Landman’s Tommy Gets Fired Before Season 2 Finale, Ainsley Misgenders Roommate During Pronoun Dispute

Ahead of the season 2 finale, Landman finally picked up speed with Billy Bob Thornton‘s Tommy getting fired — and Ainsley getting into an argument over pronouns before misgendering her roommate.

During the Sunday, January 11, episode of the hit Paramount+ series, Tommy joined Cami (Demi Moore), Gallino (Andy Garcia), Rebecca (Kayla Wallace) and more M-Tex Oil coworkers on a trip to see Charlie (Guy Burnet) off as his team headed for the well drill. As the company celebrated the potential profit, Cami sat Tommy down to fire him for not supporting her decision.

“President of my company can’t be adverse to the very thing that built it,” Cami told Tommy about taking risks. “I’m saying you’re fired.”

The rest of the Norris family had a better day with Tommy’s dad T.L. (Sam Elliott) enjoying more aquatic therapy with stripper turned physical therapist Cheyenne (Francesca Xuereb). Despite their significant age gap, T.L. and Cheyenne stripped down in front of each other and shared a heart-to-heart conversation in the pool.

As for Angela (Ali Larter) and Ainsley (Michelle Randolph), their day started off rocky with Angela distraught over her daughter going to college for a week for a cheerleading program. Ainsley had to sleep in the dorms, per college policy, but was quickly dissatisfied with her roommate Paigyn, who identified as nonbinary.

“I always wondered why they/them? Because there’s just one of you and those are plural pronouns,” Ainsley asked. “I just never really understood the hoopla with pronouns. My name’s Ainsley and I just can’t really come up with a reason why you would address me in third person in a conversation that I’m a part of. So if you do, I’m probably not there so I wouldn’t really know what pronouns you are using anyways. So why would it matter?”

The tension worsened as Paigyn enforced roommate roles including only vegan snacks, lights off when they meditated, no room freshener despite them owning a ferret and no use of “triggering” words such as penetrate.

“It insinuates the patriarchal power of the phallus. The penis,” Paigyn said before Ainsley agreed that “they sure can be triggering,” adding, “I once dated a boy and his [penis] was like a third forearm. I used to just spit on it and stroke it and pretend to pass out. Because there was no way that tree trunk was going inside me.”

Ainsley ultimately realized their situation wasn’t a good fit and tried to get reassigned to a new dorm. The admissions counselor — the one who previously interviewed Ainsley for her college acceptance program — wasn’t thrilled by the idea and was even less willing to help after the student started to misgender her roommate.

“She wants our room to be a safe space. But she’s decided what is safe,” Ainsley explained. “I don’t care what someone’s pronouns are. But using a plural pronoun for one person is just kind of incorrect [according to] the English language. So she’s telling me — they are telling me what to call them and they’re telling me no music and all the things that they need to feel comfortable. But they’re not asking what I need to feel comfortable.”

Angela stepped in to address the situation, which resulted in Ainsley getting permission to live off campus. Her mom even rented her a luxury suite for the week and hosted a pool party at the hotel for the entire cheerleading team — probably because Tommy didn’t clue her into the fact that he was no longer employed.

The over-the-top story lines are a staple in Taylor Sheridan‘s hit Paramount+ show. Before Sunday’s episode, Randolph, 28, reflected on getting “a mix of some feminist negativity” and praise for her characters in Sheridan’s 1923 and Landman.

“It’s all of the above. I’ve had to stop letting myself get defensive over my character because when you spend so much time in someone else’s head space, you start to understand their logic,” she explained in Interview Magazine last month. “For Ainsley [on Landman], I couldn’t be more different than her, but I also adore her. I like to say she’s not dumb, she just has limited life experience, and we’re seeing her in her most formative years.”

Randolph appreciated the challenge, adding, “How lucky to play a character who is continually evolving. It’s challenged me in a lot of ways — what is on the page is so different than what you see on screen. I’ve tried to add in how genuine and sincere she is so there are more redeeming qualities.”

New episodes of Landman premiere Sundays on Paramount+.