money. But for some men, working on the rig is their only practical option.
For those who have some sort of a criminal record, oil work may be the only job they can find. For those with a limited formal education or without an aptitude for working in a more conventional workplace, oil work may be the only job they can find that pays a decent wage.
And there are romantic second chances too. As well as Cooper offering Ariana a second chance at happiness, at the start of the show, Tommy and Angela, the mother of his children, are divorced. Indeed, she is now married to another man. When that second marriage crumbles, Angela runs back to Tommy giving their relationship a second chance.
The American Dream
Against his parents’ wishes, Cooper has dropped out of college and joined M-Tex. However, he is not using his family connection to get ahead. Instead, he is starting at the bottom of the business, laboring as the most junior worker on a crew.
But Cooper has a plan. He is determined to learn how the oil business works from the inside. He plans to work in every area of the industry so that he can then set up his own business.
In many ways, looking at Cooper is to look at a young Tommy—someone full of energy and ambition determined to make his own life on his own terms.
Global energy demands
The whole show poses a question for us as consumers of oil products.
However much governments may hate oil, and however much the public hates oil, knowing the terrible damage it is doing to the environment, people still need oil.
There is no practical alternative at present. If there was, then the rapacious oil companies would be making money that way.
Indeed, maybe the bigger problem is what will happen when we run out of oil, as we are likely to do long before we’ve found a suitable alternative.
Until April
Landman is a compelling and very human story which weaves many complex threads. You can find the show on Paramount Plus.
If I’ve whetted your appetite then watch the trailer. If it’s your sort of thing, Landman is well worth watching. And hopefully there will be a second season.
I’ll be back in April.
Until then.
All the best
Simon