Sam Elliott Is Sold on ‘The View’ After Billy Bob Thornton Suggests He Tune In on ‘Landman’

Warning: This story contains spoilers for episode 9 of Landman season 2.

The View has a new fan.

In the Jan. 11 episode of Landman, T.L. (Sam Elliott) tells his son, Tommy (Billy Bob Thornton), that he took his advice and started tuning into the daytime talk show hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines and Alyssa Farrah Griffin.

“I might watch that View later,” T.L. told Tommy, who was surprised his dad wasn’t asking to tag along with him for the day to keep himself busy.

“You’re right, they’re pretty funny,” T.L. said of the hosts. “I don’t think they’re trying to be funny, but they are.”

T.L. picked up the habit of watching the daytime talk show thanks to Tommy, who told him about it in a December episode of Landman.

Tommy described The View as a “bunch of pissed off millionaires bitching about how much they hate millionaires — and [President Donald] Trump and men and you and me — and everybody else they got a bee up their ass about.”

Tommy described the show as “pretty funny,” but T.L. wasn’t sold on the idea at the time.

“It ain’t joke funny, it’s like fart in church funny, you know what I mean?” Tommy explained, but T.L. said, “That don’t sound funny, either.”

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The very meta mention of The View is emblematic of creator Taylor Sheridan’s overall writing style. As Ali Larter — who plays Tommy’s ex-wife, Angela, with whom he’s reconciled — put it, “Taylor is a provocateur.”

“He loves to write characters that make people respond, that initiate a reaction, a feeling. And I think that what’s incredible about our show, and a lot of the shows that Taylor makes, is that they’re all wildly original and authentic to themselves,” Larter, 49, told PEOPLE ahead of the premiere of season 2.

His unique style makes for a “really exciting” set, she said. “This is why he’s such a genius — you would never know on paper that [a show about oil] would be so riveting or so many people would love it — different generations of people who live in different places. That they find a connection to it, I think, is super fascinating.”

The Landman season 2 finale premieres Sunday, Jan. 18, on Paramount+.