SPOILER ALERT AND WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Landman Season 2, Episode 10. It also contains discussion of sexual assault.

Landman Season 2, Episode 10 is the best of the Paramount+ series and what made it a hit. “Tragedy and Flies” has a sense of purpose and a strength of character that the show has been missing for most of its second go-around. But with the high note that the Landman Season 2 finale ends on, fans have every reason to be excited for the already confirmed Season 3.

First and foremost, the finale has a very clear and efficient narrative. It involves Tommy Norris being fired from M-TEX Oil, setting up a new job opportunity while he still can, and then getting his son Cooper off the hook when he faces charges for killing the man who assaulted Cooper’s fiancee Ariana. Taylor Sheridan—who has written the entire season—is propulsive in his storytelling. He takes very few detours, and so almost every scene has a compelling point. That dramatic energy is one of the things that Landman Season 2 has been searching for.

But “Tragedy and Flies” also creates the character moments that made Landman Season 1 so compelling. Some of them are huge; both Tommy and Rebecca Falcone get to excoriate the police in separate monologues. And both Billy Bob Thornton and Kayla Wallace nail those monologues. It won’t surprise anyone that Thornton gives one of his best performances of the season here. He’s always been the actor around which Landman orbits, and not just because he’s the biggest name. The Oscar winner has made Tommy Norris a force, and viewers really feel that in the finale—of course in his angry moments, but also in those moments where Tommy is clearly scared or exhausted. It all comes back to Tommy here, in good and bad ways. He’s able to fix it all, but he also has to fix it all.

Yet there’s also room for some of the other characters to shine, too. Rebecca is the most notable, but the underused Colm Feore gets a moment when Nathan is called upon to be Tommy’s replacement. He instead chooses to resign from M-TEX, and delivers a moving speech to Cami Miller on his way out. Cooper opening up to Ariana about how he wants her to pursue her passions and how she is important to him is a great chunk of dialogue for Jacob Lofland, and a sweet scene for the couple that re-establishes why they’re such a wonderful couple. It’s much better than where they were at the beginning of the season.

Sheridan pulling the pin on M-TEX and having Tommy’s crew leave the company, in favor of starting their own with Gallino’s money, is a huge risk narratively. M-TEX and its business dealings have been the spine of the show. Yet this creates a beautiful canvas for Landman Season 3. All along there’s also been talk about how pivotal Tommy is to the success of his company; Dale even says it again here, when he claims that M-TEX won’t last a year without Tommy. Now it’s time for Tommy to prove his worth to the audience, in a sense, because he’s standing on his own. He may only be the “senior vice president” of the new company, but he’s still going to be the smartest guy in the room.

That also may mean the end of Demi Moore’s run on the show, unless Sheridan has an arc in Season 3 where CTT goes up against Tommy’s former employer. Moore’s talent would be a loss, for certain, but Cami as a character did somewhat peter out—given that Tommy made clear she had no real idea what she was doing. That’s where Landman Season 2 struggled. At times the season itself didn’t seem to know what it was doing or what it wanted to say, and so the characters felt adrift as a result. But “Tragedy and Flies” puts everything back on track. Sheridan has a sharp picture of what he wants, so the characters are equally sharp, and the end result is great television.

The Landman Season 2 finale has all of the elements that gained this show its fan following. It has strong characters, a clear narrative voice and powerful performances. “Tragedy and Flies” is ultimately a story of Tommy choosing to go his own way for the first time in 20 years. And at the end, that’s exactly what the audience wants. They see the world through his eyes. The episode provides fans with a sense of hope and excitement. Landman‘s heart is beating stronger than ever, and it’s a great thing to see.

Landman Season 2 is now streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Paramount+.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.