Paramount
November in Texas means three things: cooler air sweeping across the prairie, prep for Thanksgiving, and a whole lot of anticipation out of Fort Worth. That’s because “Landman,” Taylor Sheridan’s hit Paramount+ series, returns for its second season on Nov. 16 on. Paramount+. And this time, the boomtown drama hits a little closer to home. Many of the show’s most striking scenes were filmed right here in Cowtown, where star sightings have become almost as common as cattle drives through the Stockyards.
If season one introduced viewers to the high-stakes world of Texas oil and the tangled personal lives that fuel it, season two promises to drill even deeper. Paramount+ has already declared “Landman” its most-streamed original series to date — and for Sheridan, whose track record already includes “Yellowstone” and “1883,” that’s saying something. So, in honor of the upcoming season, we broke down a few character arcs for fun to predict what might come next for one of our favorite shows.
The Man at the Center: Tommy Norris
Paramount
Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris isn’t a traditional oil-field hero. He’s not a swaggering cowboy or a ruthless tycoon — he’s a weary tactician navigating an industry that’s both a blessing and a curse. As Vice President of Operations at M-Tex Oil (and later its reluctant acting CEO), Tommy represents that rarest of Sheridan protagonists: the calm operator in a world designed to make men explode.
Thornton gives Tommy a kind of emotional economy that makes every word matter. You can hear it in the way he negotiates with cartel enforcers, or in the measured tone he uses when consoling his ex-wife during one of her spirals. There’s quiet steel behind the charm. The violence in “Landman” rarely comes from gunfire — it’s the violence of compromise, of what it costs to keep a job, a family, and a conscience intact.
Sheridan wrote the role specifically for Thornton after casting him in “1883.”
“Taylor said, ‘I’m going to write this in your voice,’” Thornton told The Hollywood Reporter. “When I read the script, I thought, yeah — that’s me if I were a landman.”
In season two, Tommy’s composure begins to crack. The higher he climbs, the more personal the fallout becomes. The oil business rewards loyalty until it doesn’t, and Tommy is learning what happens when the job starts to drill through the man.
Angela Norris: The Woman Who Refuses to Settle
Paramount
If Tommy embodies the stoic Texas work ethic, Ali Larter’s Angela is its wild counterpoint — beautiful, impulsive, and allergic to peace. She’s a woman who never accepted the boundaries laid out for her. Sheridan doesn’t write Angela as a villain or a victim — she’s a walking contradiction, a woman who sabotages herself out of boredom and yet still commands empathy.
Larter plays her with a sharpness that undercuts the glitz. In one scene, Angela FaceTimes Tommy from the home she shares with another man, her tone oscillating between flirtation and fury. She’s self-destructive, yes, but she’s also painfully human — someone who can’t quite separate love from survival.
“She’s a total spitfire,” Larter told Elle. “You see her going to the bar, and she wants the attention. It’s not a dirty word to her… she’s coming back to where she belongs.”
Angela’s arc in season two feels like Sheridan’s attempt to ask whether a woman like her — one who’s burned every bridge in her path — can still find redemption when the smoke clears.
The Next Generation: Ainsley and Cooper Norris
Paramount
Michelle Randolph’s Ainsley is a familiar Sheridan archetype — the restless daughter who wants freedom but doesn’t yet understand what it costs. In the first season, she was defined by her relationships. In the second, she begins to see the machinery that props up her family’s fortune. Randolph, who also stars in Sheridan’s “1923,” brings a lived-in naturalism to the role — one that hints at Ainsley’s emerging awareness of the moral contradictions in her father’s world.
Her brother, Cooper (Jacob Lofland), is the emotional core of the Norris family. He’s the dreamer who wants to follow his father’s footsteps without inheriting his ghosts. When he trades his college scholarship for a hard hat and a job on the rigs, he becomes the show’s stand-in for working-class Texas — idealistic, proud, and painfully aware of the risks.
Lofland, who lost his own father — an oil-field worker — before filming began, channels that grief into the role.
“My dad used to tell me stories about the fields,” he told Interview Magazine. “I wanted to bring that world to life.” Cooper’s empathy and decency set him apart in a series where decency often feels like a liability.
Ariana: The Resilience of the Everyday
Paramount
Few characters capture Sheridan’s fascination with resilience better than Paulina Chávez’s Ariana. A young widow left to raise her child after a deadly explosion, Ariana is forced to navigate grief while negotiating for justice from the very company that employed her husband.
Chávez, a Texas native, gives the role a grounded dignity — a woman learning that survival is an act of defiance. Her romance with Cooper could have been a cliché, but instead it feels like an act of mutual healing. Ariana’s story reminds viewers that the oil boom’s wealth has always been underwritten by tragedy — and by women like her who refuse to be broken by it.
The Power and the Price: Cami and Monty Miller
Paramount
Jon Hamm’s Monty Miller was the face of M-Tex Oil — charming, ruthless, and doomed. His death at the end of season one left a power vacuum that defines the new season. Monty’s widow, Cami (played by Demi Moore), is poised to fill it.
Moore plays Cami with controlled elegance — a woman schooled in maintaining appearances but starting to see the cracks in her reflection. In early glimpses of season two, she appears ready to move from the background of her husband’s empire to the forefront of her own.
“It’s a subculture we haven’t seen before,” Moore told Deadline in May of 2024. “Taylor explores the issues around oil — and the delicious drama within families.”
Cami’s arc could be "Landman’s" most potent — a study of power rediscovered in a man’s world that’s crumbling from within.
Rebecca Falcone: The Company’s Sharp Edge
Paramount
Every Sheridan series needs its moral provocateur — the one who says the quiet parts out loud. Kayla Wallace’s Rebecca Falcone fits the bill. She’s a corporate attorney whose brilliance borders on cruelty. When she tells a colleague, “You think they hired me because I’m pretty? I charge $900 an hour,” it’s not bravado — it’s survival in a system designed to reward detachment.
Wallace brings intelligence and a sharp edge to the role. She’s one of the few outsiders who can stand toe-to-toe with Tommy, forcing him to confront how much of his own soul he’s signed away.
The Ensemble: The Land, the Law, and the Legacy
Paramount
Around these central figures orbit the rest of Sheridan’s ensemble — James Jordan as Dale Bradley, the loyal engineer whose quiet competence holds the oil field together; Mark Collie’s world-weary Sheriff Joeberg, policing a landscape where every handshake hides a weapon; and Colm Feore’s Nathan, the perpetually flustered lawyer-roommate who gives the series its flashes of dark comedy.
Season two also welcomes Andy Garcia as Gallino — a shadowy magnate whose presence expands the world of M-Tex beyond state lines — and the legendary Sam Elliott in an undisclosed role that’s certain to add gravitas and grit.
What “Landman” Says About Texas
At its core, "Landman" isn’t about oil — it’s about identity. About the tension between pride and profit, progress and preservation. It’s a story written in diesel and dust, in the stubborn conviction that Texas can build its future without burying its soul.
Sheridan’s genius lies in his understanding that the land itself is a character — one as volatile and magnificent as the people who work it. In "Landman", that land is both battleground and sanctuary.
So when the rigs start spinning again this November and Tommy Norris returns to our screens, it won’t just be another TV season. It’ll be another chapter in the long, complicated love story between Texas and the people who keep it running — no matter how much it takes out of them.
