Summary
Landman Season 2 is developing a really nice rhythm, and “The Pirate Dinner” shows it off as Tommy tries to navigate various professional crises.
I’m beginning to really enjoy the rhythm of Landman Season 2. This is perhaps because it hasn’t always had a discernible one. But despite there still being a lack of clarity about how all of this might ultimately fit together – why the old folks’ home is still a factor in this is anyone’s guess – there is a tangible feeling of momentum in Episode 5. Tommy tries to navigate various escalating professional and personal crises, and every now and then Sam Elliott and Andy Garcia turn up to act their asses off for no reason at all. It’s becoming a pretty winning formula.
Here’s a smart choice, for instance: Now that T.L. is living in Tommy’s house, you’d think that would be a point of consternation for both, given their strained relationship. But “The Pirate Dinner” recasts Tommy’s home life in all of its absurd, over-the-top eccentricity as just about the only thing that’s going well for him. Things with M-Tex are now so bad that Angela’s themed dinners are a welcome reprieve. Even T.L., famously a sourpuss, can’t believe his luck – nor the last time he saw people actually happy with their circumstances.
This is a pretty smart way of bringing Tommy and his tight-knit inner circle closer, despite their dysfunction and without having to devote too much time to silly asides, which is something that the first season indulged in much too often. Because, let’s be frank, there is a lot going wrong for Tommy; a lot of plates he needs to spin, and fires he needs to put out, and most of the runtime has to be devoted to him dealing with those things, even if it usually manifests as him angrily taking calls while he’s on his way to somewhere else.
There’s Cooper, for instance. He has two pressing problems, both of which are liable to get him killed at some point. The first is that Ariana is extremely high-maintenance. Her latest idea is that they should commit to their relationship fully, which means marriage, which means Cooper having to drive halfway across the state to introduce himself to her hilariously mean-looking father and his surly guard dog to ask for permission. When he eventually gets there, he’s told he didn’t need it in the first place, since Ariana is a grown woman who can do what she wants. The whole thing was a test to see if he’d go the extra mile, and he evidently passed.
But this is the least pressing of his two issues. The bigger matter is the terms of the deal he signed with Sonrisa, which is financially unscrupulous in ways that are fairly complicated on paper but amount to, essentially, “It’s a cartel”. Tommy has what he thinks is a solution to this, which is M-Tex buying all the leases instead, but there are a couple of downsides to that. It’ll mean Cooper won’t become a multi-billionaire as expected, and M-Tex might not be able to afford it.
M-Tex’s finances are similarly arcane. There’s that whole matter with the insurance company to worry about, as well as the collision between the pickup and the tanker in the previous episode, and because of the way the company’s finances are organised, none of the extensive capital is readily available. Oh, and there’s also the small matter of Jerrell potentially being blind, though that admittedly costs less money. But either way, M-Tex isn’t exactly flush with cash, and needs great big helpings of it to stave off criminal proceedings. Landman Season 2, Episode 5 doesn’t make much of a secret about where this is going, but it’s still satisfying nonetheless to see all roads lead back around to Gallino. Or “Dan”, if you prefer.
Tommy only has one scene with Gallino in “The Pirate Dinner”, but it’s a good one. It’s obvious that his gloating about buying out Cooper’s contracts is going to be short-lived, since we know from the previous episode that Cami is going to fall for Gallino’s partnership offer, but Garcia is just great at conveying the inevitability. He knows Tommy will be back in his office before long, having been instructed by Cami to climb into bed with him and his cartel cash. And he’s right! Cami isn’t interested in Tommy’s protestations about the dangers of signing deals with gangsters, or even how the optics of it might look to the FBI. She just doesn’t want to “lose”. She means business-wise, but the real question is whether she might lose her life before her fortune.
With all this in mind, you can see why a pirate-themed dinner – with even Rebecca dressed in full buccaneer attire – might be a welcome thing to come home to.
