Tommy gets connected to the National Guard while Rebecca tries to undermine Cooper.
Here are some random thoughts prompted by “Clumsy, This Life” — Season 1, Episode 8 of Landman. Warning: There are scads of spoilers here, so you might want to wait until you watch before you read.
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- You have to give Monty this much: He definitely has friends in high places. Over breakfast, he convinced the governor (Maxwell Caulfield) to send the Texas National Guard to the M-TEX oil fields. Officially, the troops will be there “on maneuvers.” Unofficially? Well, Monty has “a little cartel difficulty in the patch,” and maybe the bad guys could be scared off by substantial military presence.
- Turns out the governor didn’t need much convincing. He has grown impatient with how the federal government has been dealing with border issues: “Washington’s got its head so deep in the sand, it’s staring at the sewers in Beijing.” Before he signed off, however, the governor made a few cryptic remarks about how everything in life has been preordained by The Man Upstairs. Including how successful we might be, and how long we will live. Kinda ominous, huh?
- Rebecca was sorely peeved when Cooper convinced Ariana to reject M-TEX’s original offer of compensation for the death of her husband in the oil field explosion. And she was downright furious when he got M-TEX to up the ante to a cool million. The crafty attorney tried to browbeat Cooper into backing off, insinuating that he might be in legal jeopardy because of his involvement, suggesting it sure might look fishy that (a) he was the sole survivor of the blow-up, and (b) he’s now living (platonically, so far) with the widow of a man who survived the big blowup. To his credit, however, Cooper stood his ground, insinuating that he’d seen things in the M-TEX fields that Monty wouldn’t want government regulators to know about.
Michelle Randolph as Ainsley Norris and Ali Larter as Angela Norris
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- Monty reluctantly — very reluctantly — agreed to a payment of $1 million each for Ariana and two other widows whose husbands perished in the blast. He swore he’d fire Cooper for his “disloyalty,” and was only partly satisfied when Rebecca told him they couldn’t fire him, he’d already quit. Still, the whole thing greatly pained Monty. Physically pained him.
- It’s worth noting that Nathan, nominally an M-TEX representative, didn’t appear at all upset by the way things turned out. Perhaps that was because of his loyalty to Tommy, Cooper’s father. Or perhaps it was because he’s still living under Tommy’s roof. Either way, we couldn’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, Nathan retains something like a conscience
- Tommy personally took Col. Ivey (Ben Browder), commander of the National Guard unit, on a tour of the M-TEX property where the unit would be conducting “maneuvers.” The landman more or less told Col. Ivey he could fire weaponry, blow up newly constructed buildings, and rain hell down from helicopters all they wanted — just as long as they did it in a limited area so that oil wells (and M-TEX employees) wouldn’t be collateral damage. Curiously enough, the possibility that cartel goons might be “accidentally” slaughtered didn’t enter into the conversation.
- Rebecca made the mistake of trying to intimidate Tommy during a meeting at The Patch Café. Specifically, she threatened to go after his son, claiming it sure looked suspicious that, on his very first day in the field, Cooper, a student in petroleum engineering, was involved with a pumpjack explosion that he, and only he, survived. Tommy responded pretty much the way you might have expected, and left Rebecca almost literally floored.
- Mind you, all of that came after Tommy paid a visit to Ariana’s house, to see how Cooper was doing, and was aggressively shamed by Ariana when he hinted that it might appear unseemly for her to be involved with any guy, much less his son, so soon after her husband’s death. For once, Tommy was speechless. (Briefly.) Little wonder that he was in no mood for Rebecca’s nonsense.
- Ryder and Ainsley continued their romance, despite Tommy’s stern warning that Ryder follow all Biblical restrictions against premarital sex while dating his daughter. (“I’m not telling you that. That’s a direct command from God.”) (Yeah, right.) Ryder may actually be truly smitten: He even joined Ainsley in cheering up the Western Skies Nursing Home residents that Ainsley and Angela have taken under their wing. During their midnight swim, however, Ryder delivered what has become a hallmark of the series, a tirade against clean energy. Between that and the governor’s agreement to sic that National Guard on drug smugglers, we can’t help wondering just how not-so-subtly political Taylor Sheridan intends Landman to be.
- Sure enough, the National Guard troops eventually did blow up some of the smugglers in the literally explosive climax for this episode. Even before that, however, Monty was incapacitated by that was described as his “fifth heart attack.” Determined to ease her husband’s stress, Cami demanded that Tommy phone her, not Monty, with any reports of trouble in the fields. Wonder if No. 6 will ensue if and when Monty is informed of the National Guard activity?
