"Landman" hasn't even finished its second season, and Paramount+ is already drilling into a third.
The Taylor Sheridan drama, led by Billy Bob Thornton as oil-company fixer Tommy Norris, quietly began production on Season 3 in Texas this spring, and the timing tells you everything about how confident the streamer is in its newest cash cow.
For the uninitiated, "Landman" follows Thornton's Tommy as he wrangles roughnecks, cartel middlemen, and a grieving widow named Angela, played by Ali Larter, whose arc turned the show's first season into a watercooler event.
The second season, currently airing, has kept the pedal down, mixing boardroom backstabbing with the kind of dusty, sun-baked set pieces Sheridan has turned into a signature.
The loudest complaint online isn't about the plot — it's about screen time.
Viewers have flooded social media arguing that the show keeps drifting away from the oilfield and into the Norris family's personal drama, especially the subplot involving Tommy's ex-wife and their kids.
Reddit threads with titles like "This is a soap opera now" have racked up thousands of upvotes, while defenders fire back that the family chaos is the whole point.
The ratings say both camps are still watching.
Season 2 premiered to the show's biggest audience yet, and Paramount+ has been happy enough to lock in another round before the current one wraps.
That's a move the streamer has used before with Sheridan's "Yellowstone" universe, and it usually signals one thing: the numbers are strong enough to skip the waiting game.
So what should fans expect from Season 3?
Casting leaks are thin, but Texas production listings have hinted at a bigger role for the cartel storyline that simmered through Season 1.
There's also chatter that a major character from the oil-company side could exit, though no one involved has confirmed anything.
Thornton, for his part, has been cagey in interviews, telling one outlet that Tommy "gets in deeper" without saying into what.
The behind-the-scenes story is just as interesting.
Sheridan's production empire now spans multiple shows running at once, and "Landman" has become one of his most efficient, partly because it films in real oil country and leans on practical locations instead of pricey sets.
Streamers are cutting budgets left and right, and a show that delivers Sheridan-sized drama at a non-Sheridan price is a rare commodity.
At 70, he's having something of a late-career renaissance, and the show has become a calling card for older viewers who don't show up in the younger-skewing streaming data but absolutely show up in the numbers where it counts.
If you've wondered why your dad suddenly has opinions about fracking, this is why.
Season 3 could double down on the family melodrama that half the audience loves and the other half mocks, or it could steer back toward the rigs and the deals.
Sheridan shows have a habit of sprawling, and "Landman" is at the exact point where a series either tightens up or goes full nighttime soap.
Either way, the show's momentum is real, and the fight over what it should be is the most interesting thing happening in its universe right now.
The takeaway: "Landman" has become a proxy war for what audiences want from a Sheridan show — grit or gossip.
Final Thoughts
Season 3 will be the verdict, and the fact that we're arguing this hard means the show has already won the only battle that matters.