Say what you want about Landman... but the show has a knack for crafting viral moments.
The ten-part series that just wrapped up its first season (a second is expected, but hasn't been confirmed) tackles the ins-and-outs of the various components making up the oil industry boasts an impressive cast, with the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Hamm and Demi Moore all playing major roles. Since it's another Taylor Sheridan project, just think of it as Yellowstone... just with oil.
For some viewers, it's the very first time that the curtain has been pulled back on the oil industry. That was part of the motivation for the show, which earlier in the season set a streaming record for Paramount+. More than 14.9 million people tuned in during the series' first four weeks to watch the drama surrounding Texas' oil boom.
And each week they have tuned in, viewers have been hit with viral moment after viral moment. The first one that spread like wildfire online was a risqué father-daughter scene that was shared between Billy Bob Thornton's Tommy Norris and Michelle Randolph's Ainsley. In case you missed it, I've included it below... prepare to have your jaw dropped:
Of all the viral moments that have come out of the drama series, that one was the biggest one.
Then you had other clips, like the rant against clean energy, a subtle-yet-clear-as-day jab at Bud Light, and the fact that people collectively connected the dots and figured out that the ex-wife of Thornton's Tommy Norris character is played by Ali Larter - who famously wore a whipped cream bikini in Varsity Blues.
In the season finale of the show's first season (no spoilers), Landman provided yet another somewhat controversial conversation point. Tommy Norris called his lawyer Rebecca Savage (played by Kayla Wallace) to come out to an oil field so they could have a conversation. Without giving anything away, I'll simply say that Billy Bob's character wanted to inform Rebecca about what was happening - or about to happen - out at the oil fields.
The topic of fracking was then introduced.
Conveniently, the character of Dale was then asked to explain fracking at one point, and this is how he described the practice:
"You've got to drill at an angle and then you've got to frack it. You shoot a sh*t ton of salt water downhole and you squeeze all that oil out of the fractures. Then you pump it up, separate the water. The technology changed the game out here."
Rebecca then asked if the fracking they were talking about is the same fracking that causes earthquakes in Oklahoma. That real world point of contention was downplayed with the response of, "there were earthquakes in Oklahoma before fracking." So then the lawyer turned to Norris and voiced her concerns, saying that she thinks fracking should be illegal.
That's when Billy Bob Thornton's character unleashed this monologue that left his lawyer speechless:
"Good and bad don't factor into this. Our great-grandparents built a world that runs on this shit right here. Until it starts running on something else, we got to feed it. Or the world stops.