Tommy and Cami discuss whether to gamble or play it safe. But then the cartel makes a move.
Here are some random thoughts prompted by “The Crumbs of Hope,” — the Season 1 Finale of Landman. (The recap for Episode 9 is available here.) Warning: There are scads of spoilers here, so you might want to wait until you watch before you read.
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- OK, admit it: When Jimenez (Alex Meraz), the scurvy drug cartel underboss, hammered that nail into Tommy’s leg while torturing the landman — you flinched, right? And you cheered when drug kingpin Gallino — hey look, it’s Andy Garcia! — showed up just in time to kill Jimenez very seriously dead, correct? Don’t be ashamed — that’s exactly what we did.
- Earlier in the episode: After Monty took a turn for the worse — as in, needing open-heart surgery worse — Tommy and Cami had to confab and hash out the details of what needed to be done in the event the M-TEX owner was “incapacitated.” Tommy learned his was expected to take over as president of M-TEX “and facilitate the sale of the company.” But Cami, whose approval will be necessary for all major corporate decisions, indicated she didn’t want to sell the company, even if her husband of 28 years failed to survive the heart transplant he desperately needs.
- Rather than sell M-TEX — at this particular point in time, anyway — Cami expressed her desire to roll the dice with an extremely risky plan to drill, baby, drill on sites where fracking may be the only option. Tommy was dubious, and advised her to sell M-TEX so that she and future generations of her family could afford to live happily ever after. (Not for the first time, we couldn’t help wondering: Maybe Monty wasn’t nearly as wealthy as he’s led everyone to believe.”) But Cami seemed more interested in giving Monty a shot at immortality by maintaining the company he founded: “Do I have enough to make the world remember him?”
Demi Moore as Cami Miller
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- Tommy bowed to Cami’s wishes, but warned her that M-TEX would require a humongous amount of outside financing to do the drilling. On the other hand, he did his best to encourage her that Monty could make an improbable recovery: “He wins when everybody, and I mean everybody, loses.” Unfortunately...
- Previously on Landman: Monty had named Rebecca his vice-president of exploration, despite her conspicuous lack of oil industry experience, because she’s “the shrewdest negotiator I’ve ever seen, and she’s an absolute killer.” But Rebecca obviously knew nothing about her promotion until she was informed in this episode by Tommy that she would also be expected to negotiate financing from investors. He told her that she would be brought up to speed by Nathan and Dale (who apparently still reside at Casa Norris) regarding the nuts and bolts of the oil business. Still, Rebecca was hesitant to assume her new responsibilities because, surprisingly enough, she is morally opposed to fracking. But, not surprisingly, Tommy shot her down: “I hear the moral high ground gets really windy at night.”
- The field trip to an upscale strip club organized by Angela and Ainsley for residents of the Western Skies Retirement Home was a smashing success. Ethel (Louanne Stephens) was especially delighted — so much so, in fact, that we feared she would have an attack — when Ainsley’s boyfriend Ryder, clad only in a jockstrap, shook his groove thing just inches from her face. It should be noted that Ainsley had promised Ryder a reward for taking part in the show. And while we didn’t see all of the details, she made good on her promise.

- Meanwhile, Cooper continued his long-game program to acquire mineral rights from several small producers and form his own oil company. “Power’s in the numbers,” he explained to a potential partner. “A group of small producers become a big producer.” Ariana still hasn’t said anything about investing any of her own money — remember the cool million she acquired in the M-TEX settlement? — but she looked like she’s standing by her man. That is, when she’s not sporadically mourning the loss of her previous man.
- It was only a matter of time before Jimenez and his goons showed to make Tommy pay for the National Guard attack on his drug cartel flunkies. And sure enough, Mr. Bad Vibes and company snatched Tommy and took him out to an M-TEX drilling field, so the landman could witness their blowing up a few things. But Tommy was unfazed — and responded with even more bellicose threats than he did while Jimenez held him captive in the first episode. So Jimenez, without first consulting his boss, spirited Tommy off to the backroom of a cartel-controlled club where he could do all sorts of sadistic things to him (like hammering a nail into his leg) before incinerating Tommy.
- Fortunately, Tommy was saved when Jimenez’s boss, the aforementioned Gallino, arrived just in time to express his disapproval of his underling’s activities. After blasting Jimenez to kingdom come, Gallino struck an unexpectedly friendly, even reasonable tone while addressing Tommy, indicating he wanted to reestablish a mutually beneficial truce between M-TEX and the cartel. (Jimenez, Gallino explained, “did not understand what I understand.”) But wait, there’s more: Gallino actually indicated he might want to invest in M-TEX, claiming he thought oil would eventually become a more profitable commodity than drugs. Are we to assume that Tommy might be open to making a deal with the devil to keep M-TEX going? Guess we’ll find out if and when there is a Season 2.
- So here’s how things stood when the first season of Landman concluded: Monty didn’t get the heart transplant in time, Cami and their daughters were there by his bedside when he went to that great oilfield in the sky, Ainsley and Ryder were still very much an item, Ariana still supports Cooper has he pursues his dream — and Tommy, bloodied but unbowed, stood (shakily) ready to run M-TEX. But the landman is not exactly optimistic about his future. Looking into the field in back of his home, where a coyote inspects the carcass of another coyote that was shot in Episode 9, he said: “You better run, buddy. They kill coyotes around here.”