Written by: Alpana

Published: November 22, 2025, 10:46 am

The oil fields in Texas aren’t the only things rumbling — Season 2 of Landman has arrived to a whirlwind of reactions. In a new interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, lead stars Demi Moore and Ali Larter discussing the high stakes of the new chapter and the controversy surrounding it. The audience score, however, is pretty brutal at just 35% on Rotten Tomatoes. But Moore and Larter insist that Season 2 “gets rid of Taylor Sheridan’s biggest criticism,” promising more character development at the center of the story. 

Dispelling the Static Character Critique

A recurring criticism that is made about the “Sheridan-verse” is that its supporting characters, and specifically the women, are subject to stagnation.This was made a particular point of criticism in Landman Season 1 documentation, with Ali Larter’s Angela Norris—ex-wife of lead protagonist Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton)—and her daughter Ainsley  noted they changed (relatively) little despite upheavals. 

“Larter and Moore have said that the first impression is a long game to have the biggest dramatic effect with it.” 

The characters, in particular Angela — who is back home on a more permanent basis are revealed at their most unstable, a creative decision that has occasionally turned off early viewers who let loose with uncontrollable reactions to certain scenes in the premiere. Co-star Michelle Randolph (Ainsley) on her character’s journey. 

This arrangement frames initial disappointment as a purposeful narrative groundwork for subsequent, more satisfying development, suggesting the characters’ complexities are a slow burn that anticipates viewer buy-in. 

“Then you’re able to watch 2 women who are fierce in different ways on the same show and that’s something I think that we love and kind of relate to.” 

Most importantly, the show is quick to address what seemed like a waste of Demi Moore in the previous season. In Season 1, her recurring role as Cami Miller was minimal, which prompted “flak” from viewers. After a death, Cami assumes a powerful new post as co-head of M-Tex Oil with Tommy Norris, which gives Moore not only the spotlight but the professional freedom her character had never before enjoyed. The change of focus is a clear signal that it intends to grow the range of female leaders and complexity within the cutthroat Texas setting. 

An Upcoming Emotional and Heartbreaking Journey

More to do with the structure-defense of the writing itself, but Moore and Larter did vow that the payoff for viewer patience would be well worth it. They echoed the sentiment that fans need to 

“brace themselves for an extremely intense, heartbreaking journey ahead”. 

The story in Season 2 is largely a clash between the “high stakes competitive oil business” and a “fragile family dynamic.” Cami’s rise into corporate power and Angela’s fraught reunion with her familial unit are the central conflicts. In the boomtown economics of West Texas, where a single “gusher can build empires or shatter lives overnight,” the emotional toll is high. 

By calling the season “heartbreaking,” the actors are signaling that the growth of the characters will be hard-fought and that the brutal realities of the business will be tied to personal upheaval for the protagonists. 

Crossover Wishes and Career Foundations

In the interview, the stars also talked about their past and what they wanted for the future of the linked Taylor Sheridan world. Larter and Moore provided anecdotes about the “projects that changed them as actors and people” that they bring into their current Landman roles. 

“that was such an interesting script in the way that he approached that world. It was raw, and it was edgy, and it was vulnerable. I’m going there.”

Moore’s Landman appearance comes on the heels of a career-defining moment, having received praise and an Oscar nod for her turn in the 2024 horror film The Substance. This outside affirmation serves to reinforce the dramatic heights she takes Cami Miller to in the expansion of Season 2. 

The discussion naturally came around to the possibility of crossovers with other Sheridan series. And although Billy Bob Thornton has previously expressed interest in a darker crossover with Mayor of Kingstown, co-creator Christian Wallace has expressed interest in bringing back 1883 stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill with Thornton in Landman , illustrating the recirculating talent pool and how easily these stories cross paths. 

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Conclusion

The message Demi Moore and Ali Larter want to send is clear, Landman Season 2 is all about building on character. Though the initial audience score is low, the actors promise that the characters are not static, changing dolorously and dramatically through the season. The critical consensus, calling Season 2 “stronger than the first”, supports the expectation that emotional and developmental payoff for Cami and Angela’s high-stakes journey is around the corner. Fans who are patient enough to travel the difficult road from “point A” to “point Z” will find their patience rewarded. 

Fandomfans love diving deep into the worlds that fans obsess over. We deliver breakdowns, character guides, reviews, and updates that help you stay ahead of the curve.

Written by: Alpana

Published: November 17, 2025, 11:26 am

Landman’s return for Season 2 certainly promises more of that high-stakes dustbowl drama Taylor Sheridan fans have come to crave, but the real fireworks this season don’t come from a new well or a corporate takeover. It comes in the form of one man: Sam Elliott as T.L. Norris, the estranged father of Billy Bob Thornton’s explosive lead character Tommy Norris. According to Collider, “Death and a Sunset,” his debut in the premiere, makes it clear right away that the corporate endgame for the Norris family will not be itself but deeply, painfully personal. 

The Weight of Grief Defines T.L. Norris’s First Scene

The introduction to Sam Elliott is a lesson in minimalism. T.L. is first shown sitting outside an assisted living home in Texas, in a wheelchair, as he watches the sun go down. This delicate pause in reflection is so different from the usual frenetic West Texas life Tommy lives and is quickly interrupted by utter despair. T.L. is informed his wife, Dorothy, passed away peacefully while in memory care. 

Elliott anchors T.L.’s arrival on the scene in a gritty, bare-bones melancholy. The iconic actor does not go for melodrama, he just lets the staggering weight of loss permeate the scene. At one point, an employee offers a platitude that Dorothy is in a “better place,” and T.L.’s response is humorously unflinching, being a window into his morose outlook on life: 

“If I do, that means I’m in hell, too”. 

This moment serves as an emotional anchor for the scene, signaling that Season 2 will require as much soul excavation as any drilling operation. The audience is immediately brought to a man defeated by life, proving T.L. is what broke the family, not took part in it. 

Season 2 Shifts Toward Soul-Deep Storytelling and Family Trauma

Image credit: IMDb

The opening provides a trope-defining line that encapsulates the whole premise of T.L., and the thematic stakes for this season are set by it. Looking back at his life, the elder Norris laments with soul-crushing despair that, 

“I wasted 60 years on hope”. 

This admission is the character’s aching thesis. T.L. isn’t just rueful about a few missteps, he laments the act of having placed faith in a brighter horizon.   

T.L. as a Failed Father and a Man Defined by Pain

This radical cynicism is based on well-defined, deep-lying failure. T.L. is a failed father, emotionally distant from his remaining children after losing one at a young age. He possesses both the physical limitation of the wheelchair and glimpses of a violent, wild nature, as he has been seen throwing punches. 

In an era when the world cannot get enough of chasing the next great big boom, T.L. is a reminder of how hollow that chase has increasingly become. He’s not a wise sage, but an anti-mentor, someone who exemplifies the worst-case scenario, a lifetime of trying that ends with nothing but loneliness and regret. 

T.L.’s presence guarantees that Tommy’s rise in the corporate world will be upended by a personal disaster. When Tommy gets the call that Dorothy has been killed just cutting off what is obviously a tender moment with Angela and the message is clear: the past is here, and it wants its due.   

A Long-Avoided Father–Son Confrontation Finally Approaches

As reports suggests, The showdown between father and son is coming, and it’s been years in the making. Their relationship has been one of profound avoidance for an extended period of time, a painful dance of silence now must come to an end. The terrifying but valid honesty that is necessary Tommy himself understands the required fearsome truth: 

“We’ve been lying by omission to one another for ages. Let’s not begin.”  

T.L.’s Search for Redemption from Generational Truth and Reckoning

Sam Elliott confirmed that T.L. is looking for “a way back” into the family, and said his relationship with Tommy will have a “real arc”. This path to rapprochement will make Tommy face what his own ambition “really cost emotionally” and make him “make peace with the broken man that made him.”

T.L. Norris is not only a fresh face to the cast list but he’s the excruciating impetus that compels the Norris family to sever the walls they’ve built around their pain and generational trauma that’s lain buried beneath the West Texas soil. 

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Conclusion

Sam Elliott’s T.L. Norris is not a throwaway character to get some exposition or comic relief in, he is the motivating psychological centerpoint for Landman Season 2. And so Righteous Thieves takes shape, refocusing the series’ perspective, now grounding the weight of drama from all corporate survival to the toll the West Texas oil life takes on a person inside. 

Representing deep regret and a generation of trauma not yet healed, T.L pushes Tommy Norris to come to terms with the fact that attaining success in the professional world means nothing if your personal life is one of emotional neglect. The M-Tex fight, in the end, is a sideshow to the real one: the painful, painstaking work it takes for father and son to finally stop running from the truth and discover, in a world defined by volatility and unforgiving landscapes, a way to come home to one another. T.L.’s presence guarantees the highest stakes in Season 2 aren’t the price of oil, but the price of the soul. 

Welcome to Fandomfans — your source for the latest buzz from Hollywood’s creative underworld. Here, we explore the introduction of T.L. transforms Landman from high-stakes industry drama, into the element of generational trauma. T.L. is purpose-built to be the embodiment, physically and emotionally, of everything Tommy Norris has sought to escape.