‘Landman’ Episode 8 Recap: “Clumsy, This Life”

The M-TEX lawyers showed up on Ariana’s doorstep at 7am, and Rebecca Falcone went hard in the paint to get the young widow’s agreement on a quick financial settlement. But because Cooper was there, too – Rebecca and Nate’s knocking interrupted his and Ariana’s latest moment of tentative further intimacy – she also pressured him with questions about his role in the accident, and made open threats of potential liability. Cooper just frowned and adjusted his busted ribs. “Lady, it was my second day. I didn’t know the proper way to do anything.”

While in pressure mode like this, Rebecca is accustomed to winning. She’ll crucify whoever to achieve a favorable financial result for her client, which in this case is M-TEX/Monty. But Cooper again proves how he isn’t just some college dropout trying to make it in the Patch as a rookie roughneck. He dismisses Rebecca’s threats as bluster, calls her considerable bluff, and advises Ariana to hold out. One million, per family, or it’s no deal. The lawyers give ground and call Monty, who makes so many pained looks it’s like he’s having a heart attack with his face. “Fuck it,” he shouts into the phone. “Pay it and paper it. And then fire that lying, backstabbing son of a bitch!”

Monty can’t fire Cooper, because Cooper already quit. He “learned all they could teach me” (after two official days on a workcrew? If you say so) and tells Ariana that, when he runs his own oil company, it will be without hardball financial tactics. Personally, she doesn’t know what to feel, after sealing her bereavement by signing for a million-dollar payout. Guilt? Grief? Joy? And then, more confused than sure, she looks at Coop himself: “It’s too soon to feel what I feel for you.”

What’s Monty feeling, besides being three million dollars lighter? Another grabber, his fifth. (A heart rate of 168/111? Not good, dude!) In the ER with Cami Miller, while on the table, Monty is still talking on the phone, explaining to Tommy how nepo babies who force a CEO’s financial hand – and trigger his latest heart attack – are not typically rehired. And yet, the day is not a total loss for the M-TEX boss. In Austin pre-attack, during a brief breakfast audience with the unnamed governor of Texas (Maxwell Caulfield), Monty secured a plan to move Texas National Guard training elements into place on the Patch. 

Having army guys around as a deterrent is the solution to their “cartel difficulty.” To unload drugs on M-TEX-leased land, the Mexicans will now have to dodge choppers and maybe even live ordnance. When you think about it, doesn’t inserting more live ammo into this feel like as big a potential problem as what it was trying to solve? But hey, the governor knows Monty and Tommy from way back. They seem to think that if the good ol’ boy network can’t solve it, maybe something shouldn’t be fixed. 

The loud sex Tommy and Angela enjoy having has joined with their frequent arguing to really enliven the dynamic in their shared rental home. In fact, Dale says, it’s exactly like his first marriage, only condensed down to every five minutes. Angela will be mad about Tommy initiating “Saturday night sex” on Sunday morning, they will go back and forth jawing about it for a few minutes, and then they’ll kiss and begin the day. So maybe the dynamic is just like Angela and Tommy’s first marriage, too.

Landman also continues to give time to Angela and Ainsley’s rehabilitation project down at Midland’s senior center. By now it feels standard for Angela to commandeer the facility’s passenger van, stuff it full of residents, and fill them with booze and beers as they bowl a few games. (Neither traffic lights nor managing their respective prescriptions is her problem.) Angela has even made stoking potential love connections among the seniors part of her purview. Whether any of this is going anywhere, story-wise? Still not clear. But Ainsley, as she continues to spend time with local football star Ryder, at least discovers two things. First, her new beau is an anti-vaxxer and a climate change denier. (“Oh, you’re one of those?” she observes as they swim in an oil well retention pond lit in orange by methane flare.) And second, she can “test” Ryder by having him interact with the seniors at the facility. If he’ll happily play Cards Against Humanity with those folks, instead of constantly clamoring to get in her pants, then Ainsley thinks he might be a keeper.

With Rebecca calling him about Cooper’s role in the financial settlement, Tommy figures it’s time to check in at Ariana’s place, where she welcomes him as her dead husband’s boss and an elder acquaintance, but not as someone with any right to cast judgements or guilt trips. Not in her home. She and Cooper? It’s “clumsy,” but they’re trying to figure it out. Lots of maybes, lots of outcomes, lots of ramifications; lots of M-TEX zeroes in a million-dollar bereavement check. She has enough going on with trying to manage her emotions – the settlement at least offers closure. And so what if the whispers will wonder why some white guy is living there. All Ariana knows is that “Elvio never looked at me the way he looks at me.” And with Cooper, he looks at her like that every single time. As Ariana walks Tommy to her door with determination and a curt dismissal, he can only respect her fire. Even if she doesn’t find true love and 50 years of wedded bliss with Cooper, she deserves to find it with somebody. 

Cami Miller didn’t like Tommy being on the phone with Monty while her husband was in cardiac arrest. And though he sees a genuine spark in their relationship, Tommy probably wishes Ariana and Cooper hadn’t gotten together. It just would make it easier to keep the work flowing. Because when he meets Rebecca Falcone down at the Patch Cafe, she continues to lay into his son as a potential target for litigation. “What are the odds he’s the only witness to survive the accident, and what are the odds he would know to counter?” As a landman for M-TEX, Tommy is nothing if not its top company man. But in her anger, and with her killer legal instinct, Rebecca’s also laying out his emotional conflict of interest. This is the bulls-eye we were wondering about.

Right there in the clamor of the Patch Cafe, the air turns mean between Rebecca and Tommy. “If you come after my son to heal your little bruised ego, next time it won’t be an accident.”

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.