Landman Episode 4 Recap: Sins Of The Mother — Plus, Ariana Meets The Family

Tommy's mother's is laid to rest in this week's "Landman," but — if the events of the episode are any indication — the emotional destruction she created in the lives of her husband and son will live on for a while.

Throughout the hour, we learn a lot of painful detail about Tommy's upbringing. Ariana meets the rest of the Norris family. Ol' T.L. winds up with an invitation to leave that depressing retirement home. And Rebecca gets drunk and gets lucky, which isn't connected to the rest of those events but still seems like worth mentioning.

Read on for the highlights of "Dancing Rainbows." (And hey, did you hear about the renewal?)

She drives home to find Cooper sleeping in her driveway, slumped against her garage door. He came to retrieve his sportscoat, he tells her, but didn't feel right using his key to get in. After he grabs the jacket, they exchange the basics: He learns about her new job, she learns that his grandmother died. Ariana instantly softens, asking him to give her a few minutes and she'll go with him. He says she doesn't have to, but she's decided: "You were there for me, I'll be there for you." He insists that he's not grieving — he didn't know Tommy's mother, after all — but Ariana wonders if he's protesting because he doesn't want her there. "I want you everywhere," he says (aw, guys!), and she puts on a pot of coffee and slips off to her room to change.

When she comes out, Cooper is crying a little; he says it's because he misses her, but she's unimpressed. "You didn't miss me enough to fight for me, though, did you?" she asks. When he reminds her that he left, as she asked, she wonders why he didn't try to come up with a new plan for them that didn't involve her uprooting her entire life. They have a seven-hour drive ahead of them. "Wake me in five," she says, effectively ending their tense discussion.

Along the way, they stop at T.L.'s place, where Ariana charms the old man the minute they meet. He tells Cooper that she's prettier and smarter than he deserves, but Ariana quickly lets him know that she and Cooper aren't a couple. Tommy, Angela, Ainsley, Dale and Nathan show up at the old folks' home in their Sunday best soon after. T.L. greets his former (and soon-to-be?) daughter-in-law warmly, marvels over how much Ainsley has grown since he last saw her, and rudely scoffs that Nathan and Dale are there for emotional support for Tommy "as if you loved her enough to need it." Tommy shoots back: "As if there was anything to love. Let's not get all misty and forget who we're burying, all right?"

The motley crew makes its way to the graveside service, where a photo of Tommy's mother, Dottie, as a beautiful young woman is displayed in a wreath of flowers near the casket. T.L. declines the pastor's offer to say a few words about Dottie. The 23rd Psalm is recited. Afterward, everyone ends up at somewhere called The Bucket for an insanely awkward lunch.

As T.L. chows on the corn dogs he ordered (King!), we learn that he moved to the retirement home after his home on the Texas panhandle burned. Ariana interrupts what is turning into a contentious conversation about power lines near pumpjacks to wonder why no one is talking about the deceased. "I don't have any memories worth sharing," Tommy says, which puts an end to Ariana's questioning. But after a pause, he launches into a story that a) is awful, and b) explains a lot.

"I remember coming home from school and finding her, naked, face-down in a bathtub. I was 14 years old." T.L. was working on offshore rigs in Louisiana at the time. Tommy recalls how he pulled his mother out of the tub, called 9-1-1 and performed CPR until she vomited water into his face. "And she sat up, and she looked at me like I was a stranger," he continues, not really making eye contact with the others, who are aghast. "And then she pulled her leg back and she kicked my nose through the back of my head. Then she got up, walked into the kitchen, and made herself another f**king drink." He left home that day and hasn't been back since, he adds. "There is no miracle involving my mother other than her managing to die of old age."

Tommy calls his father "too weak" to leave, "so I left all of them." And just in case Ariana has any doubt, he crushes it: "I didn't come here to mourn her passing, honey. I came here to celebrate it." Then he stands, hands T.L. a wad of bills to pay, and says he'll be in the car.

"When she was 17, I ain't never seen someone more alive," T.L. begins after his son leaves, remembering a day when Dottie made him stop the car so she could dance in the rainbows created by a series of sprinklers on a sunny day. "But demons run faster than rainbows, and hers caught up to her," he says ruefully. "I spent 60 years waiting for her rainbow to return. It never did. But that's life, and I wasted mine on hope."

Outside, Tommy won't say goodbye to his dad, who's getting into a van back to the retirement home, despite Angela's begging him to do so. T.L. hugs Ariana and Cooper, and even Angela gives her son's girlfriend a friendly kiss on the cheek in farewell. "I think I understand you better now," Ariana tells Cooper when they're alone. And when they're back at her place, she asks him inside.

"Having met your family, I can understand why being close to them is not a priority," she says. "It's everything to me." She continues laying out her rules, which end with: "The next time I kick you out, you don't just leave and stay gone. You figure out why I did it, fix it, and then come home and tell me how sorry you are." And just like that, with a few "sorrys" on his end, they're back together.

Late that night, Tommy finds Ainsley crying in front of the TV; "Save the Last Dance" is on, but she's not paying attention to the movie. She's upset about the story Tommy told at lunch. "I don't care how many rainbows she chased," she says, "I hope God takes one of those rainbows and just shoves it right up her a**." Tommy seems grateful for the support, but he then shares something we haven't heard yet: He had a sister who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at 4 months old. Dottie wasn't the same after. "The loss broke her, and it just snapped her in two," he says, explaining that she numbed herself with drugs and alcohol for the rest of her life. T.L. was scared of Dottie, he adds. "He would spend a whole year at a camp and not come home once... He wasted his whole life hiding from her."

Tommy makes sure his daughter knows the tragedy isn't hers to worry about, but he's proud of her for having empathy. "You've got a big ol' heart beating under that hood, baby," he says. "I got it from you," she replies.

He retires to the bedroom, where Angela nags him to get her a new engagement ring and then nags him harder to give T.L. the peace she thinks he deserves... and though Tommy is highly against the idea, he shows up at T.L.'s place soon after. Tommy begrudgingly extends his father an invitation to come live at the house with them.

After the sun sets, T.L. turns to his son and says he'll get his things. "I already got 'em," Tommy says. "You ain't never setting another foot in that f**king place." Aw, guys! T.L. says he doesn't deserve this second chance, and Tommy basically affirms that sentiment, then he pushes the older man's wheelchair away from that sad nursing home of sadness.

Sheriff Joeberg calls Rebecca to tell her about the crash near the oil well, which he and his men are in the process of investigating/cleaning up. There's a chance man in the pickup was dead when he was hit, "which is a good thing for you, I would imagine," the sheriff says. The MTex big-rig driver, however, also is dead. Rebecca ends the call as she gets on the MTex plane, where she's unhappy to hear that the flight will be bumpy as heck. "Nervous flier?" the guy sitting next to her asks. "I have control issues that can manifest in certain circumstances. Flying is one of them," she responds, which is a super long way to say "yes."

The jet has a very aggressive takeoff, which has Rebecca screaming and grabbing her seatmate's hand in terror. He calmly talks her down — in her defense, the ascent was so rough that the glassware fell from its cabinet and shattered — then offers her some watermelon juice mixed with vodka and simple syrup. She takes a grateful sip and, when he cautions that the landing is likely to be equally bumpy, chugs her cup and asks for a refill.

By the time the plane is descending, Rebecca is ROCKED. She and her seatmate are drunk, whooping and laughing as the aircraft makes its precarious way to the ground. That's likely why she wakes up the next morning, naked, in her seatmate's bed. She's embarrassed. He's amused. He gets ready to leave, saying he'll call her later. She scurries to his shower, trying to get him to leave faster. (Rebecca, a straight man with Le Labo products and aromatherapy shower discs in TEXAS?! You've hit your own oil well there!)

Cami has her driver bring her to Monty's grave, where the stone has been newly set. She places flower at the base, then tells him aloud that she's trying very hard not to be mad at him. She brings him a Cuban cigar and a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, which she pours over the grass. She gestures to a ring she's wearing, which she tells him she found in his closet; she assumes it was a gift for their 30th anniversary. "I thought we'd have 20 more," she says sadly.

Later, she decides to put her home up for sale and heads out to meet Gallino for a meal and a money conversation. He's brought Bella, but she decamps to the bar so her husband and Cami can talk shop. She needs a loan of roughly $350 million to cover the drilling of the offshore rig that went down — the one involving the missing insurance payments — and she's hoping he'll finance the project. "Your husband, he left you quite a mess, didn't he?" Gallino wonders. "It wasn't intentional," she says, "but yes, he did." Using an extended wildlife metaphor that becomes the more labored the longer he talks, Gallino says he wants to help her, but he's not going to negotiate with her, because she's not the same kind of shrewd operator that he and Tommy are. But he assures her that "the answer is yes," and he and Tommy will figure it out.

At the hospital, Jerrell wakes up and is able to talk and joke with Boss, King and Ben. But his lungs and eyes are severely inflamed from the exposure to the gas, and the doctors warn that there may be other really bad neurological effects. When a nurse unwraps Jerrell's bandages in order to change his compress, he realizes he can't see, and he (understandably) starts freaking out about how he's going to feed his family if he can't work. Boss helplessly tries to calm him down as they call for the doctor.

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