Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season 1 finale of Landman.
It’s hard to imagine Landman without Jon Hamm’s Monty Miller, but fans might have to start.
The Paramount+ series — which sees Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris handle things on the ground for Monty’s major oil corporation — concluded its first season on Sunday, Jan. 12. Although Monty’s health was at risk in the penultimate episode, the finale upped the ante even further.
After he was hospitalized for a heart attack in episode 8, it was revealed that Monty had undergone his third bypass surgery and needed a heart transplant. But the operation didn’t seem to go as planned in the finale, as the last minutes of the episode saw Monty’s wife Cami (Demi Moore) and his two daughters crying as they gathered around the CEO, who looked lifeless in a hospital bed.
While it was unclear whether Monty’s loved ones were mourning his death or worrying about his health, many fans took the emotional last look at the family as confirmation that Monty had not survived. Now, Landman co-creator Christian Wallace is weighing in.
“It is safe to say that Monty has passed,” Wallace, who created the podcast “Boomtown” that inspired the series, told Variety. “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.”
Monty’s death, though, presents an “incredible opportunity” for Moore’s character, Wallace told TVLine, who some fans thought was underused in season 1.
“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’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,” Wallace told the outlet. “And so his passing is kind of an incredible opportunity for Cami to play a bigger role in this world.”
The other major question is what does Monty’s death mean for Tommy? He agreed to take over M-Tex Oil, per his boss’ final wishes, but what would the company look like without Tommy on the ground every day?
Before his death, Monty had named Tommy vice president of operations — and, much to the oilman’s chagrin, named Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace) vice president of exploration — and then his lawyer had revealed that he’d named Tommy as the heir to M-Tex, and the executor of his estate, in his will.
When asked about his character’s fate in a potential season 2, Thornton, 69, said Tommy “probably doesn’t want to” take over the company, “but he knows he has to.”
“I think he owes a debt to his old friend and boss, because that’s what he wanted,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “And I think also, just because of his knowledge of the business, he knows he’s the one to do it. He does not want to put the suit on, but he knows he’s got to.”
Hamm has not commented on his character’s fate just yet, but in March, he spoke to PEOPLE about the Paramount+ series, which he called an “interesting take on what happens when it comes to how we get the stuff that makes our cars and our lives and our planes and everything in our modern world go.”
“There’s a lot of back and forth, a lot of intrigue and things like that,” he said. “It’s Taylor Sheridan and obviously it’s very well written. It’s very well-researched. It’s a story very well told.”
Hamm, 53, also noted that Landman was a “good story” and that he thought “people are going to enjoy it.”
“It’s got Billy Bob Thornton and Demi Moore, so it’s a tremendous cast and it’s been super fun to work on,” he added. “And obviously, Taylor Sheridan’s in charge of everything, so it’s a great project.”
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The season 1 finale of Landman is now streaming on Paramount+.
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