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.\u00a0 And I had always made a point of avoiding those.\u00a0 And even though Camera Girl adopted it for our viewing pleasure(?!), I did it under protest.\u00a0 Sure, it had some pretty decent country music and some of it was amusing but it was pretty trashy and absurd.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was called Landman.\u00a0 It starred Billy Bob Thornton and was about the oil industry.\u00a0 Specifically, it was about the Texas Oil Patch and the people who work it.\u00a0 So, a year or two went by before I decided to look into this show.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Norris is a \u201clandman.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s the oil company\u2019s fixer who handles everything from negotiating with the cartels who own the land over the company\u2019s mineral rights to paying off widows when their husbands have been incinerated in a well explosion.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
And yet.\u00a0 I really kind of liked it.\u00a0 Now don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 It\u2019s definitely a night time soap.\u00a0 Thorton\u2019s character has an ex-wife who reminds me of Peggy from \u201cMarried with Children\u201d and a half naked 17-year-old daughter who shows up at her father\u2019s doorstep with her boyfriend and is insufferable.\u00a0 But he also has a son who\u2019s working as a roughneck to learn his father\u2019s business and someday make his fortune.\u00a0 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\u2019s angry, obscene outbursts whenever anyone objects to his smoking, swearing or other anti-social behaviors.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Billy Bob smashed the end of his pinky finger while trying to close a valve with a wrench and a hammer.\u00a0 The ER doctor wants him to head for a reconstructive surgeon but the patient says he hasn\u2019t got time and wants the mangled tissue removed and what\u2019s left stitched up.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Now how can you not love that?<\/p>\n
Anyway, we watched the second episode today and liked that too.\u00a0 And the soundtrack has some decent country music.\u00a0 So, I\u2019m back in the trash tv world for the foreseeable future.\u00a0 Bless you Taylor Sheridan!<\/p>\n