Landman Season 3 Officially Sets Up The Perfect Spinoff

Taylor Sheridan never misses an opportunity to spin off one of his hit shows into other shows. Tulsa King is getting spun off into Frisco King with Samuel L. Jackson, Lawmen: Bass Reeves was clearly titled to set up an anthology series following other Lawmen, and the Yellowstone universe has been expanded to include 1883, 1923, Marshals, and Dutton Ranch.

Not every Sheridan show has a spinoff, but it’s only a matter of time before they all become sprawling Yellowstone-style universes incorporating sequels, prequels, and offshoots. It’s only a matter of time before we see a Madison spinoff starring Matthew Fox, or a Lioness prequel about Joe McNamara’s early career at the CIA.

Out of all the shows Sheridan currently has on the air, Landman is the ripest for a spinoff. It has the biggest audience, the most crowd-pleasing content, and now that Landman is breaking its format and taking a longer break between seasons, we’ll need something else to satiate us in the meantime. There are a few possible spinoffs that Landman could explore. Demi Moore could take center stage in a Succession-style corporate drama about Cami navigating the wolves’ den that is her late husband’s board of directors.

We could see a procedural about Walt Joeberg, the Sheriff of Midland County who often looks the other way when Tommy gets on the wrong side of the law, or we could follow Ainsley off to college for a Texas version of A Different World. We could get a Tommy & Angela’s First Marriage show, much in the same vein as Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.

A Landman Prequel Following TL’s Early Career Could Be Great

Landman introduced the best possible setup for a spinoff in its second season. In season 2, Landman’s already-stacked cast got even more stacked. This show already had some heavy-hitters in its ensemble — Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Demi Moore, Jon Hamm — but in season 2, Andy García took on a much bigger role, and Sam Elliott joined the cast as Tommy’s estranged father, T.L.

As Tommy reluctantly invited T.L. to come and live with him, and father and son gradually reconnected, we learned all about Tommy’s backstory. His mother was mentally unwell, and his dad mostly left him to deal with it. His parents were addicts, and abused each other. It went a long way toward explaining why Tommy is so tough: he’s been hardened by an incredibly difficult life.

Now that Tommy has brought T.L. out of retirement and back into the workforce at his new company, it’s the perfect time to go back and explore his origin story. A Landman prequel following T.L.’s early career could explore a bygone era of the oil industry and provide more context on Tommy’s tragic childhood.

Who Could Replace Sam Elliott As Young TL?

If Sheridan really did write a Landman prequel about young T.L., then he’d have to find a young actor with the gravitas and gruffness and screen presence to embody a young Sam Elliott. Sheridan could go with one of his most frequent collaborators, Brandon Sklenar, who could probably get the job done, but he doesn’t have quite the same Southern charms. Josh Brolin could be an interesting choice, if he’s willing to do another series; he would nail down that gruff gravitas that seems so elusive.

Elliott is a one-of-a-kind character actor — he defined a certain type, and no one else comes close — so maybe a Landman prequel about his character’s younger days is a non-starter. If they did an open casting call, they could probably find some great unknown actor with the right look, the right charisma, and the right screen presence, but it would take quite an extensive search.