Landman<\/a><\/p>\nDancing Rainbows<\/p>\n
\n Season 2<\/p>\n
Episode 4\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
4 stars<\/p>\n
****\n <\/p>\n
\n Tommy\u2019s troubled family lore is finally revealed, and it\u2019s pretty bad. But it at least brings him closer to Ainsley.
\n Photo: Emerson Miller\/Paramount+\n <\/p>\n
At last, the funeral! We\u2019ve been waiting weeks for some more information on Tommy\u2019s mother \u2014 and for some follow-up to Tommy\u2019s tense reunion with his father \u2014 and at last, we get it. In fact, \u201cDancing Rainbows\u201d covers quite a lot of emotional ground from start to finish, to the point that I\u2019m awarding it another four stars even though it\u2019s not the most thrilling TV episode ever.<\/p>\n
When the Norris family meets up with T.L. before the funeral, we get a glimpse of the charmer he once was. Or maybe that\u2019s just the power of Sam Elliott, whose palpable charisma rubs off on his screen partners. He\u2019s full of praise for Angela, Ainsley, and especially Ariana, with whom he forms a quick kinship based on a shared history of loss. But he\u2019s not willing to extend that warmth to his own son, who still refuses to admit any real feelings of love or grief. Tommy\u2019s attitude about Dorothy makes T.L. angry, even if he understands the root of that anger.<\/p>\n
T.L. is much more visibly emotional about Dorothy\u2019s death than Tommy, but he also feels a little distanced from those feelings. After all, he lost the Dottie he knew long ago; it\u2019s finally his time to say goodbye. He\u2019s still not very comfortable talking publicly about how he feels and what their marriage was like, though. He doesn\u2019t speak at the (very brief) funeral, and it takes a question from the openly confused Ariana for him and Tommy to start opening up about Dottie.<\/p>\n
As you may have expected, the history is pretty dark. The last time Tommy saw his mother was at 14 years old, when he gave her CPR after finding her facedown in the bathtub. She returned the favor by kicking him in the face and making herself another drink, prompting him to pack his things and take off. T.L. dealt with similar types of emotional and possibly physical abuse, but he was \u201ctoo weak\u201d to leave her, always holding out hope that she\u2019d return to the happy woman she used to be. Tommy keeps insisting that he came here to celebrate Dottie\u2019s passing rather than mourn it, but I don\u2019t read any satisfaction in Billy Bob Thornton\u2019s performance. He\u2019s mourning the mother he could have had \u2014 the joyful woman T.L. talks about, who once spotted a rainbow and made him stop the car just so she could run through the sprinklers.<\/p>\n
Later on, the episode finally reveals why exactly Dottie turned to a bitter life of alcohol and drugs: She lost a four-month-old daughter to SIDS. After that, she refused to feel love for anyone, numbing herself and ignoring or abusing her husband and son. T.L. coped by hiding away at offshore drilling sites and sending checks home.<\/p>\n
Tommy explains this to Ainsley, whose reactions are actually kind of touching. I don\u2019t love how only women are given the space to grieve openly on Taylor Sheridan shows while all the men are expected to stay stoic \u2014 Angela, Ainsley, and even Ariana do so much crying in this episode, and they never even knew Dottie \u2014 but Ainsley\u2019s empathy in this scene arguably makes her more tolerable than she has ever been before. Her anger on her dad\u2019s behalf scans for me, too. It\u2019s always strange and sad to learn from a parent about the ways their parents fucked them up.<\/p>\n
Angela\u2019s presence is relatively muted in this episode, too. When she and Ainsley get their own storylines, it\u2019s a disaster, but they function fine as supporting characters in Tommy\u2019s larger story. In \u201cDancing Rainbows,\u201d Angela is the one who pushes Tommy to make real changes in his dynamic with T.L. At her instruction, he goes so far as to invite the man to move in with them, a huge step toward repairing their relationship. And sure, he pulls the typical \u201cI\u2019m here to please my wife\u201d excuse, but Tommy is pretty sincere in extending this second chance. He does want T.L. to get to know his family. And T.L. wants that, too, despite his coldness to Tommy earlier. Seeing him admit that he\u2019s \u201cnot sure he deserves this\u201d is affecting.<\/p>\n
The funeral also serves as a handy way to bring Cooper and Ariana back together after a very brief breakup. She joins him without second thought after making sure to clarify exactly why it can\u2019t work between them: She doesn\u2019t want to uproot her life and leave her home and family. Cooper still doesn\u2019t really have any counter to this, but Ariana softens toward him anyway after seeing him around his family \u2014 not because they\u2019re so close, but because they aren\u2019t. (There\u2019s not a single interaction between Cooper and Ainsley in this episode.) It\u2019s super important to Ariana to stay close to her family, but Cooper doesn\u2019t share that need.<\/p>\n
So the two reunite under new terms: Cooper will \u201cask her everything\u201d from now on, splurging on the occasional gift (like a nice dishwasher) or trip, but otherwise letting Ariana keep living the way she lives. She\u2019ll keep living in the same house and working at the Patch, not because she needs the money (between Cooper\u2019s oil and her own hefty settlement) but because \u2026 she wants to, I guess? It makes her feel independent? To tell you the truth, I\u2019m still not totally certain, because Ariana\u2019s one scene at the Patch this week mainly revolves around all the cash she\u2019ll be raking in by just taking two shifts a week. So does she need the money or doesn\u2019t she? I guess the idea is that Ariana has never actually made money for herself before, and that idea is attractive to her.<\/p>\n
Rebecca gets her own little love story in this episode, if you could call it that. You can see where it\u2019s going from her very first scene, when she\u2019s placed next to an attractive British man on the small plane. Apparently, her control issues manifest in flight anxiety, especially during turbulence, like on their bumpy ascent. She can\u2019t stop shrieking, and in a classic rom-com move, she grabs onto Charlie\u2019s hand. He reassures her and loads her up with vodka and watermelon juice (at her own insistence), and by the time they\u2019re descending, she\u2019s shit-faced.<\/p>\n
From there, we cut to Charlie\u2019s bed, where Rebecca wakes up the next morning. Now, Charlie mentions that he works in the oil fields, so I expect him to show back up. But I do wish there was a bit more substance to this diversion in the episode. What did the two talk about during the flight? What did their flirting look like? We don\u2019t get any real sense of their dynamic outside the next morning\u2019s post-coital mortification.<\/p>\n
The bigger plot reason for Rebecca\u2019s flight is another disaster at a rig, depicted once again in the cold open: Some unidentified man in a pickup truck was parked near a well owned by M-Tex, and an M-Tex driver plowed right into him, killing them both. It\u2019s hard to say why this happened or even why it matters, but I expect to see more of that next week, along with more follow-up to Cami\u2019s new alliance with Danny Morrell. Their meeting in this episode goes well, for the most part \u2014 he agrees to put up a huge loan to quickly drill an offshore well damaged in a hurricane \u2014 but he wants to negotiate the deal with Tommy, not Cami. He wants to keep her clean; after all, she\u2019s not a snake.<\/p>\n
Or is she? The scene ends with Danny describing Tommy as a \u201chawk\u201d he can work with, but we\u2019ve seen that Cami wants to prove herself in this arena too. She can be tough as hell, and I\u2019m not sure she\u2019ll be happy to let Tommy take over all the dirty work. It remains to be seen what all this means: potential tension between Tommy and Cami? A real power struggle? Cami getting in way over her head, or successfully laying down the law? I appreciate that \u201cDancing Rainbows\u201d slows down the plot again for more character-centric stories, but I\u2019m still curious where this is all going.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hopefully Cami listing the house means the show is ready to move on a bit from the endless scenes of her grieving Monty. Her visit to his grave is fine, but it\u2019s also a bit much for an already grief-heavy episode.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Nate and Dale also attend the funeral, ostensibly for emotional support but really to provide some comic relief on the drive over. Easily the best moment, though, is T.L.\u2019s reaction to their presence: \u201cWho are these fucking clowns?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Okay, I know I said Angela\u2019s solo subplots are bad, but her experience with the elderly actually comes in handy in this episode when she convinces Tommy that T.L. is lonely and regretful.<\/p>\n
\u2022 An update after the H2S leak last week: Jerrell is dealing with severe and potentially irreversible ocular damage. It\u2019s disturbing to see him react to this news, of course \u2014 we get a classic \u201cHow come I can\u2019t see?\u201d meltdown \u2014 but I\u2019m still not totally sure why we\u2019re touching down with Boss\u2019s crew so much. We barely even know Jerrell.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cI\u2019m sorry I struck oil and got rich. I won\u2019t let it happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
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