"Landman" is SO STUPID
Listen.
Yellowstone was not all bad. There were some really interesting relationships going on, amid all the exploding guts and trailers on fire and headshots and branding and other nonsense. It was fun having the silliness people get called out on be pronouns instead of Trump, and it was fun watching rich people behave badly. It was fun seeing a woman get carte blanche to act out her id. The muzh and I didn’t make it past season one, but I dug it!
There are not a lot of shows we can watch together. Foundation? Waiting on season three. Dune: Prophecy? Only six episodes, and zero sense of humor. There’s only so many Kurosawa films I want to sit through (one). There’s only so much of a chick flick he can sit through (one act, then I force him to sit still so I can watch the denouement for chrissake).
But apparently there are things I’ll do if it means I get to sit on a couch be held for an hour.
And one of those things is watch Landman.
This is Tommy.
He’s the manager of an oil field because he once owned an oil company and he lost everything, then he was an alcoholic and he lost his wife, and now he’s a sad sad man living in a rental house with his coworkers whose speech pattern frequently devolves into lectures about fossil fuels and wind turbines and how the poor oil industry is a victim of clean energy and nunya liberals understand that you’re creating more problems than you’re solving!!!!!
This scene has 1.4 BILLION VIEWS on YouTube. WHY????????? The recipient is supposed to be a wunderkind lawyer who eats negotiations for breakfast!!!!!! THAT CHARACTER WOULD NOT PUT UP WITH THIS MANSPLAINING!!!!!!!!!
Did I mention this show is based on a podcast? Every other scene is a goddamn lecture.
There is no narrative question in this show. The point of this show is to follow Tommy around and feel bad for him that he has to deal with all this shit. He has to deal with a Mexican cartel that kidnaps him but then he’s so good at negotiating so they release him. He has to deal with a boss who doesn’t appreciate him (Jon Hamm) and talks down to him. He has to deal with a slutty ex-wife (Ali Larter) who he’s still drawn to because she’s a trainwreck and he’s the only one who can fix her. He has to deal with a slutty teenage daughter who walks around his roommates in her underwear (Michelle Randolph).
He has to deal with an idealistic son (Jacob Lofland, undercover hottie) who insists on doing actual work with his actual hands and is actually responsible for some Final Destination shit because people around him keep dying and/or getting hurt. He’s also falling in love with the 22-year-old widow of one of his coworkers after just a week. LIKE YA DO!!
Oh, and don’t forget the tiny girl lawyer (Kayla Wallace) they send to paint Tommy into a corner and get him to be liable for the exploding oil rig that kills three workers.
WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS SHOW?
These people are not attractive enough for me to be watching them do all this self-serving shit.
You see this scene??
Three named women and it STILL doesn’t pass the Bechdel test!!!!!
You see these pants???
Too damn low!!!!!
You see Demi Moore????
You know, the Demi Moore who received a Golden Globe two weeks ago?????
WASTED! UTTERLY WASTED!!!
Her- and Jon Hamm’s daughters don’t even have names in the finale credits!!!!!!!!!
And then there’s a random episode where the DP decides he’s an indie filmmaker all of a sudden and we’re subjected to the most random sudden zoom-ins that take all gravity out of the situation.
Please send recommendations for shows for ex-Soviets who lived in Texas for ONE HOT MINUTE and think superhero mathematicians make for the most compelling protagonists because I can’t sit through another season of this senseless, didactic, misogynistic bullcrap.
NOT YOU, ELIYAHU. YOU ARE BENCHED.
TIA.