Brian Crossman: Finally, the Official Pipeline Online Landman Review

Brian Crossman

Brian Crossman is a partner in Estevan-based Independent Well Servicing. The opinions expressed in this column are the opinions of the author and not necessarily the opinions of Independent Well Servicing.

If you are like me and everybody else working in the patch (and you have Amazon Prime or Paramount Plus) you’ve probably watched Taylor Sheridan’s latest entertainment endeavor, “Landman.” Mr. Sheridan has written and developed some pretty great television shows, and I’m sure this one will be as good as the rest. I’m a fan of “Yellowstone” and “Tulsa King” as well. It doesn’t hurt my feelings at all when the show’s main character is played by Billy-Bob Thorton, one of my favorite actors of all time. It is a whole pile of fun to see the oil and gas industry on television, and just from talking to my friends, it is definitely getting watched.

I’m gonna go straight to what is on every oilfield worker’s mind. The actual oilfield work performed on the show has been mocked, lamented, criticized and generally picked to pieces by everyone on the internet, random people on the street, and my friends and colleagues in the industry. (Yeah, you can include me in that group as well) Let’s not go into great detail on all the things that were technically inaccurate on the show, but we shall gloss over a few.

• Do not send the “worm” up the derrick searching for a made-up thing as a prank. (It is a thing though) In fairness, the hazing of FNGs is a long-standing tradition in this and other industries, but it can be dangerous and doesn’t happen to the extent it used to. If you ever had the “weeeee” taken out of your hard-hat, you’ll know what I mean.
• Use your pipe wrench correctly. There is a right and wrong way, and new guys learn this on day one. Experienced hands know this and DO NOT use a hammer on the pipe wrench. Get a bigger wrench or use a snipe (also called a “cheater” in the USA) to increase your leverage.
• DO NOT make sparks near a wellhead. Ever.
• Don’t bring your handgun to the rig. Unless the cartel is coming.
• Standing on a load of pipe is a very bad idea. If you see an experienced supervisor standing on a load of pipe, trust me, he is neither experienced or a supervisor. But he could sure end up hurt or dead. This is something you teach the new guys right away.
• The service rig work was nice to see, but we don’t have the space in this article for the commentary on trying to accurately figure out what the hell they were doing. It sure was nice to see the blocks going up and down on television though. Tripping pipe is the best, and I still miss “throwing pipe” in the derrick.

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I’m not going to spend anymore time poking holes on the technical aspects. I get that Mr. Sheridan is trying to show as much of the industry as possible in a very short time. In order to achieve this, much of the work seems to be “bundled together” to show a wide variety of tasks for the non-oilpatch viewers, a bird’s-eye-view so to speak. It should be mentioned that the co-creator, Christian Wallace has based many parts of the show on real-life events. Christian definitely sounds like he knows a thing or two about the patch and has plenty of experience to back it up. He had a podcast back in 2019 called “Boomtown” about the oil industry in the Permian Basin, if y’all are interested you should give it a listen. I sure plan to.  It has been said that doctors and nurses complain about medical shows, police, first responders and how their jobs are portrayed, and every other career that is shown television. I’m sure the largest part of the oil and gas industry is thrilled to have our work shown to the world.

The worm. Paramount

The industry is not as dangerous as they portray on Landman. It sure can be, but it’s not. I will say that many of us have lost friends at work, and the show is accurate of the effects on the families. Now, I understand why Taylor Sheridan adds hazardous elements to the job like sliding down the derrick, severe hand injuries, wellhead fires, fatalities, fistfights and drug cartels to make it more watchable. Can these thigs happen out there? Absolutely. But do the fans of the show want to see the rig trip pipe or work on pumpjacks for an hour a week? Hell no. The people want excitement, drama and a little fun in there. Just like most ranches don’t have a “train station” or evil corporations trying to steal their land as seen on Yellowstone, the writers are just taking some artistic licence for our entertainment. I can appreciate that. I will also say I’ve never worked in the Permian Basin, but I have some friends that have and they say it can be pretty intense when “the boom” is on.

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As strange as it may seem, there was an interesting parallel between the “worm” Cooper on Landman and myself. (Personally, I don’t like the “worm” nickname, I prefer “FNG.”) The crew sent him to the truck to get a “twenty-four.” On my first day on a rig, I didn’t know shit. Early on the driller, a gruff fella named Calvin told me (yelled) to go to the toolbox and fetch a “thirty-six.” So, I walked (ran) over and started digging frantically through all the wrenches, hammers and assorted tools and I accidentally seen 24” stamped on a pipe wrench, not surprisingly about two feet long. Thus, I quickly deduced that the bigger pipe wrench (marked 36” amazingly enough) next to the “twenty-four” could be the wrench Calvin wanted. I grabbed it and held it out to my driller and he yanked it from my FNG hands. Score one for me! I’d love to tell you that the rest of my first day was just as successful. Yeah, sure would…..

The casting for this show is excellent in my opinion. It’s a good mix of newer talent alongside some big names. Jon Hamm, Demi Moore are always great, the young fella playing Cooper Norris (Jacob Lofland) could easily pass for Billy Bob’s son. We have all met guys like petroleum engineer Dale Bradley as played by James Jordan. (Great character) Men like that don’t work the job, they live it. I said earlier, Billy-Bob Thorton is one of my favorite actors. (He could read the phone book and we would all listen) His character Tommy Norris is a good mix of many oilfield legends we have all met. The hard-working, fast-living, heavy smoking workaholic that learned his job from the ground up is not uncommon in the business. Our industry is full of these self-made men, and I am lucky enough to know a few myself. True “landmen” to say the least. If my memory serves, Billy-Bob has done an oilfield show before. While Armageddon wasn’t really a movie about the patch, it did involve a rig crew going to space to drill a hole into an asteroid, blowing it up with a nuke thus saving the earth from certain destruction. In my very biased opinion this could really happen. Ok, maybe not, but Mr. Thorton was great in his role as Dan Truman in mission control. One of my fave movies. Again, a great cast for the show, all giving strong, believable performances, so not one complaint from me. Plus having a Jerry Jones cameo on episode nine? Very cool.

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The thing I think all of us who criticize the show can agree on the way they handle the discussion on alternative energy. The windmill conversation alone is worth more than one listen. On the season finale the Tommy Norris character lectures lawyer Rebbeca on how we don’t have a choice, and until there is a good alternative, we are stuck with it. “Plus, I hear that the moral high ground gets pretty windy at night” is my new favorite line. Nothing against my friends who are lawyers, but I love watching one receive a verbal beat-down.

On episode 9, Tommy Norris says some things to his wife Angela, and there is definitely some sparks flying.  But when Tommy calls his wife to say, “I love you” and then tells her “I don’t say it often enough.” This really hit home with me, as myself and pretty much everyone I know in the industry don’t say things like this near often enough to our wives and significant others. This is also true of our children, extended families, our friends and of course our co-workers. In our line of work (and many others) you never know when it could be the last time. The workaholic mentality of the oil and gas business makes it easy to not prioritize what is truly important.

I will finish this off by noting a common thread in all of Taylor Sheridan’s projects. Family. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter of the show, it always boils down to the ties that bind us all. Whether it is our people at home, our rig crew or all our colleagues in the industry it is always about family, and I think we can all appreciate that.

The official “Rotten Eggs” (The smell of H2S) score is as follows:

Storyline- 1000 ppm.

Accuracy- 800 ppm

Action-1000 ppm

Overall Fun-1000 ppm

Brian Crossman is a partner at Independent Well Servicing based in Estevan. He is looking forward to season two of Landman. And for those of you that don’t know, if your boss ever asks you if you had the “weeeee” removed from your hard hat, say yes. If you say no, he will take your hardhat, throw it like a frisbee and yell “weeeee!”

• 0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
  0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
• 0085 Turnbull snow removal call office
  0085 Turnbull snow removal call office
• 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
  0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
• 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
  0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
• 0076 Latus only
  0076 Latus only
• 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
  0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
• 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
  0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
• 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
  0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
• 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
  0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
• 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
  0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
• 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
• 0022 Grimes winter hiring
• 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
• 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
• 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
• 0011
• 0006 JK Junior
• 0002 gilliss casing services
  0002 gilliss casing services
• 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
  9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
• 9001