Taylor Sheridan Infects Landman With Yellowstone’s Saddest Reality

Taylor Sheridan has introduced the same kind of sad inevitability that was a feature of Yellowstone to Landman season 2. Sheridan has penned every episode of Landman thus far, with season 2 centering on M-Tex Oil’s financial peril after the shady dealings and death of its former President, Monty Miller (Jon Hamm).

M-Tex’s new President, Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton), and new owner, Cami Miller (Demi Moore), learned that Monty left M-Tex in deep trouble, with Cami turning to Danny Morrell, who is also the Cuban American drug kingpin Gallino (Andy Garcia), for a financial partnership and bailout. Tommy can’t stop Cami from being in cahoots with Gallino, who he knows is a murderer.

As Tommy circles back and forth from Midland and Fort Worth, Texas, M-Tex’s crews have continued to face problems in the Patch’s oil fields. Theodore “Boss” Ramone (Mustafa Speaks) and his crew barely survived a deadly H2S gas leak that blinded one of their guys. Landman season 2, episode 6 reveals a looming threat to the future of the M-Tex’s hardworking oil drillers.

Landman Introduces A Sad Inevitability For Oil Crews & M-Tex

Landman season 2, episode 6 begins with the Permian Basin International Oil Show opening in Midland, Texas. At the expo for new technologies and companies recruiting for the oil business, Dale Bradley (James Jordan) and Boss Ramone came face-to-face with the future putting them out of work. Boss and Dale understood that ”progress” means an oil business without them.

Dale and Boss saw automated rigs and spoke to company reps promising to replace oil riggers with robots and A.I. While this would potentially reduce costs for oil companies, it also threatens to eliminate thousands of jobs. As dangerous as working in the Patch is, Boss and Dale understood that ”progress” means an oil business without them.

Meanwhile, when Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace) wasn’t succumbing to her attraction to geologist Charlie Newsom (Guy Burnet), she listened intently and with concern to Charlie explaining how M-Tex opening an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico/America wouldn’t necessarily yield the results the company hopes for. Landman is planting seeds of the overall oil business turning sour and putting thousands of livelihoods, including Landman’s main characters, in jeopardy. Even if Tommy and Cami can solve M-Tex’s immediate financial problems, the march of progress will inevitably change the oil industry.

The Duttons’ Yellowstone Ranch Couldn’t Avoid The Inevitable

Inevitability was a prevalent theme that ran through all five seasons of Yellowstone, and even its prequel, 1923. The Dutton family controlled Paradise Valley, Montana, as the largest continguous ranch in the United States for over 40 years, but John Dutton III (Kevin Costner) and his ancestors all knew the cost of keeping the Yellowstone Ranch and how easy it would be to lose it.

Ultimately, no amount of murder and shady political dealing, including John Dutton’s stint as Governor of Montana, could keep the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch safe from its inevitable fate. The Duttons were long past being able to afford operating the Yellowstone ranch, and Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) understood the only real option would be to eventually sell it, which became the solution after her father’s death. Yellowstone ended with Beth and Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) selling the Yellowstone ranch and land to the Broken Rock Reservation, which was the ending Yellowstone had been building towards since Taylor Sheridan’s neo-Western series began. Taylor Sheridan is now planting that same ominous sense of inevitability in Landman.