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The following story contains spoilers for Landman season 2, episode 7, “Forever Is an Instant.”
“FROM NOW ON, starting today, I’m gonna enjoy my life.” So says Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) after another of the expletive-laden one-on-ones he has with his father. But this time, for a change, he’s taken the conversation to heart. So, the M-Tex Oil president and landman is finally, on Taco Night, going to have fun. Except when his wife Angela (Ali Larter) gives him not a taco, but an omelette—after he, uh, sexually defiled her breakfast.
“You ain’t enjoying life today,” she says and walks away. “I don’t care if you eat it or fuck it.”
If this omelette-screwing motif didn’t make it clear, nothing else could: Taylor Sheridan is allowing himself plenty of fun in the seventh episode of Landman season two, which comes with the deceptively lofty title “Forever Is an Instant,” but starts with a Fort Worth hotel scene between Tommy, Angela, and Tommy’s extremely persistent erection.
Following their last-minute decision to abscond to the big city for the weekend, Angela apparently convinced Tommy to take an extra Cialis pill for their time under the sheets. But it was one too many, and when the next morning the hotel server rolls in a surprise brunch ordered by Angela, the staff member gets a surprise in the form of Tommy’s engorged genitalia (I am simply too old to use “boner” in earnest here). The joke is on Angela, though, when he puts the Cialis-induced blood pumping to use on her French-style rolled egg dish.
She’s steamed. But Taylor Sheridan, it seems, is enjoying life, too. Perhaps it’s the calm before the storm when Gallino’s nefarious dealings inevitably impinge on things (again). Maybe Sheridan simply wants to humor those viewers who keep watching for Thornton and Larter’s foul-mouthed prince-and-princess-of-the-Texas-oil-basin shtick (I’m fully raising my hand here). Regardless, the creator indulges the series’ more entertaining threads here.
Discounted Roses Say ‘I Do’ Just as Well
But Sheridan saves time to get a little teary-eyed, too. Cooper (Jacob Lofland) is finally getting ready to propose to Ariana (Paulina Chavez). (Is it just me, or does it feel like their nuptials have been in the works since before the show even aired?) And being the wet shivering dog he is (we say with love, mostly), he’s nervous to the point of looking like he might actually have a cardiac event, when Ariana reminds him that she already suggested getting married.
Still, it has to be perfect, and in a Hallmark kind of way it is. By the end we’re treated to a trail of endless (importantly, heavily discounted) roses leading Ariana, getting home after work, to Cooper on his knee with the most poetic words he could muster.
“Forever’s a long time,” she says.
“No,” he says. “It’ll be over before we know it.”
His palms might be sweatier than the floor of a Soul Cycle class, but we’ll admit, Coop pulled this one off pretty well.
Cheers to Work-Romance Conflict, Lawyer Rebecca and Handsome Geologist Charlie
Later, another, more unexpected, pair climbs out of bed. “Wound tighter than Dick’s hatband,” Lawyer Rebecca (Kayla Wallace) and Handsome Geologist Charlie (Guy Burnet) are not only back to banging, they’ve actually kind of settled into something resembling a relationship? She even knows how to work the pedal on his trailer toilet now.
In between smooching, Charlie tells Rebecca that they only have about a 10 percent chance of reaching gas, which means a 90 percent chance of getting shafted (like an omelet—ayy!) by the insurers into bankruptcy.
Rebecca and Nathan (Colm Feore) shift strategies: It’s time to fight the insurers in court, and convince a jury that M-Tex is the good guy, or at least the less-bad guy.
Meanwhile, not-such-a-nice-guy Nate—don’t let his senior status fool you—can practically smell the waft of romance between Rebecca and her “subordinate.” He draws up an agreement for the two to acknowledge the conflict, which is standard workplace practice, but still seems kind of rude. Tommy agrees and tells a crying Rebecca that who she is or isn’t getting in bed with is the least of M-Tex’s ethical concerns. In other words: For your own sake, Rebecca, let Handsome Geologist unwind you.
Let T.L. Be the ‘Roadmap to Living Life Wrong’
For someone who really hates long drives with his father, Tommy naturally finds himself on another road trip with ole sonuvabitch T.L. (Sam Elliott). They’re traveling back from Fort Worth and T.L. is proving once again he’s a high-maintenance road buddy. He has to pee, like, three exits ago.
Tommy is flustered, flailing, failing in the face of his father. He just wants to move on.
“I can’t wait ‘til your prostate is the size of a grapefruit,” the old man yells at him before urinating directly onto a rattlesnake. He might be near death’s door anyway, but how hard is it to move a yard away? Just the though of a rattlesnake going after one’s, uh, undercarriage is enough to make me weep.
Over lunch at a local diner, T.L. gives the bothered Tommy some insight:
Yes, Tommy f’ed an omelette and his wife is pissed. Yes, in all likelihood he’s about to lose his company, if not his gonads to the cartels.
But!
“You gotta enjoy the moments between the problems. Otherwise problems is all you have,” T.L. offers. “You take a long hard look at me. I am a roadmap to living life wrong… You got it all, son. But you’re too fucking stupid to see it. Or too mad. Or too addicted to the fix.”
(The audience nods.)
Besides being a really badass tagline for a guy, “a roadmap to living life wrong” is exactly what T.L. is. He’s happy to admit it so that Tommy might benefit where he went adrift.
When he’s back home, Tommy has processed his dad’s words and works up the courage to tell Angela, “You’re a beautiful tornado of a gift, honey.”
Ali Larter looks incandescent as she tears up telling him: “I just want to be loved. And wanted. And worshipped.”
“All of it, honey. You got all of it.”
(The house in Fort Worth and “something on the beach” will have to wait, but she can’t help adding them to the list. She’s a Pisces, after all.)
Maybe T.L. isn’t such a sonuvabitch. Okay, he definitely is, but he’s a sonuvabitch with a soul. Let’s give Tommy a few more problems to contend with before this season goes out (hopefully) in a blaze. For now, he gets to enjoy a taco.
Notes from the Patch
- We see Ariana arrive home very late indeed to see her pile of roses (while Cooper is snoozing), but we are getting too little of her working at the Patch Cafe! Isn’t the bar where all the dirty deals are done?
- We’re not really sure where Sheridan was going with that brief interlude showing the Latino roughnecks having what looked like a lowriders convention. The show doesn’t shy away from stereotypes, but surely this tableau makes more sense in Los Angeles than the cracked soil of the Permian Basin?
- Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) delivers the funny in brother Cooper’s pickup truck: “I didn’t know there was a breakfast sausage cologne.”
- For a split second, I thought we had maybe lost Sam Elliott’s wonderful T.L. to the great beyond! But no, he’s just hard to wake up. Inspiring Tommy’s ridiculous and ridiculously delightful one-liner: “I’m gonna have to get you one of them ear trumpets like the English wear.”
- Chateau Norris stocks only the finest Mexican hot sauce you can buy in every major grocery chain: Valentina. IYKYK.
- Angela looks truly bummed that Tommy has forgotten one crucial compliment: “You didn’t say anything about my tits.”
- Tune of the week: “Purple Gas” by Zach Bryan and Noeline Hofmann.
Paul Schrodt is a freelance writer and editor covering pop culture and the entertainment industry. He has contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Men’s Health, The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles magazine, and others.
