If you thought Landman season one was explosive, brace yourself—because Paramount just pulled the pin and lobbed a grenade straight into season two. The oil fields aren’t just sizzling with profits anymore; they’re on the verge of going up in flames. Family tensions are combusting at a dangerous pace, cartel threats loom larger than ever, and, surprisingly, one of the most terrifying new villains doesn’t even carry a gun. Instead, they wield a college admissions clipboard.

At the center of the storm is Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris. In season one, he was the fixer—a grizzled survivor barely holding together the fragile shell of family loyalty and oil empire politics. But season two puts Tommy squarely in the hot seat. Monty Miller is gone, and in his absence, Tommy is being shoved onto the throne of a crumbling oil dynasty he never really wanted. Thornton thrives in these kinds of roles—a reluctant king forced to carry the burden of power while the vultures circle overhead. This season, Tommy is not just patching leaks; he’s drowning in the flood.

And it’s not just cartel hitmen who are pressing him. Demi Moore makes her Landman debut as Cammy, Monty’s widow, who enters the battlefield with razor-sharp precision. She’s playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers, and she’s making sure her every move leaves a scar. Cammy isn’t the grieving widow archetype. She’s a venomous power player who sees Monty’s death as an opportunity, not a tragedy. Her line in the sand is clear: she doesn’t just want a seat at the table—she wants to flip the table, carve her initials into the oil empire, and remind everyone that she’s meaner than Monty ever was.

Moore’s Cammy and Thornton’s Tommy together form the most combustible dynamic of the season. Allies? Rivals? Something in between? Every scene between them feels like a powder keg waiting to ignite. Cammy owns the company. Tommy claims to run it. Their uneasy alliance reads less like a partnership and more like a duel with smiles instead of pistols. It’s boardroom warfare written with the tension of a cartel standoff, and Sheridan makes it clear—when Cammy sharpens her knives, she doesn’t always bother to hide them.

But the Norris family’s problems extend far beyond power struggles in the oil industry. Angela Norris (Ali Larter), Tommy’s long-suffering wife, is faced with her own impossible battle: reconciling with a man whose life has been built on secrets, betrayals, and the occasional cartel showdown. Angela’s return to Tommy’s orbit isn’t about love or forgiveness. It’s about survival. Sheridan doesn’t write romance in neat bows—he writes it like a hostage negotiation. Angela isn’t just patching up a marriage; she’s stepping into a war zone where every choice could dismantle the fragile bonds holding the family together.

What makes Angela’s arc riveting is how it collides with external threats. While she’s cautiously trying to rebuild trust with Tommy, Cammy is sharpening her claws in the boardroom. Meanwhile, Greta Stidum—the smiling assassin of college admissions—threatens Aninsley Norris’s future with something scarier than bullets: rejection letters. Forget cartel shootouts. Greta can devastate the Norris family with brunch meetings and campus tours. She’s the type of villain who doesn’t need a gun to kill—her weapons are bureaucracy and manipulation. And in Sheridan’s world, that’s just as deadly as an ambush.

Angela’s journey isn’t a romantic subplot—it’s survival with lipstick, and she asks the audience’s biggest question: why do these women keep forgiving men like Tommy? Her choices add a layer of emotional humanity to Sheridan’s otherwise bloody canvas of oil, cartels, and betrayal.

Meanwhile, Jacob Laughlin’s Donnie Norris is stepping out of the shadows. In season one, Donnie was the overlooked brother—a quiet presence lingering in the background. But Sheridan never leaves characters in the wings without a plan. Season two cashes in on Donnie’s potential, giving him a bigger role and thrusting him into the family’s most dangerous conflicts. He isn’t the fixer like Tommy, nor the golden child like Aninsley. He’s the middle son—underestimated, overlooked, and desperate to prove himself. And in Sheridan’s storytelling, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Donnie’s arc could go one of two ways: he could rise as an unexpected ally, or he could unravel into a liability that drags the family deeper into chaos. Either way, his storyline is a ticking time bomb, fueled by Laughlin’s brooding energy that promises bad decisions and even worse consequences. Fans should expect Donnie to become either a breakout hero or a devastating cautionary tale.

And let’s not forget the villains circling the Norris family from all angles. The cartel is still breathing down Tommy’s neck, ready to turn oil fields into graveyards at the first misstep. Their violence brings the cinematic explosions and high-stakes drama fans expect. But Greta’s slow-burn sabotage provides the quieter, psychological devastation that Sheridan excels at. Together, they form a pincer move: the cartel pressures the family from outside while Greta corrodes them from within. The Norris family is not built for this two-front war, and Sheridan knows it.

Aninsley, caught between dreams of college and the nightmare of her family’s collapsing empire, might be the most vulnerable of them all. Practically wearing a bullseye, she’s reduced to a pawn in larger power games. Greta dangles her future like bait, the cartel looms with bullets, and her parents are too distracted by boardroom battles and betrayals to truly protect her. Sheridan’s cruelty here is his brilliance—he doesn’t just put the family at risk of losing money or power. He puts their very legacy, their future generations, on the line.

Billy Bob Thornton’s expanded role ensures that Tommy remains the gravitational center of the chaos. Every threat—Cammy’s scheming, Angela’s emotional demands, Greta’s bureaucratic sabotage, the cartel’s violence—funnels through him. He can’t delegate, he can’t escape, and every enemy knows his family is the weakest link. Thornton delivers this role with quiet rage, carrying the weight of responsibility like it’s a curse. Season two isn’t about oil politics—it’s about whether Tommy can survive the storm or finally collapse under it.

And that’s Sheridan’s genius. He’s not just escalating the story—he’s pulling wings off flies and daring the audience to look away. With Cammy’s power grab destabilizing everything, Angela’s reconciliation teetering on the edge of collapse, Donnie’s arc ready to explode, Greta’s bureaucratic villainy corroding the family from within, and the cartel circling like sharks, Landman season two doesn’t just promise conflict. It promises implosion.

So buckle up. The oil fields are burning, the family is fracturing, and the villains aren’t just carrying guns—they’re carrying clipboards. And admit it, that’s exactly why we can’t look away.