After the literally explosive ending to the pilot, I am quaking in my Crocs and ready for some questions to be answered. Luckily, “Dreamers and Losers” is a deep dive into the dramatic lives of these oil bros and what makes them frack tick. There’s still a sprinkle of camp here, but this installment is more focused on world and character building, which is helpful after we spent the previous hour meeting so many denizens of West Texas. (The show is based on the Texas Monthly and Imperative Entertainment podcast Boomtown, and TM is an executive producer.) There’s a lot to unpack, so we’re tackling episode two’s most urgent questions one by one. What’s the deal with Tommy’s living situation?
We meet the two random dudes who were kind of milling around Tommy’s just-nice-enough (they have a pool!) suburban home in the pilot, courtesy of Ainsley, who kicks one where the sun don’t shine after he accidentally walks in on her showering. Tommy introduces them as his two roommates; the guys share a home away from home for the corporate folks of M Tex who come in and out of Odessa. Nathan (Colm Feore) is an attorney for M Tex, an aging, bookish, white-collar fella. Tommy’s other roommate is Dale (James Jordan), a burly petroleum engineer perpetually covered in oil stains who slugs whiskey at all hours of the day and sports a Texas Tech tattoo on his bicep. Dale is the unlucky recipient of Ainsley’s kick, but after everyone is introduced properly, promises are made to lock bathroom doors. All is at peace in the world of the Landman. And then Tommy’s phone rings.
Who’s the real big man in town: Tommy or Sheriff Walt?
We met Sheriff Walt (Mark Collie) briefly in the first episode, and while he certainly has a badge, he seems to give Tommy a wide berth. He turns a blind eye to Tommy’s littering and lets him cuss out a local DPS officer with zero consequences. It’s Walt who calls Tommy this morning to let him know there’s been a “blowout” on a rig. The sheriff is already on the scene when Tommy arrives, managing the first responders and giving our Landman room to assess the situation. I can’t tell if Tommy is surprised to see that his son is laid up in an ambulance with a blown-out eardrum from the explosion. I chalk up Tommy’s unemotional response to his professional concern about the holding tanks nearby, which also threaten to go up in flames. “You think this is bad?” Tommy says to Walt. “Those holding tanks go up, they’ll blow your ass to Abilene.”
Geared up in a firefighter helmet and gloves, Tommy sprints toward the swirling pillar of flames to try to close a leaking valve. He whacks at the valve with a hammer, the devil’s maw of flames less than thirty feet away. In a wince-inducing moment, a swing connects with his finger, making a bad situation worse. Tommy curses but keeps on clanging away until the valve is shut, relocation to Abilene narrowly avoided. Sitting in his pickup afterward, Tommy reveals a gnarled pinky, the tip of which is barely hanging on. “You don’t want to go to the hospital with that?” asks Walt, with understandable concern. “No,” our roughneck responds, making the case for who the real tough guy in town is. “I want a cigarette and a Dr Pepper.” In that glorious moment, I just about started reciting the Texas Pledge of Allegiance.
Who exactly is Monty Miller, and how is Demi Moore involved?
Jon Hamm’s Monty had exactly one scene in the premiere episode, and I didn’t spot Demi at all. In this episode, we get to know them and how they’re connected to M Tex. First, Tommy calls Monty up as he races to the oil rig blowout. When he hangs up after hearing the news, Monty is so enraged that he tosses his phone into the gorgeous woods that surround what I’m going to call his What-a-Mansion (a McMansion, but for Texans). “Beaauuutiful out today!” sings his wife, Cami, our first glimpse of Demi, from the pool below.
There are a couple more Cami moments in this episode, but not many, and even fewer of consequence. We see the couple at a TCU track meet, where their daughter is participating in a race, and later at some sort of gala near Sundance Square, which makes me believe the two live near Fort Worth. I can’t wait to see more of Demi’s character, but for now, she’s just the beautiful wife of an oil executive, seemingly unaware of the battles her husband and his Landman wage on behalf of her elegant lifestyle.
Does Ainsley get to kick Dakota’s ass?
Not yet, but I’m holding out hope. At the top of the episode, Ainsley races downstairs to find the couch (where Dakota refused to just cuddle) empty. Her beau has disappeared with no text, apology, or Post-it. In tears, Ainsley tells Tommy she can’t believe Dakota is gone. When Tommy gently reminds her she told Dakota to leave, she responds with infallible girlie logic. “He’s supposed to change the way he feels and then do what I want,” she cries. It’s our first blessed moment of levity in an otherwise pretty emotional episode.
Later, when Tommy tells Ainsley that Cooper (more on him later) is in town working in the patch, she seems surprised and calls her brother a loser. The word ignites Tommy. He says that the patch is for dreamers and losers. The dreamers used to go all the way out to California, but they’re all in Odessa now, he says. And even the losers can come here to win. “Which one are you gonna be?” he asks. Ainsley says she wants to be a dreamer. Tommy goes edgy Coach Taylor: “First attempts [are] always a failure, so it means you’re going to be a loser. Wonder what you’ll do then?”
Will Angela ever make it out of Tommy’s phone?!
I was charmed when Angela (Ali Larter) made her second appearance in the series via video call, but when it happened a third time, I began to worry. Will Angela ever exist outside of this phone? Her daughter is heartbroken, and her son is sitting in a hospital after narrowly escaping an inferno. Angela hems and haws over whether she should cut her Cabo trip short and come home. If either happened to me and my mom couldn’t get on a plane, she’d start walking. Angela is genuinely upset, but it just seems like such an obvious answer. “Enjoy the beach, your tits look great, don’t get syphilis,” Tommy says as he hangs up the phone. I need an IRL Angela redemption story stat.
Three crewmen are dead. What happens now?
There are a lot of phone calls in this episode, mostly of Tommy getting and relaying the awful details about the crewmen who have died. While at the TCU track meet, Monty does the classic distracted-dad-on-the-phone bit as he gets Tommy’s (correct) assumption about what happened at the accident site and a download on the casualties. Three widows and eight orphans, Tommy explains. Monty wants to know how Tommy expects M Tex to both save face and keep on drilling. Tommy says he wants to offer “a gift” of $250,000 to each family. Monty and Cami’s daughter just then finishes her race, coming in first place. Monty cheers for a moment then authorizes the cash. The dark parallel of celebration, winning, and family sends shivers up my spine.
Tommy and Walt drive to Armando’s home to deliver the bad news; the scene is reminiscent of when a soldier comes to the door to inform the loved ones of someone who died in combat. Entire families wait outside, praying, knowing bad news is on the horizon. Tommy knew all of these men (perhaps surprisingly, he calls them his “friends” later), and you can tell that whatever hell he went through this morning, this is worse. “Which one,” an older woman asks as Tommy approaches a home (and my heart shatters into a million pieces). Tommy asks to come inside the house as the scene ends with a horrible scream, the news delivered off camera.
Cut to Tommy back at the local watering hole, the Patch Cafe, ordering another Michelob Ultra. “I quit drinking,” he says to a sassy and sober bartender. “I’ll stick to beer.” A new character, Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace), walks in looking like she’s ready to girlboss, gaslight, and gatekeep. Clearly styled to be an out-of-touch liberal from the big city in a Hillary/Kamala pantsuit, Rebecca is the attorney Monty has sent to assess the situation and prepare the company for any incoming litigation. Tommy takes her to the accident site. It doesn’t look like much, just some charred pipes sticking out of the ground, but Tommy tells Rebecca what he thinks probably happened: A member of the crew created a spark when he tried to open a valve with a hammer while there was a gas leak. The two have a telling back-and-forth about why anyone would decide to open a valve with a hammer (because that’s how you open it, Tommy tells her), and Tommy reveals that the guys in the patch make $180,000 per year to put up with this level of potentially fatal danger. “That’s not enough money to risk your life on,” she says. Tommy responds in kind: “For you? Maybe. For a felon with an eighth-grade education, it’s a lottery ticket.”
Tommy gets the last word, but it’s Rebecca who throws the grenade of the episode: “And for an oil company whose manager sends employees to faulty wells that violate OSHA standards, it’s a nine-figure lawsuit.”
The two are seething at each other by the end of this exchange. Their back-and-forth underlines the show’s thesis statement: This is an industry we’ve decided is necessary, but it can be unsafe and uncaring to people like Armando (Michael Peña), who are actually doing the hard work. But is it Tommy’s fault? Rebecca sure does seem to be implying that it is.
Tommy speeds away and calls Monty in a rage. He thinks the company has sent someone looking for a patsy, and he’s not going to take it. I knew Monty was an executive of some sort before, but it crystalizes in this moment just who he is. “I can understand why you’re emotional,” he says, “but don’t let your emotions confuse who the boss is.” He takes a beat. “The boss is me, and don’t you ever raise your voice at me again.”
For the first time in the series, our Landman, who thus far has conquered cartel members, the ire of vengeful women, and a mangled pinky finger, all with nothing more than zippy one-liners and an unlimited supply of Dr Pepper, has been put in his place.
What’s the deal with Cooper? Is he done with the patch?
There isn’t a lot of Cooper in this episode, what with him recovering from narrowly being blown to smithereens, but the time we do spend with him is significant. Tommy stops by the hospital before heading to tell the family members about the accident. He calls Cooper selfish for being in the patch in the first place, telling him he should do something better with his life. “If I’m so selfish,” Cooper says, “then what does that make you?” (Daddy issues, party of one?) “A divorced alcoholic with five hundred thousand dollars in debt,” Tommy snaps. “And I’m one of the lucky ones.”
We get some background: Cooper was three months away from graduating from Texas Tech with a degree in geology, and both Tommy and Angela are pretty upset that he threw it all away to work in the patch. “I want to be a landman,” he tells Tommy, prompting his dad to make an angry turn onto the shoulder of the road. Cooper wants to be a landman and he wants to be a Monty, and the way he sees it, the only way he’s going to be a successful oil exec is to live and learn every part of working in the patch. Tommy pushes back, but Cooper, who has finally pushed his emo bangs out of his face and is ready to express his feelings, lets it rip. “The only difference between you and Monty is Monty didn’t quit.” I’ll give Cooper some credit; he really isn’t scared of Tommy, but honestly, the brat should be.
“The difference between Monty and me is I don’t have a trust fund,” Tommy replies. “I didn’t quit, I bled out.” Ah, so here it is. Tommy once upon a time tried his hand at making it big but didn’t have the juice to go the distance, so now he’s stuck in middle (land) management, and his privileged son sees him, wrongly, as a failure. He doesn’t want to follow in his daddy’s footsteps—he wants to surpass them.
Cooper continues to have a lot of nerve, and our Landman continues to confound when it comes to his kids. When Cooper asks for the favor of being put back in the patch with a new crew, Tommy obliges. The episode ends with Tommy asking his son if he’d like a beer at the cafe, even though it’s eight in the morning. “It’s Sunday,” he says. “What else you got to do?” Cooper must be more like his father than he thinks because he shrugs and relents. “Why not?”
