Spoilers ahead for Landman season 1, episode 10, “The Crumbs of Hope,” now streaming on Paramount+.
Heading into the season finale of Landman, there were a number of unanswered questions: Will Monty survive his heart attack? Will the cartel get to Tommy? Will Ariana and Cooper stay together? And, will Angela and Ainsley really bring seniors to a strip club?
The finale, “The Crumbs of Hope,” does a nice job of wrapping up all the loose ends, and introducing possible plotlines for a hypothetical season two. Here, what happens to each character in the Landman finale, in semi-chronological order in the episode:
First, an oil history lesson
The episode starts with a retro film narrator over an oil field, explaining, “what gold was in earlier ages, oil is in these days.”
“Oil may soothe the troubled waters of the eternal seas, but it only adds unrest to the troubled waters of international diplomacy. Oil has become the great international issue of the hour. It lurks in the background of every problem now engaging the attention of world statesman. Politics has become the politics of petroleum—almost no move is made on that chess board that is not tinctured with oil,” the old-timey voice says.
“Oil and international unrest are practically synonymous,” it continues, as the images transition from men working on oil rigs to Monty undergoing open heart surgery. Is Landman implying Monty’s health crisis is equivalent to an international crisis? Perhaps!
Monty’s heart attack
Emerson Miller
Demi Moore’s Cami is only really at the start of the finale.
The big plotline running through the season finale is whether Monty will survive his heart attack. At the start of the episode, he needs a transplant, and doctors are trying to stabilize him for the procedure. It’s clear that Tommy and Cami need to figure out the future of M-Tex Oil—quickly. Monty’s will, they learn, states that upon his death or incapacitation, Tommy will be president of the company. He also learns he is the executor the family trust. Tommy, reluctantly, accepts the position, and asks for a board on which Alan and Cami will sit.
As they await news at the hospital, the trio discuss what to do about the farmout deal at WolfCamp, and Tommy explains to them what could happen: The worst case scenario is oil prices drop and they are out of business in a year; best case is $1.4 billion dollars can be made. “Can you sell it now?” Alan asks. Tommy tells Cami if they sell now, “your kids’ kids will never have to work.”
Cami reflects that Monty wanted to be remembered, “not for the money, but for what we do with the money.” She asks Tommy, with tears in her eyes, “Do I have enough to make the world remember him?” Tommy says she should build a high school football stadium, but suggests what’s killing him is trying to be immortal—not his bad heart, which, okay, sure—and he doesn’t want that do-gooder mission to be the end of Cami, too. Cami, upset, says the last thing she said to her husband was that he needed to shave. “Twenty-eight years of marriage, and the last thing I said to him is you need a fucking shave,” she tells Tommy, distraught.
In the final scenes of the episode, Monty dies, with his wife and two daughters at his hospital bedside.
Rebecca’s moral dilemma
Lauren “Lo” Smith
Kayla Wallace’s Rebecca Savage is still figuring out the oil industry.
After Tommy leaves the hospital, he calls Rebecca, telling her they need to meet. She doesn’t want to meet with him in a secluded location. but he eventually convinces her to come to the oil field, explaining, “You need to renegotiate a $170 million farmout lease, and I think you need at least a basic understanding of what you’re renegotiating.” Wary, she asks why her, and why he isn’t firing her and just having Nate do it. “Nate is a very good lawyer, and nothing will fuck up a great deal like a good lawyer. I need a fucking closer, I need a killer, somebody that they don’t see coming—and you’re certainly that.”
He then calls Nate, to fill him in on what’s happening, and Nate is upset by everything, saying he has to swallow his pride. Nate asks Tommy why they’re rushing to do this deal, and he says, “Probate court pauses all future operations for a year or longer, how’s that for a reason? I don’t think it’s right, either, Nate, but it’s what Cami asked me to do. So that means that’s what Monty told her to do, so that’s what they do.”
Rebecca goes to meet with Tommy, Nate, and Dale at the oil field, and Tommy gives her a rundown of the farmout deal. “Our deal is that we recoup on strikes to 120%, then we start revenue sharing,” he explains to Rebecca. “Each strike has to pay for itself, and then it has to pay for the next one—we have to get ahead of the bank. You have to make a deal that pays for the first thing on the first home run. Nate’s gonna take you through the numbers, Dale [will] take you through the science, tomorrow you’ll be a damn expert.” (We have more questions, but that’s really all we get in terms of details.)
Rebecca asks about why they have to be fracking, saying that the technology causes earthquakes in Oklahoma. (Fact check: Sort of—most earthquakes in Oklahoma are not caused by fracking, but some are.) She says, “You understand that I don’t think anyone should be doing this, all right? I think it should be illegal… I have a very hard time advocating for something I believe is wrong.” Tommy says she should’ve run for congress, instead of working at an oil company. “Good and bad don’t factor into this,” he says, and the fact of the matter is, the world runs on oil, whether they like it or not. “I hear the moral highground gets real windy at night,” Tommy tells her, saying she should get rid of her phone, car, and anything else that depends on oil. She has no comeback to that, and he drives off…
The cartel (featuring Andy Garcia!)
Tommy is kidnapped, and brutally beaten.
… Only to be kidnapped by the cartel. Coming to a boiling point in the finale are Tommy’s dealings with the National Guard and the cartel. (The National Guard is somewhat irrelevant in the finale; Tommy threatens Colonel Ivey and they just drop it.) On the road, Jimenez forces Tommy out of his car, and takes him to an oil field. Jimenez brags that they make more money than the oil company. “You have an army,” he tells him. “We have an army. You blow things up, we do, too.” He then makes Tommy watch as they blow up the site.
“Congratulations, dude, you just shut yourself down,” Tommy says to him, though he’s kneeling in the dirt and his hands are zip-tied behind his back. “Did you run this by the boss? Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
After, the cartel members bring Tommy to the back of a strip club (it appears), and tie him down to a chair with a sack over his head. Jimenez begins to beat him up with a hammer, saying he lost his chance to negotiate and he won’t make it out alive. They douse him in gasoline, and it’s a brutal scene to watch. Jimenez gets ready to kill Tommy with a knife, but a gunfight breaks out. Everyone runs to see what’s happening, Tommy is left alone, and Jimenez is shot dead.
Lauren “Lo” Smith
Andy Garcia’s role in Landman is finally revealed in the finale: a cartel leader named Galino.
Into the room walks Galino, played by none other than Andy Garcia. “Knock knock,” he says menacingly, and takes off Tommy’s head covering, and removes his hand restraints. (It’s unclear if Galino is Jimenez’s boss, or just another member of the cartel.)
Tommy then pulls the nail out of his upper thigh, and Galino offers him a cigarette—even though Tommy has literally been doused in gasoline. Galino then says, “Jimenez, he did not understand what I understand—which is that we must coexist. There are times when you lose things—trucks, plans—and there are times where I lose things—trucks, plans, merchandise. That’s just business. So, how do we get back to where it was, so we can coexist?”
Tommy, his face bloody, isn’t intimidated. “You wanna go back?” he asks. “Stay out of our fucking way.” Tommy then threatens to go to other oil company CEOs and bring in the DEA. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with. If you kill me, and hang me off a goddamn bridge, guess what happens next? We blow up the fucking bridge. We’re the last bear you want to poke, bud, because we have unlimited funds. And unlimited connections.”
Galino says they have the same senators, and the same enemies. The world’s a better place for the cartel and oil to be friends, he suggests. Galino then gently helps him out of the building, as the police have arrived, and tells Tommy to call a friend to bring him home. Dale comes to get him, and wants him to go to the hospital, but Tommy insists Dale bring him home.
Ariana and Cooper’s future
The couple (played by Paulina Chávez and Jacob Lofland) are figuring our their complicated relationship.
Ariana and Cooper’s storyline isn’t a focus of the finale, but in one scene, Ariana begins cleaning out her late husband Elivo’s things, and gets emotional as she looks through her wedding photos. “To let you in, I need to move him out. Which means saying goodbye,” Ariana tells Cooper. “I have to say goodbye in my heart.” Yet, it seems as if they’re going to try and stay together, for now.
Cooper, meanwhile, continues to try and buy up smaller oil wells—with higher royalty rates for owners—and combine them together. “Power’s in the numbers,” he tells one. “Group small producers, become a big producer.” Time will tell if he’s successful in his endeavor; this is clearly setting up his (potential) season two plotline.
Ainsley and Ryder
Emerson Miller
Ainsley and Ryder, played by Michelle Randolph and Mitchell Slaggert, are going strong in the finale.
The least consequential part of the season finale (sorry to Ryder) is Ryder grappling with being a stripper for Ainsley and Angela’s seniors. He ultimately decides to strip down to his jock strap, much to the delight of the older women in the crowd. As Ainsley promises, “Whatever you do for them, I do for you.” After Ryder asks her if life is always going to be this crazy with her, she tells him, “This is not crazy, baby, this is free. Life is a two-minute drill,” she tells him.
So, later, he comes over, and upon getting into Ainsley’s room, she instructs him to take off his clothes. Wearing a sexy nightie, she turns on “Destiny” by Tanner Usery. “What you did for those old folks meant the world to them. Meant the world to me,” she tells him. She then starts dancing, before they begin making out, and the scene cuts as they get intimate, and they lose their virginity to each other. After, the two cuddle and Ainsley asks Ryder to stay the night, but he says his dad will kill him. “I don’t want to be alone,” she tells him, and he agrees to stay over.
Angela and Tommy’s Relationship
Emerson Miller
Angela (Ali Larter) loves Tommy, and Tommy loves Angela..
Last but not least, we have Angela. Angela enjoys the outing with the seniors, telling Ainsley, “We should do it again in a few months,” and calling Tommy to say she wants to celebrate. (It’s clear that Landman still doesn’t quite know what to do with Angela, honestly.)
After Tommy returns home following his brutal beating, she tells him that he should’ve called her. “There are gonna be things that I can’t tell you,” Tommy says, “Just trust me. One thing I can tell you is that my whole life passed before my eyes, and all I saw was you.” Crying, Angela makes him breakfast as the Landman season finale comes to an end. Ainsley and Ryder come down for breakfast, to which Tommy mutters to himself, “I don’t have the fucking energy for this.” (He nearly died, but is still concerned about his daughter’s boyfriend. #GirlDad.)
The very final scene sees Tommy walk—yes, walk, somehow—outside, and start smoking. He sees a coyote, and walks toward it. “You better run buddy. They kill coyotes around here.” Ominous! Here’s to hoping the show is renewed for a second season…
Senior News Editor
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
