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Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Landman’ Gives the West Texas Oil Fields the ‘Yellowstone’ Treatment: TV Review
Taylor Sheridan gives West Texas oil fields the 'Yellowstone' treatment in his latest drama 'Landman', starring Billy Bob Thornton.
“ Landman ” has the masculine bravado and conservative milieu of “Yellowstone,” Sheridan’s flagship red state soap opera, but also builds an immersive, detailed world in the sun-baked Permian Basin that anchors the show in observed reality. The first scene shows Norris negotiating a lease with a cartel soldier through the bag over his head, pointing out both are in the business of dealing highly addictive substances: “Ours is just bigger.” The exchange is a sensational, adrenalized way to verse the audience in unsexy subjects like the difference between surface and mineral rights. But these weak points are continually offset by an evocative sense of place not replicated by TV in this corner of the country since “Friday Night Lights.” (That series’ inspiration, the town of Odessa, is a frequently name-dropped location in “Landman.”) Even if the plot doesn’t entirely come together in the season’s first half, a well-constructed setting can buy a lot of time.
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