True to its name, this series is ostensibly about oil extraction and Texas cowboys.
Knowing that the director is Taylor Sheridan, you should know it's not simple...
The protagonist of the story is named Tommy Norris, a veteran who has been navigating the oil industry for decades, now an executive at an oil company, responsible for the most difficult task: acquiring land.
It sounds like a regular business job, but his daily routine involves driving a pickup truck to a ranch to contend with cattle for territory, or signing contracts at gunpoint by gangsters.
Right from the start of the series, the peril of this job is revealed.
Because the boss had his eye on a new plot of land and needed Tommy to negotiate, he was kidnapped as soon as he showed up.
There was a den of drug dealers here, who insisted this was their territory and tried to force Tommy back with violence.
But Tommy had an entire oil company behind him, and facing these few small-time drug dealers, he showed no fear at all, scaring them off with just a few words...
This scene also indirectly proved the power of the oil company; the oil and gas industry nets $3 billion every day, generating over $4.3 trillion in revenue annually.
This is the world's seventh-largest industry, ranking ahead of food production, automobile manufacturing, and coal mining.
Even industries that precede oil and natural gas entirely depend on them...
It can be said that the progress of the entire world relies on oil and natural gas.
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And for oil companies to grow and expand, the most crucial step is to lease land and secure contracts to obtain drilling rights.
Once drilling rights are secured, the most difficult part is balancing relationships with all parties; if something goes wrong in this stage, one's life might even be at risk...
For Tommy, there are many interpersonal relationships he needs to balance.
Boss, oil worker, inspector, landlord, and families..
However, not long after operations began, trouble struck his territory.
A tanker truck crashed into an airplane and a pickup truck, igniting a fire that raged for three hours and scorched the nearby landlord’s lawn.
As if the accident happening on his watch wasn’t bad enough, the plane involved was actually one he’d lost just a few days earlier—and at the time of the crash, it was meeting up with the pickup truck for a drug run.
Meanwhile, an aging oil well suffered a blowout. Out of the entire crew, only one survived; the other three workers were burned to a crisp on the spot.
To make matters worse, everyone just waited for Tommy to handle it—letting the fire burn unchecked with the valves still open. If Tommy hadn’t arrived in time, the consequences would’ve been unimaginable.
These two incidents made Tommy’s boss nervous; he was afraid things might spiral out of control and hurt the company, and worried that the authorities would send investigators who might eventually pin the blame on him.
So, he reached out to a familiar contact and brought in Rebecca, a young and talented lawyer who specializes in oil liability disputes.
Rebecca’s style couldn’t be more out of place in the West. She and Tommy clashed from the very beginning, and Tommy couldn’t quite figure out whose side she was really on—he just felt like she was there to stir up trouble.
Tommy’s concerns weren’t unfounded—Rebecca was there to inspect the scene, determine liability, and ultimately find someone to take the fall.
If Tommy didn’t want to be the scapegoat for his boss, he’d have to work with Rebecca.
Meanwhile, Tommy’s family life was a mess. His son Cooper, just two months away from graduating with a geology degree, suddenly dropped out to work as an oilman alongside his dad.
Witnessing his teammates’ tragic deaths didn’t break his spirit—instead, it only strengthened his resolve to keep going.
His dream is to start his own oil company. He’s already got plenty of theoretical knowledge, but lacks hands-on experience, so he decided to start from the bottom as a roughneck and master every step of the process.
While paying his respects to a fallen coworker’s widow, he found himself developing feelings for her—making him the target of plenty of gossip.
Tommy’s daughter is a hopeless romantic—once she started dating, her whole world revolved around her boyfriend. She thought it was true love, but soon realized he was only interested in sleeping with her.
Having spent little time with her father growing up, she began to consider leaving her mother and choosing to live with him after they reunited.
Tommy’s ex-wife is a striking, free-spirited beauty. Even after their divorce, they’ve kept in touch, though Tommy always finds her a bit too loud for his taste.
When his son was hospitalized and his daughter was heartbroken, Tommy’s ex-wife finally made a rare trip back to the West.
Their reunion was the moment she finally revealed the real reason for their divorce: in Tommy’s heart, his ex-wife was never a priority.
He cared about his work, he cared about his kids, and only after all that would he think about his wife. You could see it in the way he tossed his drunken wife into the water without a second thought—that’s the root of their broken marriage.
In the West, the ones who come here are either failures or dreamers.
Most oil workers fall into the former category—they come here hoping to get lucky. If they win, their families prosper; if they lose, they’re buried here.
Oil is a glamorous game on the surface, but underneath, it’s darker than anyone imagines.
Tommy wants to be a good man, but he’s forced to compromise between survival and conscience.
He’s the kind of guy who walks the gray area between the two.
Oil companies need people who can take the heat, but Tommy refuses to be the fool who does all the dirty work for his boss and ends up in jail as the scapegoat.
But fighting back means putting himself at odds with the entire system.
Sheridan’s signature “Western romanticism” is on full display in this series.
The sweeping Texas plains and shots of pickups racing down highways evoke a sense of freedom.
But behind that freedom lies the ruthless competition of the oil business and the relentless appetite of capital.
Tommy isn’t a hero, nor is he a true villain; he’s just one of countless ordinary people swept along by fate in the world of capital.
His choices are about survival—and about trying to reclaim a bit of balance in his heart.
Every character in the show is like a symbol on the western frontier.
Rebecca embodies the coldness of the law, Cooper represents the fragility of idealism, and Tommy is the voice of reality.
Their clashes aren’t about winning, but about finding a foothold on this land covered in ashes.
End。