Landman season 2 wastes no time in episode 1 (“Death and a Sunset”), pivoting after November 16, 2025’s premiere on Paramount+ into a West Texas chess match that keeps Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris, Demi Moore’s Cami Miller, and Ali Larter’s Angela on edge while a new force—Sam Elliott’s T.L.—changes the temperature of every scene he enters. The hour also confirms a personal tragedy for Tommy and closes with a gut punch that reframes the Norris family.
What happens in episode 1 (“Death and a Sunset”)?
Michelle Randolph as Ainsley in Landman episode 1, season 2
Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
The premiere opens with a nearly 17-minute Fort Worth hotel sequence that doubles as a wake for Jon Hamm’s late Monty Miller and an audition for Cami’s leadership of M‑Tex Oil. A ballroom “get to know me” luncheon fills with skeptical power brokers and “a lotta old dudes in oversized cowboy hats,” as Tommy—now company president—parries contract sharks while backing Cami’s play. Then Moore delivers the scene of the hour, snapping the room to attention with an ice-cold closer: “Enjoy your lunch. I paid for it with your fuckin’ money.”
The swagger doesn’t last. At the Norris house, an Angela‑Tommy dinner detonates into a hormone‑joke minefield—Tommy warns it’s “the wrong side of the calendar” to cross his ex—before he veers into a riff about aliens watching “premenstrual women in a zoo ‘like we watch gorillas eat fruit, pick their asses, and swing around on shit.’” Angela cuts him off with, “Here’s what we’re not doin’: any of this shit.” Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) fares no better on her own path: her Texas Christian University (TCU) interview plays as cruel comic relief, leaning into “dumb blonde” clichés rather than growth.
Jacob Lofland as Cooper Norris in Landman episode 1, season 2
Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
Elsewhere, Cooper Norris (Jacob Lofland) hits oil with new wells, dreaming of stability for Ariana Medina and their family, while cartel boss Jimenez (Alex Meraz) remains offstage. Andy Garcia’s new season‑two regular is credited but does not appear in the premiere.
Sam Elliott’s T.L. arrives—and the sunset turns dark
Sam Elliott as T.L. Norris in Landman episode 1, season 2
Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
Sam Elliott debuts as T.L., the estranged, wheelchair‑using father of Tommy Norris, parked at a Texas assisted‑living facility and refusing to be rushed from a sunset. When a caretaker offers comfort about seeing loved ones again, T.L. answers with the line that defines his introduction: “Dying a little bit every day.” Later, after a nurse puzzles over why sundown seems later than yesterday, T.L. growls that he could explain it, but “you wouldn’t understand.”
The hour closes with the season’s most personal twist: Tommy learns that his mother, Dorothy, has died in memory care. The news lands while he’s with Angela, and it reopens old wounds in the Norris family even as M‑Tex faces circling sharks.
Episode 1’s sharpest details (and why they matter)
Demi Moore as Cami in Landman episode 1, season 2
Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
- Cami’s steel: The luncheon bathroom sneer‑test backfires on a pair of trophy‑wife onlookers and primes Cami’s scorched‑earth speech from the dais. Her threat signals a season of acquisitions, not surrender.
- Tommy’s bluntness at breakfast: The president of M‑Tex quibbles with a hotel server about whether breakfast is “really the most important meal,” then tips $100 and asks for cigarettes—“anything but menthol or those little skinny ones.” The gesture says as much about his contradictions as any boardroom scene.
- Price tag punchline: The dinner’s cacio e pepe sports shaved truffles that run $2,800 an ounce, a perfect prop for a night that turns to farce.
- Family fractures: Angela’s line “Here’s what we’re not doin’: any of this shit” lands because Tommy keeps “throwing shit against the wall.” The pattern sets up episode‑long friction that curdles into grief.
What episode 1 sets up
Michelle Randolph as Ainsley Norris in Landman episode 1, season 2
Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
Landman season 2 episode 1 balances boardroom brinkmanship with a family reckoning. Cami’s vow to hunt rivals’ leases plants a season‑long business war. Tommy’s loss—Dorothy’s death—ushers in T.L. as a volatile new presence. Cooper’s wells hint at independence. Ainsley’s TCU fiasco suggests the show still struggles to write its younger women with nuance.
What’s next after episode 1
Ali Larter as Angela Norris in Landman episode 1, season 2
Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
“Death and a Sunset” positions Cami to fight, Tommy to mourn, and T.L. to haunt every conversation from here. Expect fallout at M‑Tex as banks and competitors test Cami, and expect the Norris clan to face hard questions about what Dorothy’s passing unearths. For this show, the oil keeps flowing—but so do the grudges.
Bottom line: As a table‑setter, episode 1 hits hard where it counts: a killer Cami moment, a perfectly weary Sam Elliott, and a final phone call that changes everything. Landman season 2 just made its stakes painfully, personally clear.
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