Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy isn’t the only one seeing a major life change after the Landman season 2 finale. The latest chapter of Taylor Sheridan’s Neo-Western drama saw Thornton’s oil industry vet scrambling to keep his company, M-Tex Oil, afloat after becoming its President in the wake of the death of Jon Hamm’s Monty. However, after lots of pushback from Demi Moore’s Cami, Monty’s widow, and game-playing by Andy Garcia’s cartel leader Gallino, Tommy found himself fired from the company overall, leaving him in a place to reflect on his entire career and next steps. This culminates in the Landman season 2 finale, in which Tommy uses a loophole regarding Cooper’s oil wells and makes a new contract with Gallino to fund the wells and further drilling through his new company, CTT Oil Exploration and Cattle. From there, he brings on Cooper as President, Nate as Treasurer, Rebecca as COO and Chief Counsel, Ariana to help manage the office, and Dale, Boss, T.L., BR and King to work the rigs.
Now, on the heels of its airing, ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns interviewed James Jordan to discuss the Landman season 2 finale. Reflecting on Dale being brought onto Tommy’s new oil company team, and whether his continued work in the industry is from a passion for it or dedication to Tommy, the Sheridan vet began by explaining that the core theme of the latest season is “family” and “loyalty,” exploring such questions as “What it means to be a best friend,” “an employee,” “a father, a daughter, a lawyer” and so on:
James Jordan: So, Tommy gave Dale a career and a life, and Dale knows that, and he’s not going to walk away from Tommy. I had that line in the finale where he says, “What about you, Dale?” There’s this nice little pause and our director, Stephen Kay, built in there. Everyone’s like, “Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s go out there. CTT Oil Exploration & Cattle.” And Tommy looks at Dale and says, “What about you, Dale?” And I say, “You don’t even have to ask, buddy. I’m going with you wherever you go.”
Jordan went on to praise the moment of Dale accepting Tommy’s job offer as “a beautiful little illumination of how devoted these crews are to each other,” particularly given it’s “really life and death out there on the patch.” With rig workers having to “depend on the man on your right and on your left to keep you alive in a lot of cases,” Dale has a proper partner in Tommy both “literally out there on the patch” and in “giving Dale a career and a life and a purpose.”
Looking to Landman season 3, in which Dale will find himself working under Sam Elliott’s T.L. and Jacob Lofland’s Cooper in the new company, Jordan acknowledged “there’s an opportunity for some comedy there” as the industry vet might bring “some pushback” or have “some stubbornness” in working under the Norris son. However, with Sheridan not yet having written season 3 at the time of the interview, Jordan also admitted “we honestly have no idea where it’s going to go,” only having an “instinctual idea” of how Dale will adjust to the new team.
Jordan further looked back on season 1’s themes regarding “opening up this window” into the oil industry as a whole, explaining that Sheridan “likes to explore frontiers and new worlds” for those unfamiliar. With season 1 having “brought that lens in closer” for the men and women working on oil rigs, season 2 then turned to being “about family” and exploring “What makes this family tick” and why everyone is friends with each other. As such, Jordan believes that Landman season 3 will be “how the business side of this stuff works,” given season 2 glimpsed the financial side with Gallino, Cami and Tommy all discussing M-Tex’s troubles, and even with Cooper in his early success with the new wells and “ruminated on profits and loss and cost“:
James Jordan: I think season 3 is going to be, “Well, we’re starting a company from the ground up. How the hell do we get this to work? And how can we compete now against our competitor, M-Tex Oil, and fulfill our obligations as partners in this business?” I’m so excited to get to work. I don’t know when. I’m hearing sometime in early summer, we’re going to get back to it. But right now, I’m doing Lioness season 3, so we’ve got to finish that. We’ve got about six weeks left to do that. So that’s really where my focus is, on Two Cups. But as soon as Taylor has that season 3 written, we’ll get to work and get it out there as soon as we can.
Oil Is In Dale’s Blood As Much As It Is In The Ground
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ScreenRant: Dale has such a great range of scenes, whether it’s working on the rigs to H2S gas exposure, to just being a part of Angela’s crazy family dinners. What are some of your favorite kinds of scenes to film in this series?
James Jordan: Well, I’ll tell you what, all of them are great. It all goes back to Taylor’s writing. It’s all rooted and anchored in his writing. You know when you get a new episode, whenever he finishes one and brings it to you, it’s going to be fantastic. I can’t pick any favorites, because they’re all such an adventure and they’re all so different. Working on the patch with those guys is fantastic, and kind of illuminating more of the technical aspects of what these roughnecks do, and these folks out on the rig. That’s really amazing. And then, of course, we sort of illustrate the dangerous dynamics that can be involved with this line of work. But when Dale gets to go home and have those family dinners with the gang and the family, when I see one of those on the schedule for the week, I get super excited. We usually block out a whole day to shoot those scenes because we all end up cracking each other up so much, and we’re like, “All right, now we got to keep a straight face on this one.” Those are a real highlight for me because A, I get to see everybody and B, the writing is so good. And C, it’s Billy Bob and Ali, and you’re sort of watching them play this vicious tennis match right over your head most of the time in those scenes that you become an observer more than a participant. So those are a real highlight for me.
ScreenRant: I mean, yeah, again, the sheer range you have is awesome in this show, but those dinner scenes are always a blast to watch.
James Jordan: Well, again, that’s all in the writing, man. Taylor, when he casts an actor and gets to know him, he really starts to write for that actor and what that actor’s strengths and weaknesses are. So, when I read Dale now, it just falls right into place. The homework I do is really for the technical stuff. Obviously, to get off book and to get the emotional space you need to be in as Dale, work on the accent a little bit. But other than that, the words just come, because Taylor’s figured out Dale’s rhythm from how I’ve delivered it, and how I’ve brought him to life from me. So, it’s all credit to Taylor Sheridan, to be honest with you, buddy. Also, we have such a great natural chemistry amongst the whole cast and group there that nothing is forced. We all get along well together. So, those really genuine moments of laughter on screen, or those touching moments between Angela and Tommy, are not manufactured at all. They’re legitimate and real. You go to work to play on this show more than anything else.
ScreenRant: One scene I wanted to touch upon was Dale at Boss’s barbecue, reflecting on his career and why he doesn’t think he’ll ever leave. You talk about Taylor’s writing fitting you, as much as you fit Taylor’s writing. What was it like going into that scene, and what do you think is going through Dale’s head as he reflects on what his future life will be like?
Emerson Miller/Paramount+
James Jordan: Great question. It reminds me of a lot of in January of 2024, we had a rehearsal, a Landman man camp, roughneck camp for about 10 days. So, I got to meet a lot of these real-life roughnecks and petroleum engineers and scientists that do this for a living. A handful of them told me, “I’ve been doing this since I was 18,” and they’re in their 60s now. Some of them have never left the state of Texas, other than for work down in Louisiana, and then in the shore and the Gulf. This is their life. This line of work really becomes a part of your life, and a big part of it. I think Dale’s just illuminating to the guys that, “Hey, fellas, when you hit that point, that breaking point we all do in all our work, it’s okay to leave it.”
But Dale, I don’t know where else he would go, what else he would do. This is as much of his blood as is the oil in the ground. He’s as much a part of it as the oil in the ground. It’s a very sweet and touching and poetic moment from Taylor there to say that it’s all he’s got. This line of work, and these crews and these guys and this heading to the patch and working 20-hour days, like he tells Angela, it’s really all he’s got. So, he can’t let that go. Maybe he hangs on a little too tight sometimes, but that’s okay. Dale’s the kind of guy that can hang on tight and be okay. So, I think that scene really illuminates the passion that he still has all these many years later for it, for working out in the patch and being a roughneck.
