In Landman Season 2, episode 8, Tommy hired an exotic dancer named Cheyenne to lift Thomas’ spirits by performing physical therapy on him. Unsurprisingly enough, that worked out, and Thomas started getting out of his depressive phase. Tommy, Charlie, Rebecca, and Nate (via Zoom) sat down for a meeting with Cami regarding the offshore gas drilling project. Despite Tommy, Nate, and Rebecca’s suggestion that they take the insurance company to court, because that’d be more profitable than drilling, Cami chose to greenlight the project because Charlie claimed that there was a 10 percent possibility of finding a giant reservoir of gas down there somewhere. This led to a tiff between Charlie and Rebecca, and although Tommy was angry at Cami, he didn’t exactly express it. He went to Dan, because it was his money that Cami was using to fund the project, to tell him to stop the drilling because the yield wouldn’t be worth it. That’s when Tommy is hit with the realization that Dan wasn’t all that bothered if M-Tex went up in flames and if Cami wasn’t satisfied with being a “rich widow.” He knew he’d make his money back, and this whole endeavor would allow him to put his foot in the door to the oil business. To avoid that outcome, it was important for Charlie to find that gas. Did we get any info on that topic in today’s episode? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Angela and Ainsley Fight Wokeness
There’s some kind of a cheerleading camp going on at Texas Christian University, and while Angela wants Ainsley to stay at a hotel for the week, the latter has to make do with the dorm. Ainsley is fine with it, Tommy is fine with it, but Angela gets overly emotional about the whole thing because she thinks it is the first step of her daughter drifting away from her, and Tommy is doing nothing to assuage her fears. Angela drops off Ainsley at her college premises and then calls up Jamie, the shopping concierge at Neiman Marcus, to “grieve.” Of course, Jamie welcomes her, because she loves Angela and her money. Now, I’m going to do a brief run-through of Ainsley and Angela’s subplot in this episode because it’s embarrassing that Taylor Sheridan sat and wrote all this. Okay, so, Ainsley’s roommate is Paigyn. They use they/them pronouns, they have a pet ferret, they are against perfumes, they meditate, they eat vegan, they hate music, and they treat their room like a safe space. This upsets Ainsley a lot, so she goes to Greta to have her room changed. Greta tells Ainsley to talk to Paigyn so that she can reach some middle ground with them. Ainsley calls her mother instead, and Angela storms into Greta’s office, says that she’s moving Ainsley and her whole cheerleading squad to 3700 Camp Bowie, shades Paigyn for being a joyless individual, and leaves the premises of the college.
At the hotel, Angela tells Ainsley to not pay attention to people like Paigyn, because they always unload their frustration about not being able to fix themselves upon the rest of the world. Now, I’m going to put this as politely as I can: is this whole sequence of events supposed to paint the “woke” Paigyn and Greta in a bad light and the “anti-woke” Angela and Ainsley in a positive light? Both Angela and Ainsley are so deep in the realm of internalized misogyny that they think their male gaze-y persona is something that they have created themselves and not something they’ve been indoctrinated to do. Angela thinks that Ainsley being told to “be an adult” is insulting. Angela is of the opinion that Ainsley is better off fraternizing with clones of herself than adjusting to Paigyn, because she knows that they’ll always be privileged enough to not feel the need to accommodate anybody else’s preferences. And Paigyn is the villain here because? They have some sense of individuality, and their personality isn’t centered around the male gaze? Yeah, sure. I hope Angela and Ainsley’s reaction to Paigyn comes to bite them in the back and burst the bubble they are living in. With Tommy potentially out of a job, it seems like that’s going to happen sooner rather than later.
Thomas and Cheyenne Get Close
Before heading out to work, Tommy checks in on Thomas to see if he’s interested in tagging along for the event where the rig for the offshore drilling project will be dragged into the open seas. When Thomas turns Tommy down because he’s looking forward to his therapy session with Cheyenne, Tommy is glad to leave his dad in Cheyenne’s hands instead of forcing him to come get bored at his party. Additionally, he makes it clear that Cheyenne isn’t actually a physical therapist; she is an exotic dancer. Later that day, while Thomas is taking a nap, Cheyenne wakes him up and takes him for his aqua-therapy session. Once the routine is over, Cheyenne opens up about her past in Houston, her savings, and her perspective on life; reconfirms that she isn’t actually a physical therapist; and even reveals her true name, which is Penny.
I am going to be honest; Thomas went from being somewhat endearing to downright creepy. Right after his wife died, Thomas has been sharing screentime with girls as old as his bloody granddaughter. And all of these scenes have this romantic undercurrent to them. I assumed that these moments were supposed to show that men have become so horrible that young women have to keep their spirits up by talking to someone from a bygone era and hoping that they’ll find a man like Thomas. However, the sexual undertones in the conversations between Thomas and Cheyenne are just creeping me out. I know that people like to talk about problematic age-gap relationships, but I don’t know if that’s something that should be glorified in a show as mainstream as this. I hope this tone is dropped and the writers and directors maintain a level of sensitivity during the scenes between Thomas and Cheyenne, because if I have to see them becoming more than “just friends,” I am going to hurl my laptop into the stratosphere.
Cami Fires Tommy
Rebecca goes to Charlie’s place to pick him up, and they bury the hatchet after the argument they had over the fact that Charlie did nothing to dissuade Cami from greenlighting the offshore drilling project, which led to Charlie making that personal remark about Rebecca’s personality. They promise each other that, even though Charlie will be on a rig for the next 6 months, they’ll try their best to build the foundations of their romantic relationship. On that note, Charlie takes off to join his gas-drilling team, who will be hauling said rig through Louisiana, while Rebecca joins Tommy, Nate, and Dale to pick up Cami from Fort Worth. Cami checks on how Tommy is feeling, and, well, he sounds depressed because his gut is telling him that this whole project is a bad investment. Cami is on the opposite end of the confidence spectrum, because she thinks that in the next 6 months, she’ll become a potential billionaire or maybe even a trillionaire, and Tommy will be forced to eat his words. They land in Louisiana and join Dan and Bella so that they can head to the rig-hauling party together.
After getting to their destination, Rebecca has a brief chat with Blanton’s attorneys, McDougal and James, who are satisfied that they have been invited to see proof of the fact that the offshore gas-drilling project is happening. Dale and Nate help themselves to some food. And Cami takes Tommy away from the main event to tell him that she is firing him because he doesn’t share her enthusiasm for the future of M-Tex. Tommy is rendered speechless, and he stares silently at the drilling rig being hauled by Charlie and his team. That reaction is totally understandable, because just in the last episode, Cami was telling Tommy to help her achieve her dream. Now, a few hours later, she’s firing him because he isn’t very chirpy? He is concerned about the future of M-Tex. He is sad because he knows how complicated Dan’s trap is. He is silent because maybe he’s thinking of a way out of this mess. And Cami chooses to fire him? Well, her loss, because I have been saying for the past few weeks that the show has been hinting at Tommy’s potential retirement through his conversations with Thomas. So, all that Cami has done is sped up that process. If I have to look at this optimistically, I’ll say that Cami’s gamble is going to pay off and she and M-Tex will flourish without the cautious Tommy holding them back. However, the realist in me says that Cami and M-Tex are going to crash and burn, and she’ll come running back to Tommy for help.
Cooper Will Probably Get Jailed
Cooper and Ariana head out for work, and since the latter is working a double shift, Cooper promises to swing by the Patch Cafe to say “Hi” to her before heading home. Cooper, Boss, Ben, and Russ convene at a small oil well, and while Boss critiques the old style of drilling, Cooper applauds it because that oil well is producing five barrels per day. When Cooper says that he wants to use the spot where the small oil well stands and erect a standard oil well there, Boss opposes that idea, because he thinks that they are going towards a dead end. Cooper justifies his idea by saying that the place where they are standing is atop a fault line and there’s a reservoir 6000 feet below the surface. Boss wants to check with Tommy and Dale regarding this move, but Cooper stands firm and says that this is his operation now, and he’ll be calling the shots. Boss has no choice but to oblige, but he does warn Cooper that if his hunch turns out to be a dud, they won’t even be able to pay for their mistake. In the ending of Landman Season 2, episode 9, the focus shifts to the Patch Cafe, where we see Ariana stepping out to call Isabel and check how Miguel is doing. That’s when she is ambushed by Johnny, the guy whose nose Ariana had broken for passing inappropriate comments. He wants his revenge, which is partially or fully fueled by his racism, as indicated by the slur he uses to describe Ariana: a wetback, which means an undocumented Mexican immigrant in the USA.
While all this is happening in the cafe’s backyard, Cooper enters the cafe and asks Barney where she is. Barney tells him that she is at the rear end of the building, and when Cooper gets there, he tackles Johnny before he can grievously hurt his wife. After that, Cooper unleashes a flurry of punches on Johnny’s face and only stops when the rapist is on the verge of dying. Barney stumbles upon this altercation and tells his staff to call the police. Now, something about his scene made me think that Barney is concerned for Johnny more than he is about Ariana and Cooper. I have a feeling that Johnny is some kind of a big shot, and Barney thinks that this altercation is going to harm his business. So, maybe he’s going to throw Cooper and Ariana under the bus and save the Patch Cafe? It’s just a hunch, but if that happens, while Ariana will only be out of a job, Cooper will be imprisoned, and his dream of leading an oil drilling crew will go up in flames. I know what you are thinking. “Tommy will bail him out.” But what is Tommy if he’s not a landman for M-Tex? Does he have any influence without that company at his back? Well, we’ll have to wait till next week to find out. Until then, please, feel free to share your opinions on this weird penultimate episode in the comments section below.
