Landman's Tommy Replacement Could Officially Doom Season 3

Landman’s season 2 finale set up a very different show for season 3. Tommy cut his own corporate puppet-strings, launched his own company with Gallino’s money, and filled out the staff and board of directors with his friends and family. Nate is his treasurer, Rebecca is his chief counsel, and he’s even bringing T.L. out of retirement to help run the drilling operations. Tommy named his son, Cooper, as the president of this new venture, so he’ll be in charge, and Tommy will take more of a backseat.

Tommy will still be the lead character in Landman season 3, but the show is clearly setting up Cooper to take over his dad’s oil empire. Cooper is now running his dad’s business, and eventually he’ll take over it entirely. But Cooper is nowhere near as interesting or charismatic a character as Tommy.

Billy Bob Thornton’s irresistible Southern charm is what carries the show. Thornton’s charisma papers over all the weaknesses in Taylor Sheridan’s writing. Between the flagrant misrepresentation of renewable energy to the improbable love story of Cooper and the widow Medina, Thornton’s swagger keeps Landman more than watchable. If it’s up to Cooper to paper over the flaws in the writing, and Tommy is nowhere to be seen, then it won’t stay watchable for very long.

As a character, Cooper is kind of a wet blanket. He’s really dull and dreary, and takes himself super seriously, and it’s just annoying to see a privileged rich kid act like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. If you lose Tommy, you lose the whole hook of the show. Hopefully, Tommy taking a backseat in his new business is more of a character-arc thing than a phase-the-actor-out-of-the-show thing. Thornton seems to really enjoy playing this character, so, with any luck, he’ll want to stick around for a while.

Landman Can Never Fully Replace Tommy

Cooper is clearly being set up as the new Norris patriarch, and, eventually, the new face of the franchise. When Landman reaches its own Dutton Ranch-style sequel show, Cooper will take over his dad’s oil empire and go on a series of his own adventures. But Cooper just doesn’t have what it takes to replace his dad. Tommy is a great character — he’s a cross between Walter White and Hank Hill — but his son is a big nothing burger.

But it’s not just Cooper; no one can replace Tommy. If Landman tried to make Angela or Ainsley or Nate or Rebecca or T.L. or anyone else the new star, it just wouldn’t work, because Landman is Billy Bob Thornton. Thornton is the heart and soul of this show, and the reason why audiences love it so much. If the show tried to replace him, it would be the same mistake as replacing Steve Carell in The Office, or replacing Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men, or replacing Henry Cavill in The Witcher (boy, Hollywood does this a lot).

There may come a time, in the not-too-distant future, when Paramount starts pressuring Sheridan to spin off Landman in the same way he’s spun off Yellowstone. There are plenty of ideas that might come up when those discussions happen — an Industry-style corporate drama about Cami taking over her late father’s business; a prequel following T.L.’s early career in a bygone era of the oil industry; a sequel about Cooper and Ariana raising their family and continuing Tommy’s legacy — but they might not work, because the success of Landman is so intrinsically tied to the appeal of its lead actor.

Making Landman without Billy Bob Thornton would be like making a John Wick show without John Wick. (That’s something else Hollywood did.)

Landman

Release Date November 17, 2024

Showrunner Taylor Sheridan

Directors Stephen Kay, Michael Friedman, Taylor Sheridan

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  Billy Bob Thornton

  Tommy Norris

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