Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 2 of Landman are ahead! Read with caution, and watch the show with a Paramount+ subscription.
After the audience met Sam Elliott’s TL in the Season 2 premiere of Landman, he was reunited with his son, Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy, and his grandson, Jacob Lofland’s Cooper, in Episode 2. It happened during a very moving scene, too, and the story behind filming it, which Thornton told me, makes it even more emotional.
When I watched the second episode of Landman that aired on the 2025 TV schedule, I knew I had to ask Thornton, Elliott and Lofland about filming it. It was a very emotional reunion for the father-son duo, as TL waxed poetic about the tragic reason why sunsets are so beautiful while sitting in a wheelchair. The Sling Blade actor told me that this scene felt really real as they were filming it, too, which almost made him forget that they were making a TV show. He explained during an interview for CinemaBlend:
It seems so real that it was one of those scenes – I have quite a few of those with Sam, where you just forget that you're making a movie, you're just, you're in a moment.
Being in the moment with Sam Elliott has to be so special, and it’s clear that it was to Billy Bob Thornton. He explained to me that when they filmed this scene, both he and Lofland “listened” to what the TL actor was saying, and everyone had “a lot of room to breathe” as they created this candid moment.
He then told me that the culmination of all that “made it so heavy” for them. It gets even heavier, though, as the actor recalled how he reacted to seeing his on-screen dad in costume and in his wheelchair for the first time:
It's the first time, I mean, I've known [Sam Elliott] for a long time. I go out there and see him, first time we have a scene together, and he's sitting out there in a wheelchair. It affected me, you know? And he was, I think, from what [Sam] told me, he was affected by having to do it to start with. And so there was, I think, there was actual, real-life emotion in that scene, outside of what was just written.
As a fan of Sam Elliott, I’m used to seeing him play epic and strong men, like Shae in 1883. However, in Landman, TL is down on his luck, he’s in a home, he’s just lost his wife, and he says that all he’s got left is “wondering.” In short, he’s miserable, and seeing Tommy and Cooper realize that is devastating.
Overall, it’s a moving scene that brings three generations of the Norris family together, and it brutally introduces us to how the oil industry has impacted all of them. As TL says, a sunset is beautiful because of what makes living in Texas so unbearable, which is the lack of water and dust, and that parallels the fact that while oil has given this family a lot, it’s also ruined them in a lot of ways.
I found this scene to be a sucker punch to the gut as we were brutally introduced to more of the family and their history. It was also emotional and incredible to watch because it featured so many legends. When I asked Jacob Lofland, who plays Cooper, about filming this sequence with Elliott and Thornton, he highlighted that point too, explaining:
I still don't know how to put that in words. That was a magical time. To be privileged enough to sit there in that place with those legends – I don't know how to explain it. It's something that I wish everyone could experience, but it is absolutely amazing.
There have been many A-listers in Taylor Sheridan’s shows, but pairing Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott together has been exciting on a new level. This scene confirmed why they’re a great duo, and it made me very excited to see how Tommy, TL and Cooper’s relationships evolve as Season 2 goes on and they all grapple with the death of TL’s wife.
So, to see what happens next between these characters, you can watch new episodes of Landman every Sunday on Paramount+.
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