‘Landman’ Season Finale Kills Off [Spoiler] to Make Room for Demi Moore

There’s certainly not a lack of felonies committed on Taylor Sheridan‘s latest drama, Landman, but perhaps the biggest crime is underutilizing Demi Moore on season 1. Based on the finale plot twist, however, that will all change if the show gets a season 2.

The following post contains spoilers for season 1 of Landman:

During the finale, which started streaming on Paramount+ on Sunday, January 12, Jon Hamm’s Monty dies surrounded by his wife, Cami (Moore), and their kids while waiting for a heart transplant.

“It is safe to say that Monty has passed,” co-creator Christian Wallace confirmed to Variety on Sunday. “But when you take one major player off the board, it opens up opportunities for other players — and I think that’s all I’m at liberty to say at this point.”

When asked about Moore — who spent the entire season swimming and reminding Monty to take his medication — Wallace added, “There is a lot more story left to tell with Cami. Taylor has big plans, that’s all I’m going to say.”

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In a separate interview with TV Insider, Wallace gave more insight into the decision to kill off Monty, a titan of the oil industry and the boss of Billy Bob Thorton’s Tommy Norris.

“Yeah, you kind of drop these little pieces throughout the entire season. There’s Monty checking his heart rate on his watch or his wife Cami telling him no more coffee and just little things that were dropped this entire time to kind of let you know that something’s going on so that when it does finally happen, it’s not just completely out of nowhere,” he said. “But you also don’t wanna be too heavy-handed about it and just telegraph that explicitly to the viewers. So it’s just kind of a matter of trying to strike that balance of letting people know that there’s an issue without making it just the only thing that they can think about.”

Wallace couldn’t confirm whether the show will be back for season 2 but noted: “If the show were to go forward, I think everyone involved would love to see more of Cami and more of Demi.”

“I think Demi’s character in this first season was kind of playing a little bit of second fiddle to Monty, at least in his role as the president of M-Tex Oil,” he explained. “He’s the one that’s calling the shots and has to make these big decisions, and so he’s really the one that’s thrust in the fire and is honestly kind of trying to shield his family from the stress that he’s experiencing, which ultimately plays a role in his demise. And Cami is aware but is not involved in the daily ongoings of M-Tex. And so his passing is kind of an incredible opportunity for Cami to play a bigger role in this world.”

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Elsewhere in the season 1 finale of Landman, Thornton is named the president of M-Tex before he’s kidnapped (and severely beaten) by a drug cartel leader.

“I think Taylor is trying to kill me,” Thornton joked to Variety. “He had me beat up at the beginning and beat up at the end. At least he let me throw a few punches myself there in the middle.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Thornton said that the brutal scene — which included Tommy having a nail hammered into his thigh — was “all me.”

“I actually had this stuff dumped on my head — that was me underneath the bag, twice. And it was really interesting because Andy Garcia and I have known each other for years and years, but this was our first time working together,” he said. “But it felt very natural and real to have two grizzled-in veterans facing off against each other. Andy and I, I think, work very well together. In those kinds of scenes, you just have to put yourself in that place like that’s actually happening. And that night, it felt that way. Plus, I was exhausted. By the time we did the outside scene, I could barely stand up. So, there’s no acting going on there. I would lean on the wall between every take.”

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Tommy is eventually released by the boss of the cartel (Garcia) with the promise that he will work with the cartel.

While Thorton told THR he doesn’t know “officially” that the show will be back for season 2, Moore told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival last year she is “excited for us to start the second, which will be at the beginning of next year.”