Landman Recap: Another Round?
Ladies and gentlemen, the former Mrs. Tommy Norris has arrived in Texas.
Ali Larter’s Angela breezes into Midland in this week’s Landman, demanding brunch at the country club (on Monty’s dime) and announcing that she didn’t bring luggage because she’s not staying. “Why is she here?” Ainsley asks. “Emotional support,” Tommy replies. “For who?” his daughter wonders.
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On paper, Angie is there to be with the family in the aftermath of Cooper’s accident. But Cooper has no interest in seeing her. He’s back at work — or trying to be, but his former crewmates’ relatives jump him in the yard outside his trailer and demand to know why he survived the explosion when no one else did. Cooper manages to subdue them with some sweet moves from his wrestling days; a crew boss who goes by “Boss” is impressed and adds him to his crew soon after. The problem, though? The rest of the crew are the two guys Cooper just fought.
Back at the club, Angela doesn’t waste much time, taking off her dress at lunch and lying by the pool for some sunbathing with Ainsley. Tommy has to go when Rebecca the lawyer calls and says she needs him to accompany her to the site of the plane crash, which leaves Angela and Ainsley free to run up Monty’s bill. And when Ainsley sees via social media that her ex-boyfriend is cuddling up to her cheerleading co-captain, Angela feels that the responsible, maternal thing to do is order a round of margaritas. And then another.
Tommy and Rebecca have an unpleasant visit to the crash site, in which he explains that wind energy isn’t the “clean” fuel she thinks it is, and then he kills a rattlesnake that’s within striking distance of where she stands, paralyzed in fear. Does the whole affair go very far along the path of making her an ally, as Nathan advised him earlier in the episode? Unclear. But the atmosphere in Tommy’s truck is decidedly less chilly on the ride home than it was on the ride out to the site.
When Tommy returns to the club, Ainsley and Angela are passed out, drunk, on lounge chairs. He tosses his ex-wife into the pool to help her sober up, then gently carries his daughter to the car. At home, as he’s helping Ainsley inside, she whispers that she doesn’t want to go home with Angela; she wants to stay in Midland with Tommy. “Honey, that’s going to break her heart,” he warns her. “I’m not worried about her heart. I’m worried about mine,” she says.
Cooper stops to pay his respects at a gathering at his former crew boss’ home. But the same guys who beat him up try to bar his entry; only the intervention of the boss’ widow allows him safe passage. The only open seat at the wake is on the couch next to Ariana, the young widow of one of the dead men. She’s initially entertained by Cooper’s low tolerance for spicy food, then she’s amused at his discomfiture when she starts to nurse her infant son. But when he tries to rise to give her some room, she asks him to stay, saying that his conversation is the first time she hasn’t dwelled on her grief since her husband died. As she starts crying and leans her head on Cooper’s shoulder, he’s clearly uncomfortable, but he doesn’t move.
That night, in Tommy’s bedroom, a still-drunk and scantily clad Angela climbs on top of him and talks about how she’d give up her current marriage in a second if Tommy wanted to try again. “You know those reasons you left me? They’re still reasons. None of them have changed,” he says, but it doesn’t stop her from taking off both of their tops. Still, when he informs her that Ainsley wants to stay with him, that changes things. Angela collapses against him, wondering what will become of her when she’s all alone in their big house. “Wow, we sure f—ked up our lives, didn’t we?” she muses, teary. He ventures that if she wants to try being a couple again, he will. But she points out that she always came second to his work, and that’s not going to change. By the end of the scene, though, they’re laughing together, a sound that makes Ainsley smile when she hears it from the living room.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!
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