Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | December 22, 2025
In its second season, Taylor Sheridan’s Landman picks up right where the first left off: mediocre writing, borrowing liberally from the tone of Friday Night Lights, featuring performances that are better than the show deserves, and somehow remaining wildly entertaining.
The show has its critics — myself often among them — and Sheridan still has no idea how to write women (though he might be getting marginally better this season, notwithstanding the opening episode). But man alive, there is one thing this show has going for it that no other does in 2025, and it has delivered the season’s quietest pleasures: brilliant veteran actors Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott sharing scenes together.
Sam Elliott plays T.L., the estranged father of Billy Bob Thornton’s character, Tommy. When the season opens, T.L. — who has been wasting away in a low-rent elderly care facility — learns that his wife (and Tommy’s mother) has died, decades after her mind essentially left her following the death of another child and her descent into alcoholism. As Tommy recounts, she was a mean, monstrous woman, but T.L. wasted his life hoping the bright light of the woman he once knew would return.
Tommy harbors deep resentment toward T.L. for abandoning him in favor of his abusive wife, but after the funeral, Angela (Ali Larter) convinces Tommy to let T.L. move in with them. Mostly, he stares at the sunset, but he also offers Tommy hard-earned, experience-driven advice.
There isn’t much to the storyline, and there doesn’t need to be. I suspect T.L. won’t make it to season three. This arc is about Tommy making peace with his father before he dies, and applying that wisdom to sustain a relationship with Angela, a woman Tommy probably doesn’t deserve.
In this week’s episode, T.L. rides along with Tommy during a workday. Tommy’s job largely involves driving around Texas, putting out fires, and brokering deals. It gives them hours together in the cab of Tommy’s truck, and those scenes have been among the season’s best. They bicker, commiserate, and bond.
There’s a moment where T.L. compares Tommy to “one of them monkeys they put on the backs of border collies at the rodeos,” which ranks among the funniest moments of the year. It has little to do with the line itself and everything to do with who’s delivering it. These men, 70 and 81 years old, are absolute pros. Nothing feels forced. It’s just Sam Elliott and Billy Bob Thornton shooting the s***, swapping oil-man wisdom, and later grousing about the brevity of life over beers. It’s straight-up good television.
And when Andy Garcia and Demi Moore join the mix, alongside Ali Larter delivering what is probably the best performance of her career, plus Jacob Lofland and those kind eyes, it becomes solid, character-driven television. I can’t even hate it, as much as I sometimes want to. I’m going to soak up all the Billy Bob and Sam I can get while Taylor Sheridan keeps serving it up. When you’ve got those two, it almost doesn’t matter how mediocre the writing is.
