Recap of Episode 9 of ‘Landman’: “Wolf Camp”

Oh man, is Monty gonna make it? It’s his fifth heart attack, and his third bypass surgery. And honestly, as he lays in a Fort Worth hospital recovery room in episode 9 of Landman, Jon Hamm’s M-TEX honcho looks like death warmed over. But after yet another cardiac wakeup call, if you’re a Texas oil millionaire worried about your health and general mortality, it pays to have Jerry Jones in your group chat. The longtime Dallas Cowboys owner makes a cameo in this Taylor Sheridan-written episode — maybe Jones is in Sheridan’s group chat, too — so he can appear at Monty’s bedside with advice, by way of a folksy anecdote, about how he got rich by keeping his family close and his businesses closer. “So you’re not laying here again wishing you’d spent a little more time seeing a few more suns come up.” 

Tommy Norris is in the room for this, too, and Jones’s rich man’s wisdom bit, together with Monty’s grave condition, has him appreciating how grateful he is to be back together with the woman he’s always loved, despite their bullshit. Tommy even calls Angela with a halting “I love you.” He knows he doesn’t say it enough. As for Monty, he knows that this time, with his ailing ticker, it’s really serious. He promotes Tommy to vice president of operations, with a hefty raise. Wait, what about the end of Episode 8, when Monty’s landman straight-up threatened his chain-of-liability attorney? Well, Tommy better sort out how he’ll continue to work with Rebecca Falcone, because Monty has offered her a full-time position as M-TEX’s new VP of oil exploration. 

Speaking of the future, and landmen, Cooper has expanded his stated vision of becoming one to include the woman he’s fallen for. “I took one look at you and I fell,” he professes to Ariana. “And I’m still falling.” He didn’t plan on his first work crew dying, or surviving that only to get beat up, only to have his heart bowled over by the widow of his late coworker. But there is no going back now. Not for either of them. Their season’s worth of faltering kisses, always interrupted, are replaced by one much longer and more definitive, and followed by an experiment in physical chemistry they both ace.

Way back in Landman Episode 2, Cooper proudly assured Tommy he’d become a landman. Even promised him he’d become a Monty. And now, post-coitus, Coop shows Ariana his other intentions. The only way for them to escape the dangers and uncertainties of the Patch? The Patch itself. He’ll aim to secure a series of older Permian Basin ground leases, where the oil is valuable but hard to get at. To be a success in this “Wolf Camp Shale Area” will require expensive horizontal drilling. It will require tenacity. It will require driving out to a dusty old leaseholder’s property, and convincing the stubborn codger to sell his lease to Cooper. “You don’t look like a landman,” the man observes. “Those are working man’s boots.” The thing is, Cooper has been and will be both. In getting his own oil biz off the ground, work ethic and reputation is all he’s got, which apparently is enough. They go inside to sign the papers.

Monty’s plight and this episode’s heartening notes for these characters’ collective futures doesn’t put a pause on Tommy’s ongoing problems with the cartel. After M-TEX arranged for the US Army to take target practice out in the Patch, and they ended up dropping a mortar on some cartel soldiers, the situation might be more unstable than ever. Jimmy, the local cartel leader, argues with Tommy over the phone. He makes it clear he’s had eyes on Norris’s movements this whole time. And he still wants retribution for his lost men and product, even if the whole reason they’re having this conversation is because of the Patch’s particular brand of chaos. “Used to be we stayed out of each other’s way,” Tommy says, which bounces all the way back to when he was still dealing from inside a burlap sack. The cartel man and the landman agree to meet. Whether they make a deal or pull out guns is an interesting prospect for the upcoming season finale.

As she settles into life in Midland, and her rekindled relationship with Tommy, Angela is sticking with her advocacy for making the old folks party again. Her and Ainsley’s latest gambit? Renting out Rick’s Cabaret in Odessa for a dancers-and-drinks matinee, and bringing their senior living charges in for the resulting wild time. (At least for a little while; “They can’t handle much more than an hour.”) Thing is though, they’ll also require a male stripper. Which is where Ainsley’s new quarterback boyfriend Ryder comes in. Negotiation involves a few whispered promises, which Ainsley uses to convince her resident beefcake to agree. It seems like he’ll soon be dancing around in his jock strap and not much else.

The culmination of this wavering senior living subplot will also have to wait for the Landman finale. For now it’s time for another family dinner, complete with Dale and Nate and Ryder at the table, and a big bowl of Angela’s homemade paella. No plates; it’s a group effort you eat with wooden spoons. And though Tommy can’t take another one of Angela’s exotic dinners as performative acts, he doesn’t derail it. Seeing Monty fighting to recover from bypass surgery really struck a chord. He tells Angela he’s happy to indulge her personal need for high-concept family meals. But the reality he envisions for their second chance together is much more conventional. “I just wanna eat and drink my fake beer, lay next to you at night, and forget the day ever happened.”

Actually, Monty’s still fighting. The last time we see him in episode 9, his electrocardiogram is suddenly peaking in the red, and Tommy receives a call from Cami Miller, though we don’t hear her side of it. Cooper recounted to Ariana a bit of wisdom from his dad. When it comes to oil exploration, and rolling the dice in the Patch, “getting addicted to the chase is how you lose it all.” Cooper and Ariana, Tommy and Angela – in Landman, people are making definitive moves for their future. Besides all the other questions for the finale is whether Monty, who was always addicted to that chase, will even be a part of it.

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.