We spent most of Episode 7 of Landman Season 2 (“Forever Is an Instant”) waiting for the boot full of tears that would kick us in the ass. Surely there would be some scene of terrible heartbreak, to counterbalance this episode’s many moments and expressions of love. Gallino, or some other enemy, or another jobsite tragedy – with every pause in this ep’s action, we expected Taylor Sheridan to disturb the delicate trail of rose petals he’d placed around his characters. And maybe – probably – this will still occur, given there are only a few episodes left in Season 2. But at least for the duration of Episode 7, Landman is feeling the love.
“Circumstances will always change, but I won’t.” Cooper, with his halting Spanish and total head-over-heels commitment to Ariana, has gone and done it. He picked up Angela’s engagement ring, bought a pickup truck bed’s worth of roses and stems, and lit a million votive candles at the house. He tells Ariana that the hard luck and circumstances which brought them together will always have potential to rise again, but that their forever begins now. He even gets down on one knee. It’s the whole bit, despite Ariana explaining that the asking and even their eventual ceremony aren’t even the important part. It’s the life they will make together everyday that will matter.
Is love as simple as that? Is it as simple as Isabel being impressed enough with Cooper, after one meeting, that she taught him how to make red AND green salsa? The love continues to flow this episode, all the way over to Boss’s house, where we meet Jaqui (Ayumi Patterson), the M-Tex crew chief’s wife. She greets Dale and the rest of the guys warmly; Boss is out back cooking up huge steaks, because it’s his 20th year with the company. He beams at the bright gold Rolex gifted for his M-Tex service, and in the next breath reflects on “all the ways this job can kill you.”
Boss saying this on his hardfought work anniversary, minutes after we met his wonderful wife Jaqui for the very first time in this series, basically made the blood rush from our face. TV logic would dictate that the entire barbecue at Boss’s was somehow consumed by flames. But no! The love continues!
![LANDMAN S2 Ep7 [Angela flips off Tommy] “You already ruined it”](https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/LANDMAN-S2-Ep7-02.gif?w=640)
Continues as only Angela and Tommy’s love-as-combat union can continue, that is. We get an argument in Fort Worth hotel room full of misunderstandings with the hotel staff, sexualized breakfast food (“Why don’t you fuck one of them waffles”), and Tommy left stewing over his visible-beneath-the-covers Cialis boner. Angela’s got a whole lotta love for him, but most of it’s contained in the middle fingers she flips, both at the hotel and later, when she walks up the steps to the M-Tex private jet.
Later, as they cruise in Tommy’s work truck, TL continues to live out his days as the battered, veteran observer of his son’s battlefield of a life. He reiterates that Tommy should officially remarry Angela, and try to enjoy the bits and pieces of light that flit around the problems he’s always trying to solve. “What’s your hurry?” Why can’t he pause and enjoy a dance with his lovely wife, or be blessed by a smile from Ainsley? “You got it all, son. But you’re too fucking stupid to see it. Or too mad. Or too addicted to the fix.”
(And here we thought about it again. “Oh shit, is Taylor Sheridan gonna kill somebody off?” Because the Sheridan-O-Verse loves snakes, and right after TL gives Tommy what for, he encounters a rattlesnake beside the road. Which he dares to bite him. To put him out of his misery. But then TL just pisses on the coiled up reptile and walks back to Tommy’s truck. Maybe the scene is more of a clapback on snakes for being nuisances during production.)
Tommy has usually taken TL’s advice-giving with a bitter retort that points out their troubled life together. But this time around, and in the wake of his argument with Angela, the old guy’s salty wisdom seems to have stuck. Back at the M-Tex house, instead of disrupting a delicious-looking taco night with part two of their battle over sexualized breakfast foods, Tommy takes Angela outside. It’s quiet while he lets the steam blow out of her ears. And then he repeats what he told her at the end of Season 1, when Gallino almost killed him. “What a gift it is to have you back in my life. You’re a beautiful tornado of a gift, honey.”
Watching them kiss and make up through the window, Ainsley says her parents are the only “grown-ups” she knows who love and laugh like teenagers. Again, if an oil explosion or something had taken everybody out just then, we wouldn’t have been surprised. But instead, at least for now, Landman let the love flow.
Landmania for Season 2 Episode 7 of Landman (“Forever Is an Instant”):
- Will the love continue for Rebecca and Charlie? They have an easy and growing rapport, the morning after their latest romantic episode. Rebecca adjusts to life in a jobsite trailer; Charlie blisses out about million-year-old tectonic events and prehistoric fish. (“That marine life is now the oil we all seek today.”) But Nathan, sensing an opportunity, forces a consent form on his fellow M-Tex attorney. Rebecca’s careful personal calibration is suddenly shattered, until Tommy tells her not to worry about it. Fraternization? M-Tex’s whole existence is like a workplace violation.
- And we did a little research on the Rolex M-Tex gifted Boss for his 20 years of company service. The gold watch in the green box seems to be a Daytona model chronograph with a “Panda” face. Wanna shop the look? It starts at 35 grand.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.