Landman's Gallino Resurfaces In Harrowing Episode 3 — Read Recap

Gallino is back in this week's "Landman," and oooh, things get deliciously messy very quickly.

Tommy shows up at the kingpin's very-legit-looking Fort Worth office demanding that he leave Cooper alone, but Gallino refuses. I don't want to suggest that Tommy is out of his league here, but it's not too far a leap to say that he definitely thought he was dealing with one type of power player... and Gallino is turning out to be something far more complex.

Elsewhere, Boss and the guys go check out the abandoned wells Tommy is thinking of buying and nearly lose their lives in the process. It is ROUGH, everyone. Buckle in. (And maybe don't watch while you're eating.)

Read on for the highlights of "Almost a Home."

We open on a bunch of stupid old guys hunting boar with needlessly powerful weapons from a offroad vehicle. They draw up on the animals within site of an oil drill site, but within moments, they're all coughing uncontrollably and then collapsing to the ground. An overhead shot shows that the same thing has happened to every animal in the vicinity.

Later, Boss, Dale and a couple other roughnecks head out to the site Tommy mentioned last week, with the abandoned wells. As they investigate, we realize they're in the same spot where the hunters died at the start of the episode. And when the wind shifts and their alarms start going off, they realize what's going on. They run for their truck but can't get there before they start coughing, vomiting and scrubbing at their burning eyes. Dale manages to call the incident in, yelling that they're in the middle of a hazmat situation, and then calls up to Jerrell, who's standing on top of the tank and is unaffected, telling him to stay put.

The wind shifts again before EMS can get there, and Jarrell's alarm goes off. Dale straps himself into a hazmat suit and climbs up the tank to get the guy a gas mask, but things are not looking good. An emergency helicopter shows up in time to help Jarrell get down to the ground, then they load the worst of the guys into the 'copter before the others drive off to meet them at the hospital. On the way there, the normally unflappable Boss cries a little in the car, which might be the scariest part of the whole episode. Eventually, everyone is pretty much OK, but the day took a serious toll. As Dale tells Nate when he makes it home that evening and cracks open a beer, it's the closest he's come to death on the job in a very, very long time.

Tommy and Angela are in the car; he's got a meeting, and she's going to talk with the realtor. Angela starts to get frisky with her husband while he's driving, but Tommy's inability to keep the car in one lane draws the attention of a nearby police officer, who warns them to cut it out, or else. Cami calls soon after; she's still at Monty's office, and she looks ashen. She wants him in Fort Worth ASAP, "so I can show you how much money we don't have," she says.

First, though, Tommy meets with Gallino. We learn his real name is Danny Morel (but I'm still going to refer to him as Gallino as long as Tommy does); as Gallino sits in his impressive-looking office, he very assuredly tells Tommy that he's partners with him, as well as with Cooper. "Let's call it an apology of sorts, and an investment in both of our futures," Gallino says. Plus, he's impressed with Cooper's ability to find profitable wells where others weren't looking. 

"Listen, I'm not going to sit here and discuss the nuance of oil exploration with a f—king drug dealer, OK?" Tommy says. Gallino is offended, saying all he does is "diversify revenue," and that where it comes from is "irrelevant." Plus, Gallino reminds Tommy, he spared his life. Tommy counters that Gallino only invested in Cooper because he knew the business would fail, and when it did, both of the Norris men would owe him. "Every time you take a f—king breath, you owe me, Thomas," Gallino yells, claiming that his money is clean. Plus, he thinks that Tommy's just jealous of his kid. "It's a blindspot in the industry, and you're angry that he found it," the kingpin says. "F—k you," Tommy counters, walking out.

Let's take a minute to check in on Ariana, who applies for a job at The Patch Café and gets hired as a bartender. She's about 10 minutes into her first shift when she throws a drink — and glass! — at a sleazy customer who wants to pay her to have sex with him. She assumes she'll be fired, but her co-worker says she did exactly the right thing: "Taking s—t is not part of the job description."

Back to the main story! Tommy calls Cooper and tells him to halt drilling until they talk. Then he meets Nate, Rebecca and Cami at MTex headquarters. "I now know why Monty was so stressed," Cami announces. "The company has no money." Rebecca explains that the company is composed of various LLCs, with all of the money flowing in going to a holding company called M Miller. Ostensibly, that LLC would pay the others for payroll, expenses, etc. But that's not happening: Monty took out an insane number of loans to cover all of that. Rebecca says it's probably a way to limit tax liability, but they can't find the account that pays the loans. Nate worries that they're heading for an IRS audit.

Cami and Tommy drive to The Cattleman's Club for happy hour, trying to catch the... lawyer? I think he's a lawyer that has the scoop on Monty's holding company. She muses that perhaps her entire life was a lie, but he points out that there's a trust for her and others for her daughters, so her life won't change all that much if MTex implodes. "I don't care about the money. I want Monty remembered for something good," Cami says. Then Angela calls, high on finding a mansion that she wants Tommy to buy. Cami is entertained, especially when Mrs. Norris invites herself along to the club and ignores Tommy's pleas to stay away. "Wow. If you could sell that exuberance," Cami says, laughing, after Angela hangs up. "They do sell it," Tommy deadpans. "There's just a worm at the bottom of the bottle." But then he sobers and advises her to sell the business as soon as they clean it up, otherwise it'll bleed her dry.

At the club, Cami zeroes in on the lawyer, Alan, and throws his drink in his face while she demands to know where her money is. He stonewalls, so Tommy steps in and breaks a bottle over the guy's bald head... which gets results! Alan stammers something about an offshore company — and it's clear Tommy and Cami have no idea what he's talking about — then Tommy demands a meeting to sort things out. Gallino is sitting nearby; when Tommy walks over, the kingpin points out that they're not all that different in how they use force and influence. Tommy doesn't like that one bit.

Just then, in quick succession: Angela shows up (in a killer orange dress) and pulls Cami over to Gallino's table. Gallino's wife Bella shows up, and they all wind up having a drink together. That drink turns into several, and eventually they're the only group left in the club. Enough alcohol has flowed that Angela and Bella are basically besties, and Cami is expounding upon how rare it is that both Tommy and Gallino have found loves who know them so deeply, and vice-versa.

Eventually, Gallino gets Tommy alone and offers to help with the Alan situation, which he has intuited is a dumpster fire. Tommy refuses, but Gallino insists that they're friends. Then he makes a soft offer to invest with Cami, and she is intrigued. I'll say this much: The guy is smooooooth.

As the couples say their goodbyes, Angela is irked that Tommy said something highly benign but vaguely flattering to Bella on the way out. So she picks a fight in the truck on the way home, and as she starts to cry, he shortcuts the whole thing by asking what's really bothering her. "You called me your wife," she says, touched that he referred to her that way even though they're technically still divorced. He's like, "yeah, well..." which for him is like a soliloquy, and she regards it as such. "Are you asking?" she wonders, all hopeful, and when he says yes, she climbs into his lap in joy. Just like before, the truck swerves all over the road. Just like before, Angela announces that she's determined to give him a ride to remember. "I'm gonna finish what I started this morning," she says. She does.

At home, Cami looks at a candid photo of her and Monty looking happy and carefree, and she falls to her knees, scream-crying. In the distance, coyotes howl.

Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Let us know in the comments!