The Chilliest Funeral in Texas History

It’s not Christmastime for Tommy and the gang quite yet, but this family-heavy episode has all the hallmarks of a holiday classic: a long drive back home, a warm reconciliation with relatives, and heavy drinking. You can just about hear the jingle bells. (Our regular reminder: Landman is based on the Texas Monthly and Imperative Entertainment podcast Boomtown, and TM is an executive producer).

It’s night in the Permian Basin, and we open on a man inside a pickup truck near an M-Tex well. We can’t tell who he is, or whether he’s asleep, passed out, or worse—but it doesn’t matter, because a distracted eighteen-wheeler driver plows through the truck, assuredly killing the man and causing a new mess for Tommy and the crew to deal with. 

In the next scene, it’s early morning, the day after Ariana’s first work shift at the Patch Cafe. Considering what she’s been through, she needs some rest. Alas, she arrives at her house to find Cooper sleeping in front of her garage. He’s there to pick up a jacket for his grandma’s funeral, in Canadian—but don’t worry, he tells Ariana. “It’s not her I’m missing.” Because he was there for her in past times of need, Ariana insists on joining him at the funeral. 

The former lovebirds get on the road, and Tommy, Angela, and Ainsley pile into an Expedition with Dale and Nate—who are coming along for emotional support—as they too embark on a lengthy drive up north. Angela and Ainsley are convinced they can have some fun in the car; the men are less assured. 

Meanwhile, Rebecca gets a call from Sheriff Walt about that aforementioned accident. Both the distracted driver and the stationary passenger are dead, but it’s unclear whether the latter man was even alive prior to impact. Luckily, Rebecca is boarding a jet to Midland, so she’ll be in town soon enough to parse through the mess. Unluckily, once her plane takes off, there’s comically bad turbulence. She grips the hand of the handsome man sitting next to her, who calms her nerves with a canteen of tequila; by the time she lands, she’s two sheets to the wind, hands in the air, yelping like she’s at Fiesta Texas. (Later in the episode, she wakes up in this mystery man’s bed, hungover and naked. Could romance be on the way for our landman’s lawyer, or is this just another problem she’s going to have to solve?)

Everyone finally arrives in Canadian, and with T.L. and Tommy in the same room, things get tense—fast. “Let’s get this over with,” grumbles T.L., a phrase perhaps high on the list of things not to say at funerals. During the burial, we learn that the deceased’s name is Dottie, and then the man leading the service gives T.L. the chance to say some words. He passes. “God already knows it,” he says, sitting uncomfortably next to Tommy. 

We jump to the post-funeral lunch, at a nearby cafe, and things get more awkward. Bless the brief moment of levity when the waitress tells the women that their salads—ordered with no dressing, no cheese, and no croutons—will end up as plates of lettuce and chicken. “Cancer?” she queries, with fake concern. “Vanity,” Angela responds, a huge smile on her face. “I’ll pray for you,” the waitress snaps back. No matter what’s happening on Landman, the camp is here to stay. 

And thank goodness for that. At the table, T.L. is describing the horrible living conditions at the “Motel 6 they converted into a place where we wait to die,” i.e., his retirement home. Ariana wants to know why no one is talking about Dottie, which prompts Tommy to tell a horrible story about him finding her naked and passed out in a bathtub when he was fourteen. It’s a heartbreaking recollection, and it ends with a bloodied Tommy packing his bags, never to return home. “There is no miracle involving my mother,” he says, “other than her managing to die of old age.” 

Tommy then leaves the table as T.L. regales the group with his own memories of Dottie: young and beautiful, dancing through sprinklers, chasing rainbows. Angela finds Tommy outside and chastizes him for missing his father’s beautiful remembrance. But Tommy has heard all this before and is unmoved. (A bit later, Ariana, touched by seeing the family all together, decides to take Cooper back—but he’s still on thin ice.) With that, everyone says their goodbyes, and the chilliest funeral in Texas history concludes. 

Let’s head to Fort Worth, where Cami has lunch with her new buddies, Danny and Bela (Stefania Spampinato). Cami wants to do business with Danny, and though he wants that as well, he tells her to put Tommy in touch first. “The answer is yes,” he says ominously. “I’ll let the snakes figure out the rest.”

You may remember that in the last episode, a crew was exposed to a lethal gas leak. We discover that one of the crew members, Jerrell, is still in the hospital, with undetermined neurological damage. Boss and the other survivors come by to check on him; when a nurse removes the bandages from his eyes, Jerrell realizes he can’t see. He panics and, as the scene closes, calls in anguish for a doctor. 

Back to Tommy and the girls, who have made it home. Ainsley is crying on the couch: She’s still mourning her grandmother’s death. To console her, Tommy reveals that he had a little sister who died of SIDS. “The loss broke her,” he says of Dottie. It doesn’t excuse her treatment of him, he continues, but it does explain it. As he heads upstairs, Angela says T.L. deserves some peace, and only Tommy can give it to him. He doesn’t seem to appreciate her suggestion.

And yet, in the next scene, we see Tommy pulling into T.L.’s senior center, where the patriarch is checking out another sunset. Tommy says he’s going to ignore his better judgment and make Angela happy: The younger Norrises want T.L. in their life and would like to bring him home. T.L. mulls over the proposition and at last agrees to it. That’s a good thing, because Tommy has already packed T.L.’s bags. “You ain’t ever setting another foot in that f—ing place.” 

T.L. says he’s not sure he deserves this second chance—to get to know both his son and his grandkids. But as Tommy pushes wheelchair-bound T.L. to the car, he makes himself clear. “What does ‘deserve’ have to do with anything, Pop?” It’s a Midland miracle.