Though the Landman story below does focus on a phone conversation between Tommy and his father T.L. in “The Pirate Dinner”, there are no actual plot spoilers discussed, so it’s safe to keep reading even if you haven’t yet streamed the ep via Paramount+ subscription.
Taylor Sheridan is the kind of TV creator who sets his various characters up as mouthpieces for a litany of his own viewpoints. He’s hardly alone in that respect, but he is one of relatively few creatives who maintains a sole writing credit across multiple series, so there’s little doubt where the opinionated comments come from. Pop culture usually doesn’t inspire such discussions amongst the blue-collar characters, but Landman’s latest episode surprisingly lobbed a shot at Whoopi Goldberg and the women of The View, and I can't wait for their responses.
In the middle of Season 2’s fifth installment, “The Pirate Dinner,” Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy is in the midst of a hectic day and a long drive when Sam Elliott’s T.L. calls him up to complain about being bored, not to mention being locked outside of the house. (It’s hard to tell where T.L.’s arc is going, and this scene didn’t exactly lay out a wealth of potential futures, beyond possibly doing voiceover work for Tommy’s neighbor.)
Tommy’s advice points to The View as a source of semi-ironic daytime amusement, but T.L. somehow has no knowledge of a series that’s been on the air in a near-daily capacity since 1997. Here’s how their convo went down:
- TOMMY: Watch one of them daytime talk shows, you know, like The View or something.
- T.L.: What's The View?
- TOMMY: A bunch of pissed-off millionaires bitching about how much they hate millionaires and Trump and men and you and me and everybody else they got a bee up their ass about. It’s pretty funny.
- T.L.: Don’t sound funny.
- TOMMY: Well, it ain’t ‘joke’ funny, it’s like ‘fart in church’ funny, you know what I mean?
- T.L.: That don’t sound funny, either.
- TOMMY: Well, it depends on your proximity to the fart.
Strangely not the most insulting barb that Taylor Sheridan is capable of, and it's nowhere near as pointedly blunt as so many other comments made by Billy Bob Thornton's Tommy. Don't get me wrong, it's an obvious knock against the that T.L. has remained blind to the show's Hot Topics for nearly three decades, and it's not like Tommy is saying The View is worth watching for its genius insights and personalities. He's more or less calling it a wreck that one can't help but stare at. So not complimentary in the slightest.
As a viewer, it’s both interesting and amusing to see Tommy’s casual criticism of The View’s female hosts falling back into the same repeated behavior patterns and topics, since it’s in a show that has itself been criticized by critics and fans themselves about how its female characters are depicted, from Angela to Ainsley to Rebecca and beyond.
Even if Taylor Sheridan himself absolutely adores The View, I'd have still expected him to write Tommy as if he thought the talk show was a waste of time. Especially since Tommy doesn't seem to ever want to get into any political arguments with anyone, you'd think he'd tire of the show's subject matter immediately. But just as there are plenty of different ways to fart in church, The View doesn't always fall back on the same old Washington D.C. talking points.
Given the mildly genial shot taken by Billy Bob Thornton's character, I'm interested to see, first, whether or not any of the women are aware of what Landman is. (Just kidding: Thornton appeared on the show in 2024 to promote the streaming western's first season.) More sincerely, I can't wait to see whether Whoopi & Co. choose to take offense and strike back out, or if all involved will view it as the light-hearted insult it came across as.
That said, CBS News' newest boss Bari Weiss has supposedly held a grudge against The View's team after she was passed over to fill a vacated spot at the table years ago, and she's rumored to be starting up a direct daytime competitor for CBS's daytime fare. Given when Landman filmed its Season 2 episodes, however, it doesn't appear as if Tommy's comments were directly sparked by Paramount's post-merger leadership regime.
Check out the trailer for Episode 6 below!
Will Landman next call out other daytime staples like the recently concluded The Kitchen, or The Price Is Right? Find out as the rest of Season 2 plays out every Sunday on Paramount+, and take comfort in Season 3 already being confirmed, with production hopefully starting earlier enough for episodes to still debut during the 2026 TV schedule.
