In the latest episode of Landman, titled “Handsome Touched Me,” viewers find TL Norris making a splash, quite literally, as he starts and ends Season 2, Episode 8 wearing his jeans in the pool. The episode begins with Tommy searching for him, exasperatedly asking, “Am I talking to your ghost?” It’s morning at the M-Tex bunkhouse, and TL finds himself needing assistance. While his mind remains sharp, his body betrays him, leaving him stranded in the shallow end of the pool. He rests, partially submerged on the steps, frustrated with a body that no longer cooperates.

“You’re not worn out, Pop. You’re just a bit stove up,” Tommy reassures, as both father and son slip into their familiar regional dialect. As Tommy helps TL out of the pool, neither expects the rush of emotions that follows their spontaneous, gentle embrace. Life is a gamble, but perhaps family, even one as complicated as the Norris family, is the only true certainty.

With these sentiments in the air, Angela poses a pivotal question to Tommy: “Are you feeling lucky?”

(TC 8:36: [Angela in bikini, on phone with Tommy] “Are you feeling lucky?”)

Luck seems to be Angela’s constant companion. She exudes confidence, making a trip to the casino with her something to add to your bucket list, alongside attending one of her famously themed dinners. The latest adventure involves a casino run to Odessa, where Angela and Ainsley transport a margarita machine on a bus and distribute $10,000 in cash from a Midland house safe to their group. Margaret, the group monitor at the care facility, notes that her son would describe Angela as “based,” sparking a lively debate. After all, who hasn’t pondered whether it’s better to be considered “hot” or “based”?

You know what Angela and Ainsley answer. But in case you don’t, consider their team-up to give Margaret a midriff-baring instant makeover right there in the bus. With Angela, it’s all confidence, all the time. Even at the roulette wheel in Odessa. She bets on black over, over, and over, doubling down until a loss becomes a win many times over. Start your gamble small, but be fucking sure, and let that shit ride. That’s Angela’s life philosophy. When she walks away from the casino with over three hundred thousand bucks, Ainsley says her mom’s like a superhero, “if superheroes wore Tom Ford.”

(TC 31:36: [Cami] “My word will be worth something.”)  

How many different ways can Landman call the gas well in the gulf a perilous M-Tex gamble? Because the debacle and its outstanding $400-million-dollar liability now have the potential to stove up the entire company. At a meeting in her Fort Worth office, Charlie manages to impress Cami with his map case and credentials. “Intelligent drilling,” “sand control solutions,” this dude’s done it all. But as he spreads out geothermal heatflow maps while Tommy and Rebecca look on, Charlie’s professional geologist’s advice still comes down to a big fat guess. Whether M-Tex’s drill site is just a pocket or a whole damn gas reservoir plays many dollar signs and major company assets against a hunch. And Cami, despite the “Oh shit” looks from her president and chief counsel, is gonna take that gamble. 

“My word will be worth something,” Cami asserts, meaning she’d rather commit M-Tex to its original promise rather than take the well issue into litigation. Landman has dragged this across the entirety of its second season, but this does seem to be the final word on the issue. Especially after Tommy leaves the meeting for a huddle at Gallino’s office. He wants him to withdraw Cami’s funding, but Gallino also considers the matter concluded. He’ll stay rich, even if M-Tex drills the well, it doesn’t pay off, and the company can’t recover. And Cami will stay rich, even if M-Tex is sold off for spare parts and scrap metal. 

Tommy can’t say anything to this reasoning. “You and I both know that company died when her husband died,” Gallino says. They are now both parties to Cami banking her name and Monty’s legacy against the ultimate wildcatting operation. To stay a success, to keep balling, could be her last gamble.

(TC 35:44-52: [Hott Lipps plate; Cheyenne arriving at M-Tex house])

Tommy’s hug with a sore, sad, sopping wet old man inspired him to do something about it. Not more lunches while TL rides shotgun, though those are awesome. Instead he drops into Rick’s Cabaret in Odessa, site of a Landman Season 1 old folks expedition, and pays a dancer cash to perform weekly “limbering” with his aged father. No funny business! Just a regimen of approximated physical therapy and movement exercises. “My pop is as stubborn as a Jack mule, but he can’t say no to a pretty woman.” We don’t know why Taylor Sheridan does this thing in his writing, where he rarely introduces women characters by name, which he does again in this scene. But the agreement is set.

Cheyenne (Francesca Xuereb) drives her Chevy Camaro with “Hot Lipps” Texas tags to the M-Tex house, where we finally learn her name during introductions with TL. She’s completely, hilariously unfazed by the bunkhouse’s random culture – Nate does his sputtering exasperated Dad act, while Dale instantly transforms into Tex Avery’s eye-popping wolf – and explains how she just watched an explainer on pool-based aquatherapy. “Just to be clear,” TL asks his new physical therapist, “You’re askin’ if I’d like to be held in the water by you, while you sway back and forth?”

“That’s what I’m askin’,” Cheyenne says. Down here we all float? In jeans? “Or undies is fine; that’s what I’ll be wearin.’” Life is one big gamble, in all kinds of ways. But before it all ends and the stove up is real, you just might hit a winner.

Landmania for Season 2 Episode 8 of Landman (“Handsome Touched Me”):

• “The kid was just worming for me a few months ago.” It’s a solid point from Boss, but Tommy still installs Cooper as project manager of the wells, originally leased by Coop through Gallino and Sonrisa, that M-Tex has taken over. With his meteoric rise through the oil and gas ranks, Coop might yet become Mini-Monty.

• Needles are also dropping all over the place in this episode. Ella Langley with “Better be Tough” greets Cheyenne’s arrival at the bunkhouse, and in the old folks sequence, while “Sweet Caroline” is kinda obvious, Angela and Ainsley sell it by belting out the chorus on the bus. We also catch a fun shot of the olds – boozed on margs – crashing a gas station junk food aisle to the sound of George Strait and Chris Stapleton’s “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame.” And finally, “The Last Loving Words” by Sheridan-O-Verse favorite Colter Wall contributes some real nice wistful serenity to TL’s float with Cheyenne.     

(TC 48:09-15 [Cheyenne’s calming aquatherapy session withTL])   

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.