In the blistering heat of a West Texas dawn, where the horizon bleeds orange and black like spilled crude, Landman Season 2 doesn’t just premiere—it erupts. Dropping exclusively on Paramount+ on November 16, 2025, the 10-episode juggernaut picks up right where Season 1’s heart-stopping finale left us: Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) thrust into the president’s chair at M-Tex Oil after the sudden, gut-wrenching death of his mentor Monty Miller (Jon Hamm). But if you thought the first season’s cocktail of corporate skulduggery, personal vendettas, and roughneck brawls was potent, buckle up. Taylor Sheridan, the unflinching architect of the Yellowstone universe, has cranked the pressure gauge to 11. This isn’t just oil; it’s a gusher of human frailty, geopolitical chess, and enough double-crosses to flood the Permian Basin.

From the opening frame of Episode 1, “Rigs to Riches,” you’re plunged into a world that’s equal parts boardroom bloodbath and back-alley knife fight. Tommy, that grizzled landman with a moral compass as crooked as a wildcat well, is no longer the fixer in the shadows—he’s the bullseye. M-Tex is hemorrhaging cash and credibility, squeezed by plummeting rig counts, EPA probes into fracking runoff, and whispers of a cartel incursion that’s turning dusty supply roads into smuggling superhighways. Thornton’s Norris is a revelation here, his whiskey-soaked drawl masking a man unraveling thread by thread. “I ain’t built for this suit,” he growls in a tense standoff with a sleazy Wall Street shark, his eyes hollowed by grief and the weight of a company on his shoulders. But don’t mistake vulnerability for weakness—Tommy’s still the guy who’d sooner headbutt a derrick than sign a bad lease.

Enter Andy Garcia as Victor Reyes, the silver-haired cartel kingpin who’s less Scarface flash and more Godfather subtlety. Reyes isn’t storming in with AKs blazing; he’s infiltrating from the inside, posing as a “consultant” with deep pockets and deeper grudges. His arc kicks off with a chilling sit-down in a sun-baked cantina, where he dangles a lifeline to M-Tex: exclusive access to untapped Venezuelan reserves in exchange for… well, let’s just say it involves looking the other way on a few “shipments.” Garcia chews the scenery without overdoing it, his every smile a veiled threat. “Oil don’t care about borders, Tommy,” he purrs, “but men like us? We draw ’em in blood.” It’s a performance that elevates the stakes, blending Sheridan’s signature anti-hero vibe with a nod to the real-world narco-energy nexus that’s been choking headlines from El Paso to Caracas.

Back home, the Norris family implodes in ways that make Yellowstone‘s Duttons look like the Waltons. Ali Larter reprises her role as Angela Norris, Tommy’s ex-wife turned reluctant ally, but Season 2 dials her up to scorched-earth mama bear. With their teenage daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) spiraling into a rebellion fueled by TikTok-fueled eco-activism and a forbidden fling with a roughneck twice her age, Angela’s not just navigating custody battles—she’s weaponizing them. Larter brings a feral edge, her scenes crackling with the kind of raw, hormone-charged fury that only a Sheridan woman can muster. One standout sequence has her crashing a M-Tex gala, heels clicking like gunfire, to confront Tommy about his “legacy of lies.” It’s messy, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s the emotional kerosene that keeps the plot from burning out.

Then there’s Demi Moore, who was a tantalizing tease in Season 1 as Cami Miller, Monty’s ice-queen widow and M-Tex’s shadowy financier. Now, she’s the goddamn empress. Moore owns every frame, transforming Cami from grieving spouse to cutthroat CEO-in-waiting. Her power plays are surgical: seducing investors over steak tartare one minute, greenlighting a hostile takeover the next. But beneath the Louboutins and Louis Vuitton, there’s a woman haunted by Monty’s ghost—literally, in a hallucinatory fever dream that rivals Succession‘s darkest family reckonings. Moore’s Cami isn’t just commanding the screen; she’s rewriting the rules, forcing Tommy to choose between loyalty and survival. “You think grief makes you weak?” she hisses at him in a rain-lashed confrontation outside a nodding pumpjack. “It makes you a weapon.” If Season 1 was her audition, this is her coronation—and Oscar whispers are already rumbling louder than a Halliburton frac truck.

But the real seismic shift? Sam Elliott. Oh, Sam Elliott. The gravel-voiced legend from Sheridan’s 1883 barrels into Landman as Harlan “Hawk” Landry, a legendary wildcatter who’s been prospecting these flats since Eisenhower was in office. Hawk isn’t just a series regular; he’s the mythic anchor, a chain-smoking sage with a mustache that could drill its own well and eyes that have seen more busts than booms. He rides in on a dust-choked F-350, offering Tommy an off-the-books alliance against the cartel: insider maps to hidden plays that could save M-Tex, but at the cost of dredging up Hawk’s own blood-soaked past. Elliott’s presence is pure catnip for Sheridan fans—think Rip Wheeler with a geologist’s pickaxe. His monologue in Episode 3, “Black Gold Blues,” about the ’73 oil crisis and the “souls we bury under the derricks,” is the kind of monologue that demands rewatches, a dusty elegy for an industry devouring its own.

Sheridan’s beast mode is on full display here, weaving betrayal and revenge into a tapestry that’s as unforgiving as the Chihuahuan Desert. Episode 2, “Sins of the Father,” drops on November 23 and dives headfirst into the power vacuum: Tommy uncovers Monty’s secret slush fund tied to Reyes’ cartel, while Angela’s digging unearths a family skeleton that could torch everything. By mid-season, the chaos escalates—rig explosions that aren’t accidents, DEA raids gone sideways, and a brutal bare-knuckle showdown between Tommy and a turncoat roughneck that leaves you tasting the blood in the sand. It’s not all grim; Sheridan’s got that wry humor, like the barroom yarn-spinning session where Hawk schools a cocky millennial geologist on “the difference between a dry hole and a politician’s promise.”

Critics are already hailing it as Sheridan’s sharpest since Yellowstone‘s peak—Rotten Tomatoes sits at a juicy 82% fresh, with outlets praising how Landman S2 “turns the oil patch into a pressure cooker of American excess.” Viewership? It’s shattering records again, clocking 12 million global streams in the first 24 hours, edging out even Tulsa King‘s Season 3 splash. And with new episodes weekly through the January 18, 2026 finale, this is appointment streaming: every Sunday at 3 a.m. ET on Paramount+, when the essential plan ($7.99/month) or premium ad-free ($12.99) gets you in the door.

Landman Season 2 isn’t just a return—it’s a reckoning. In a world where billionaires battle cartels and families fracture like fault lines, Sheridan reminds us: fortune’s a fickle mistress, and in West Texas, the only thing blacker than the gold is the betrayal that pumps it. Tommy Norris isn’t just tearing through the oilfields; he’s clawing for his soul. And if the first three episodes are any indication, by finale time, there’ll be rivers of it—crude and crimson alike. Fire up that subscription, folks. The boom’s back, and it’s blowing everything wide open.