Billy Bob Thornton talks about Jerry Jones, spoilers

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “The Crumbs of Hope,” the Season 1 finale of “Landman,” now streaming on Paramount+

If the beginning and end of Season 1 of Paramount+’s “Landman” are any indication, co-creator and writer Taylor Sheridan may have it out for star Billy Bob Thornton.

“I think Taylor is trying to kill me,” Thornton tells me Black. “He made me beat myself up at the beginning and beat me up at the end. He at least let me beat myself up a couple of times there in the middle.”

He’s joking, of course. There is no “Landman” without Tommy Norris, Thornton’s no-nonsense land rights agent and operations manager for the M-Tex oil company. But that doesn’t mean Sheridan, who wrote all 10 episodes of Season 1, didn’t put his character through the wringer.

In the finale, Norris is informed that his boss and close friend Monty (Jon Hamm) is unlikely to recover from his massive heart attack in last week’s episode, and among his last wishes is for Tommy to be promoted to president of M-Tex and be executor of his estate, the second of which he immediately promises to fulfill with Monty’s wife, Cami (Demi Moore). However, the monumental shift in Tommy’s world is sidelined when minutes later he is kidnapped by Jimenez (Alex Meraz), the local drug cartel leader who has been threatening M-Tex’s drilling sites all season. Of course, this is an unsurprising turn given that Tommy brought in the military to “conduct training exercises in the oil fields”, aka scare the cartel’s drug trade. Unfortunately, one of these exercises accidentally bombed one of said handlers, killing some of Jimenez’s men.

Tortured within inches of his life with hammers, nails and gasoline in the back room of a club, Tommy’s fate looks bleak as Jimenez and his men are executed by their boss, Galino, played by Andy Garcia. The tense scene in which Galino all but demands that a resilient Tommy be his partner instead of his adversary is the first time Thornton says he’s ever shared the screen with his longtime friend, Garcia.

“Andy is such a great guy and a great actor, and when we did those scenes at the end of the last episode, it felt so good because we kind of got us two old veterans going together,” Thornton says. “It was quite an experience and I have to say every moment of it felt real. Tommy is dealing with someone now who is really smart. The other guys were hired to work for him, but now Tommy is talking with the man himself. There are pros and cons to that. Since he’s so smart, who knows what Tommy will be tricked into?”

In the final moments of the season, Tommy is sent home with at least one new nail wound in his leg – and a much bigger problem on his hands. Series co-creator Christian Wallace, who created the “Boomtown” podcast on which the show is based, calls this new partnership “a blessing and a curse” for Tommy moving forward. (Paramount+ has not officially ordered a second season.)

“The cartel and the oil industry are such strange neighbors living side by side in West Texas,” Wallace says. “Now Andy’s character thinks he wants to make a change and use this closeness in a way that could benefit him.”

Thornton sums up the threat succinctly: “What do you say? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Tommy figures if he becomes semi-friends with this guy, they might actually find out, because is going to happen one way or another.”

Although Garcia’s appearance gave the finale some surprising star power, the series is still making headlines for last week’s unexpected cameo from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who gave a long monologue at Monty’s hospital bed that has since gone viral. Wallace confirms that the scene was unscripted and happened because of Sheridan’s long-standing friendship with Jones.

“Taylor just said, ‘We’re going to let Jerry Jones do his thing and tell this incredible story from his own life,'” says Wallace. “And I think everyone on set that day was shocked at how real and vulnerable he was when he delivered it. It was a pretty powerful moment.”

Thornton had a front-row seat to Jones’ one-and-done monologue as Tommy enters the stage and simply sits to the side as Jones recounts his own intertwined story of family, football and oil.

“Jerry Jones is an Arkansan like me originally, and we had never met,” he says. “I first met him that morning and we hit it off straight away. In essence, he was telling his own life story, and it was therefore quite natural. And it was quite heavy to be in the room listening to it. It made you feel like you weren’t in a scene on a (TV show.) It made you feel like you were just sitting there listening to a guy tell his story.”

While Jones’ speech was inspiring, it came too late for Hamm’s Monty, whose intubated body Cami and their daughters are seen crying over in the final moments of the season finale. “It’s safe to say Monty has passed,” says Wallace. “But when you take a bigger 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.”

Killing off Hamm’s character is not only strategic for Tommy’s ascension, but perhaps for Cami as well. High off her Golden Globes win for “The Substance,” and a current front-runner to be nominated for an Oscar, Wallace says they’re thrilled to have Moore in the cast and plan to keep her if the show continues. “There’s a lot more story left to tell with Cami,” he says. “Taylor has big plans, that’s all I’ll say.”

Anyone worried that Tommy’s promotion might mean less time in the oil fields and more time in boardrooms can harbor such concerns, however – at least if Thornton has anything to say about it. While he doesn’t know what Sheridan and Wallace can do for a second season, he expects Tommy to take the reins at M-Tex on his own terms.

“Tommy would much rather be out there doing what he’s done, but unfortunately in the circumstances it’s the right thing to do,” Thornton says. “Tommy knows he can be helpful. But he’s certainly never wanted to be some kind of executive either – it’s against his nature. So I don’t think Tommy will stop being a farmer. I know not for a fact, but I know the character – and I know I certainly wouldn’t stop.”