SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “The Crumbs of Hope,” the Season 1 finale of “Landman,” now streaming on Paramount+ 

If the beginning and end of Season 1 of Paramount+’s “Landman” is any indication, co-creator and writer Taylor Sheridan may have it out for star Billy Bob Thornton.

“I think Taylor is trying to kill me,” Thornton tells Variety. “He had me beat up at the beginning and beat up at the end. At least he let me throw a few punches myself there in the middle.”

He’s joking, of course. There is no “Landman” without Tommy Norris, Thornton’s no-nonsense land rights agent and operations manager for the M-Tex oil company. But that doesn’t mean Sheridan, who wrote all 10 episodes of Season 1, didn’t put his hero through the wringer.

In the finale, Norris is informed that his boss and close friend Monty (Jon Hamm) is not likely to recover from his massive heart attack in last week’s episode, and among his final wishes is for Tommy to be promoted to president of M-Tex and be the executor of his estate, the second of which he immediately vows to fulfill alongside Monty’s wife, Cami (Demi Moore). The monumental shift in Tommy’s world is sidelined, however, when he is kidnapped minutes later by Jimenez (Alex Meraz), the local drug cartel leader who has been threatening M-Tex’s drilling sites all season. Of course, this is an unsurprising turn of events, considering that Tommy brought in the military to “execute training drills on the oil fields,” a.k.a. scare off the cartel’s drug trades. Unfortunately, one of those drills inadvertently bombed one of those said trades, and killed some of Jimenez’s men.

Tortured within a few inches of his life with hammers, nails and gasoline in the backroom of a club, Tommy’s fate is looking grim when Jimenez and his men are executed by their boss, Galino, played by Andy Garcia. The tense scene, during which Galino all but demands a resistant Tommy be his partner rather than his adversary, is the first time Thornton says he has ever shared the screen with his long-time friend, Garcia.

“Andy is such a great guy and great actor, and when we did those scenes at the end of the last episode, it felt so good, because we kind of had us two old veterans going head to head,” Thornton says. “It was quite an experience, and I have to say every moment of it felt real. Tommy’s dealing with someone now who is really smart. The other guys were hired to work for him, but now Tommy’s talking to the man himself. There are advantages and disadvantages to that. Since he is so smart, who knows what Tommy is going to get tricked into?”

In the season’s final moments, Tommy is sent home with at least one new nail wound in his leg — and a much bigger problem on his hands. Series co-creator Christian Wallace, who was behind the podcast “Boomtown” on which the show is based, calls this new partnership “a blessing and a curse” for Tommy moving forward. (Paramount+ hasn’t officially ordered a second season.)

“The cartel and the oil industry are kind of these odd neighbors living side by side in West Texas,” Wallace says. “Now Andy’s character is thinking he is going to make a change and utilize that proximity in a way that could benefit him.”

Thornton sums the threat up succinctly: “What’s the saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Tommy figures if he semi-befriends this guy, maybe they can actually work this out, because it is going to happen one way or another.”

Courtesy of Emerson Miller/Paramount+

While Garcia’s appearance gave the finale some surprise starpower, the series is still making headlines for last week’s unexpected cameo from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who delivered a lengthy monologue at Monty’s hospital bedside that has since gone viral. Wallace confirms the scene was unscripted, and happened because of Sheridan’s long-standing friendship with Jones.

“Taylor just kind of said, ‘We are going to let Jerry Jones do his thing and tell this incredible story from his own life,’” Wallace says. “And I think everyone on set that day was floored by how genuine and vulnerable he was when he delivered it. It was a pretty powerful moment.”

Thornton had a front-row seat to Jones’ one-and-done monologue, as Tommy enters the scene and simply sits to the side while Jones tells of his own intertwined history of family, football and oil.

“Jerry Jones is an Arkansan like me originally, and we had never met,” he says. “I only met him that morning, and we just went right into it. Essentially, he was telling his own life story, and so it was completely natural. And it was pretty heavy being in the room listening to that. It made you feel like you weren’t in a scene in a [TV show.] It made you feel like you were just sitting there listening to a guy tell his story.”

While Jones’ speech was inspiring, it came too late for Hamm’s Monty, whose intubated body Cami and their daughters are seen crying over in the final moments of the season finale. “It is safe to say that Monty has passed,” Wallace says. “But when you take one major player off the board, it opens up opportunities for other players — and I think that’s all I’m at liberty to say at this point.”

Killing off Hamm’s character isn’t just strategic for the ascension of Tommy, but also maybe for Cami. High off her Golden Globes win for “The Substance,” and a current frontrunner to be nominated for an Oscar, Wallace says they are thrilled to have Moore in the cast and plan to keep her around should the show continue. “There is a lot more story left to tell with Cami,” he says. “Taylor has big plans, that’s all I’m going to say.”

Courtesy of Emerson Miller/Paramount+

Anyone worried that Tommy’s promotion might mean less time in the oil fields and more time in boardrooms can holster such concerns though –– at least if Thornton has anything to say about it. While he doesn’t know what Sheridan and Wallace might cook up for a second season, he expects Tommy will seize the reins of M-Tex on his own terms.

“Tommy would much rather be out there doing what he’s been doing, but unfortunately, under these circumstances, it’s the right thing to do,” Thornton says. “Tommy knows he can be helpful. But he also certainly never wanted to be some type of executive person — it’s against his nature. So I don’t think that Tommy is going to stop being a landman. I don’t know this for a fact, but I know the character — and I know I sure wouldn’t stop.”