When I watched a few episodes of the tv show Yellowstone, I reflected that this was a night time soap like Dallas and the other shows of that era. And I had always made a point of avoiding those. And even though Camera Girl adopted it for our viewing pleasure(?!), I did it under protest. Sure, it had some pretty decent country music and some of it was amusing but it was pretty trashy and absurd.
So fast forward a few years and mercifully Yellowstone has expired and other than some spinoffs that I was lucky enough to escape I was trash tv free. But I saw a commercial that previewed a show by the same creator as Yellowstone (Taylor Sheridan) that seemed to involve an aspect of American life that was more realistic(?) than the cattle ranches of Yellowstone. It was called Landman. It starred Billy Bob Thornton and was about the oil industry. Specifically, it was about the Texas Oil Patch and the people who work it. So, a year or two went by before I decided to look into this show. And since I wanted to start at the beginning, I had Camera Girl go to the local library and check out the DVDs for the first season.
Well, yesterday we watched the opening episode and it starts with Thornton (as Tommy Norris) with a hood over his head handcuffed to a chair in an industrial building being guarded by a Mexican cartel thug. Norris is a “landman.” He’s the oil company’s fixer who handles everything from negotiating with the cartels who own the land over the company’s mineral rights to paying off widows when their husbands have been incinerated in a well explosion. So basically, this is only slightly less crazy than the Yellowstone scenario where a livestock law enforcement agent has helicopter gun-ships and assault vehicles.
And yet. I really kind of liked it. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely a night time soap. Thorton’s character has an ex-wife who reminds me of Peggy from “Married with Children” and a half naked 17-year-old daughter who shows up at her father’s doorstep with her boyfriend and is insufferable. But he also has a son who’s working as a roughneck to learn his father’s business and someday make his fortune. And the male-centric atmosphere of the oil patch is such a breath of fresh (or smoky) air that I find myself enjoying Billy Bob’s angry, obscene outbursts whenever anyone objects to his smoking, swearing or other anti-social behaviors. One of my favorite scenes like this occurs when Norris is at the hospital where his son is recovering from proximity to an explosion that killed the rest of his team. Billy Bob smashed the end of his pinky finger while trying to close a valve with a wrench and a hammer. The ER doctor wants him to head for a reconstructive surgeon but the patient says he hasn’t got time and wants the mangled tissue removed and what’s left stitched up. The doctor says no surgeon would do that so Billy Bob takes out his pocket knife and cuts off the mangled flesh and then repeats his request for the doctor to clean up what was left. Now how can you not love that?
Anyway, we watched the second episode today and liked that too. And the soundtrack has some decent country music. So, I’m back in the trash tv world for the foreseeable future. Bless you Taylor Sheridan!