Okay I’ll Say It… Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Landman’ Kinda Sucks So Far

I'm going to go ahead and say what I'm sure many of you want to, but won't for fear of the rabid Taylor Sheridan fanbase. Ever since releasing Yellowstone to enormous success back in 2018, Taylor Sheridan has been one of the busiest and most sought after screenwriters and producers in Hollywood. At this point, it's fair to say he effectively owns a quasi-film empire with Paramount, boasting the most popular show on TV, two spinoffs of the original (1883 & 1923) with another in the works, Tulsa King, Lioness: Special Ops, Mayor of Kingstown, and his most recent offering, a drama set in the West Texas oilfields titled Landman.  Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Hamm, and Demi Moore, it tells the story of life in a boomtown where oil reigns king. The show's official synopsis reads: "Set in the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas, Landman is a modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of oil rigs. Based on the notable 11-part podcast Boomtown from Imperative Entertainment and Texas Monthly, the series is an upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom so big, it's reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics." Right from the jump, this show called out to me. I mentioned it often to my wife and specifically set aside time last night to watch the first two episodes, which were released last Sunday. West Texas, huge business dealings, cowboys drilling for black gold, the Cartel, heck what's not to love? But right from the jump, Landman failed to meet expectations, or quite honestly come anywhere near them. Warning, there will be spoilers from here on out so if you plan on watching, you may want to come back after seeing the first two episodes.

Landman's Problematic Daughter Storyline

You may have stumbled upon the scene from episode one where the main character, Tommy Norris, is talking with his daughter at a football game. He asks if she's having sex with her new boyfriend (already a weird topic to discuss in public, if at all) but her answer was so graphic and so beyond the realm of possibility, not to mention lazily written, that it left every viewer wondering how this bit of dialogue made its way into the show. https://twitter.com/MikeSteveRitter/status/1858336892141355354 Truly, truly, just an insane conversation that not only would never happen but literally does nothing to advance the plot or add character depth; it only drives a wedge between the show and some potential viewers. But that's only the start of the daughter storyline issues. Did I mention that this girl is still in high school and is only 17 years old? Yep, a minor. If that football scene was the only time sexual conversations came into play regarding her, we may have been able to sweep it under the rug as a bad attempt to build her backstory, but it turns out it was just the beginning. Throughout the two episodes, plenty of fully grown men are openly talking about her in a lustful way, eyeing her up while she walks around the house in panties (again, certifiably insane, not at all okay, and would never happen/be allowed by any father), and being unable to speak when she looks at them as if they're being seduced by Cleopatra. There's scenes of men peaking through the blinds, saying "I have to know," to look at her by the pool, rubbing Crisco on herself as tanning oil. There's also a bizarre scene where one of Tommy Norris' grown roommates comes home to bathe, doesn't notice that someone is already in there, strips down, and blindly stumbles into the shower, where (you guessed it) the naked daughter is inside. It's gross. Really just gross. These men are in there 50s or 60s and are openly gawking and be suggestive about a 17 year old teenage girl in the house. It's outrageous, I don't know how else to describe it. Even with how perverted this daughter storyline is, it's far from Landman's only downfall.

Overly-Dramatic to the N^th Degree

We knew we were signing up for an exaggerated drama heading into this show, that's what Sheridan does, and while there are absolutely real critiques of recent shows, nothing compares to the 7th grade boy's daydream that seems to have inspired this story. Any, and I mean any, time there's an opportunity to drama-max an event, it happens. A truck runs into a plane? Well, that plane was stolen but not reported to the cops, both driver's are dead, and oh yeah, the plane was filled with thousands of pounds of drug cartel cocaine. Tommy Norris sits down at a bar? He gets in a heated argument with the bartender about if Michelob Ultra counts as alcohol, which continues for minutes until it commences with Norris scolding the bartender for asking if he was getting a tip and storming off. Tommy's son has his first day working the oilfield? He's pranked to no end by his co-workers, who go so far as to nearly kill him on a ladder, before everyone dies in a fiery explosion. Well, not everyone, because Tommy's son just so happened to be grabbing a wrench out of the truck. The son goes to the hospital but his dad takes him out the next morning and they immediately get into an argument over whether the son should be in there, with the son, the one who just saw the only people he knew burned unrecognizable, being the one saying he needs to stay. Tommy calls his son selfish. Then they move on, just hours removed from what should be a life altering event, to go grab a beer. And how about Tommy's ex-wife? Despite being divorced, she constantly facetimes him in lingerie and talks about leaving her vacation with a new boyfriend to go to the rigs. No, not to check on her son who had just nearly been blown up or talk sense into her ditsy, sex-obsessed 17-year old daughter, but to shag-up with Tommy for one more wild fling in the sheets. Are you seeing the insanity of it all yet? Not to mention a deeper issue of every female character being shallower than Saharan puddle. The only potential exception in the first two episodes was the corporate lawyer that showed up to investigate the explosion but time will tell if that holds up. I'm not one to latch one to diversity or equity stuff but it's blatantly obvious that every female character brings little but sex appeal to the storyline.

Is Landman Worth The Watch?

Right now, after two episodes, I'd say absolutely not. If the plot continues to unfold like this we'll be in la-la land by Episode 5 and anything past that won't resemble anything happening on planet Earth. The first two episodes sucked, plain and simple. Any positives that were there, any cool pieces of the setting and initial idea, are being completely drowned by completely irrelevant and distracting daughter scenes and over-the-top dramatic explosions (figuratively and literally) every 2 minutes. If I was to spin it positively, it's possible that Sheridan frontloaded a lot of big things to allow for a balanced and nuanced story down the line, but right now that seems unlikely. I'll be keeping up with it if only to laugh at the absurdity and will be sure to update you all if something changes, but with so many other fantastic shows out there right now, I just can't recommend you pick this one up. Here's the trailer which was posted to YouTube by Paramount+. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zxh49-bsIk And you can actually watch the entire first episode on YouTube if you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXuga-0ChNY All that being said... the soundtrack ROCKS: Spotify Apple Music