Who Is Dan Morrell? Landman S02E02’s Cartel Connection Explained

When Landman Season 2, Episode 2 (“Sins of the Father”) dropped on November 23, 2025, most viewers were watching Cooper’s six surprise wells and Tommy’s family drama.

By the next morning, a different detail had taken over the discussion: a name on a piece of paper.

Dan Morrell

In the space of a short scene, that name quietly tied Cooper’s oil boom to cartel money, revived a Season 1 villain, and sparked a fresh round of fan theorizing about who the real antagonist of Season 2 might be.

Landman.tv has been tracking that reaction closely. Here is what we can say, based on what is on screen in Episode 2 and how multiple outlets have reported it.

---

Season 2 stakes: when and where “Dan Morrell” appears

First, the basic context.

Season 2 of Landman, created by Taylor Sheridan and Christian Wallace, returned to Paramount+ on Sunday, November 16, 2025. The premiere episode, “Death and a Sunset,” arrived at 3 a.m. ET / 12 a.m. PT, kicking off a 10‑episode run scheduled to continue weekly on Sundays through January 18, 2026.

That second episode, “Sins of the Father,” landed on November 23, 2025, at the same overnight time slot. It is early in a season that Paramount+ clearly expects to be big; Season 1 was reported to have drawn over 35 million views globally, making it one of the streamer’s biggest series launches.

Inside that second hour, Cooper’s secret drilling program and Tommy’s growing unease dominate the plot. The Sonrisa deal, and the name “Dan Morrell,” only surface once Nathan has done his homework.

But by then, the stakes are clear: if this money is bad, Cooper has walked the Norris family straight into a cartel trap.

---

The Sonrisa deal: six wells, $48 million, and a too‑good split

Episode 2 confirms several hard numbers about Cooper’s side project.

Without telling his father, Cooper quietly cobbles together leases and drills six wildcat wells. Recaps from multiple outlets, including Landman.tv’s own episode breakdown, agree on that count. All six wells hit oil, turning the gamble into a windfall.

The capital did not come from Cooper’s pocket. On screen, and in detailed recaps, Cooper explains that he partnered with an Odessa‑based company called Sonrisa. Sonrisa financed the entire drilling program, which cost roughly $48 million across the six wells.

The terms Cooper proudly lays out are specific:

• Sonrisa and Cooper split revenue “50 — 50 till recoup, then 18% after that.”

In other words, the company fronts almost $48 million in high‑risk capital, takes half the revenue until costs are recovered, then steps back to only 18% of profits for the remaining life of the wells.

For a young operator with no serious collateral, those numbers make Tommy’s antennae go up immediately. As several recaps note, he calls the deal “insane” or a version of that, not because it is bad for Cooper, but because it is too generous to be real.

From Tommy’s veteran perspective, no normal financing outfit gives that kind of back‑end deal to a first‑time wildcatter on spec wells.

That is what pushes him to call Nathan.

---

Nathan follows the money: from Odessa to a Dallas fund

Tommy asks Nathan, a senior legal and investigative hand played by Colm Feore, to “dig into” Sonrisa. The show does not spend much time explaining Nathan’s role, but cast lists and coverage identify him as the person Tommy turns to when deals start to smell wrong.

In Episode 2, Nathan does exactly what you would expect a cautious in‑house investigator to do. He pulls the filings, traces the capital, and tries to follow the ownership chain.

What he finds is not comforting.

According to recaps from outlets like People and Primetimer, Nathan reports back that:

• The Odessa‑based company Cooper signed with is not where the real money originates.
• The funding flows from a financial fund in Dallas.
• The manager or founder of that fund is the same man viewers met in Season 1: cartel boss Gallino, played by Andy Garcia.

Season 1 positioned Gallino as a powerful Mexican cartel leader who steps in after rival lieutenant Jimenez kidnaps and tortures Tommy. Gallino’s men kill Jimenez’s crew and, instead of executing Tommy, he offers what amounts to a dark partnership. The cartel, he tells Tommy, owns potentially drillable land in Texas and wants access to legitimate oil profits, not only narcotics.

Marketing for Season 2 leaned heavily on that unresolved thread. Interviews with Billy Bob Thornton highlighted his interest in seeing where that Gallino connection would go. Coverage from outlets like Entertainment Weekly and Yahoo Canada flagged Garcia as a central returning presence.

Nathan’s discovery in “Sins of the Father” is the payoff. The Dallas fund behind Sonrisa is Gallino’s vehicle. Cooper’s supposed hard‑won independence now sits on cartel cash.

That would be enough of a problem on its own.

The paperwork, however, includes one more name.

---

Enter “Dan Morrell”: the owner on the Sonrisa paperwork

When Nathan forwards Tommy the documents he has gathered, several recaps note a key detail: the listed owner of Sonrisa.

Here is where the name Dan Morrell comes in, and where coverage starts to diverge slightly.

What the English‑language recaps say

The Cinemaholic’s Episode 2 recap spells it out most clearly. It describes Nathan sending “everything he gathered on Sonrisa” to Tommy the next morning. In that packet, the site writes, Tommy sees that:

• The owner of Sonrisa is a man named Dan Morrell.
• Tommy appears to recognize Morrell’s name, reacting as someone who has heard it before.
• The recap concludes that this leaves “the stage set for a new potential antagonist in town.”

Landman.tv’s own detailed recap of S02E02 echoes that framing. In its section titled “Cartel Money Slithers In,” the site summarizes Nathan’s findings this way:

• Sonrisa’s owner is listed as Dan Morrell.
• Morrell is directly linked to the cartel money trail that runs through the Dallas fund.
• By the time Tommy sees the file, Cooper has effectively invited “the biggest snake in the grass right into their home.”

A separate Landman.tv explainer on the Sonrisa Oil Company repeats the same chain. It notes that recaps identify Dan Morrell as Sonrisa’s owner and state that he “links straight back to the cartel.”

Other high‑profile English‑language write‑ups, however, skip the name entirely. The syndicated People / AOL ending‑explainer focuses on the Dallas fund and says Nathan discovers that the fund manager and founder behind the LLC is “none other than cartel boss Gallino.” Primetimer likewise jumps straight from Sonrisa to Gallino, calling Sonrisa a “cartel front,” without mentioning Morrell at all.

So in English coverage, you get two levels of detail:

• A simplified version, where Sonrisa is just a front and Gallino is the hidden owner.
• A layered version, where Sonrisa has a named owner, Dan Morrell, whose paperwork leads back to Gallino’s capital.

Both agree on the bottom line: Sonrisa is not a clean Odessa partner. The difference is whether you treat Morrell as a meaningful character or as a minor piece of legal camouflage.

---

International coverage: is Dan Morrell actually Gallino?

Some international outlets go further and collapse the names outright.

A French entertainment site, Superpouvoir, recapping the same episode, writes that Nathan discovers the head of Sonrisa, “hidden under the alias ‘Dan Morrell’,” is actually Gallino. A Bangladeshi site, Zoom Bangla’s iNews, reaches a similar conclusion. It says that when Tommy looks at Nathan’s documents, he recognizes the face tied to the Sonrisa owner, and that:

> According to Paramount press materials, Gallino now operates under the alias Dan Morrell.

If those summaries of the press notes are accurate, then “Dan Morrell” in Season 2 is not a separate off‑screen businessman at all. The name would instead function as:

• A paper alias Gallino uses on Sonrisa’s corporate filings.
• A way to keep his own name off legal documents while he pushes cartel money into Texas oil.

That interpretation lines up with the streamlined English recaps that skip Morrell and jump straight to Gallino, even if they do not explicitly call him an alias.

It also fits the story logic. In Season 1, Gallino told Tommy the cartel wanted to move into legitimate oil, using Texas land and American companies. In Season 2, a company called Sonrisa appears with very generous terms and an invisible Dallas backer. Giving that backer a clean Anglo‑sounding alias on the LLC would be a natural step.

Put simply, there are two plausible readings, both grounded in what has been reported:

1. Dan Morrell as a separate figure

A nominal owner of Sonrisa, known to Tommy from some off‑screen history, who acts as a middleman for Gallino’s capital. This is the angle emphasized by The Cinemaholic and Landman.tv’s own recap, which explicitly call him Sonrisa’s owner and a “new potential antagonist.”

2. Dan Morrell as Gallino’s alias

A name on paper that actually belongs to Gallino himself, as described by Superpouvoir and Zoom Bangla, both citing press materials. In that case, the Sonrisa owner and the Dallas fund manager are literally the same person.

The show may clarify this in later episodes. For now, both interpretations rest on real reporting rather than pure guesswork.

---

Fan buzz: shell companies, snakes in the grass, and Season 2’s real villain

Regardless of which reading you favor, the reaction from viewers has focused less on the legal nuance and more on what it means for the characters.

Landman.tv’s Sonrisa explainer notes that within an hour of Episode 2’s release on November 23, searches for “Sonrisa oil company Landman” spiked and fans were already sharing screenshots of the contract scene. The central fan question, as that piece frames it, is straightforward:

• Is Sonrisa a legitimate financing outfit that simply has dirty capital behind it?
• Or is it a shell company, structured from the start to launder Gallino’s money into Texas oil fields?

Several concrete elements in the episode push viewers toward the “shell” interpretation:

• The 18% post‑payout override is unusually low for risky wildcat wells, which even Tommy calls out as unrealistic.
• The geography is telling: an Odessa‑based operator with capital flowing from a Dallas fund, two steps removed from any cartel territory, is exactly the sort of distance corporate fronts are designed to create.
• The extra layer of a named owner, Dan Morrell, who is quickly tied “straight back to the cartel” in Nathan’s research, looks like classic middleman or alias territory.

From a story perspective, the effect is the same either way. Cooper’s spectacular success now depends on money that originates with a cartel boss his father already tangled with. Whether the name on the line is Dan Morrell or Gallino, the Norris family has taken on a silent partner they cannot easily shake.

That is why recaps like The Cinemaholic talk about a “new potential antagonist,” and why international outlets frame the ending as Gallino’s return more than a simple twist. Season 2’s main threat is no longer just low gas prices or rival ranchers. It is organized crime, sitting beneath Cooper’s new empire.

---

What Happens Next: questions to watch as Season 2 continues

With eight episodes left in the season after “Sins of the Father,” the Dan Morrell reveal functions more as a fuse than a bomb.

Based on what has been firmly established so far, here are the grounded questions worth watching:

• Will the show put a face to the name “Dan Morrell”?

No actor is publicly credited as playing a character by that name in Season 2 cast lists. If a new on‑screen figure appears and introduces himself as Morrell, that would support the “separate middleman” interpretation. If not, the alias reading will look stronger.

• How explicit will the Gallino connection become?

Recaps already agree that Nathan traces the Dallas fund directly to Gallino. Superpouvoir and Zoom Bangla say Paramount press materials tie that fund to the alias Dan Morrell. At some point, the show may have Tommy articulate this link in dialogue, removing any remaining ambiguity.

• What leverage does this give over Cooper and Tommy?

The hard numbers matter here. Six producing wells, built on roughly $48 million of cartel‑linked financing, give Gallino a concrete asset. He can threaten to pull the money, claim the leases, or expose Cooper’s agreement if the family does not cooperate.

• Does Sonrisa surface elsewhere in the season?

If Sonrisa appears in other deals, or if other characters mention having worked with “Morrell’s outfit” before, that would fill in Tommy’s reaction to the name. It would also suggest a broader pattern of cartel front companies operating in the Permian.

For now, “Dan Morrell” sits at the junction of paperwork and paranoia. The name appears in Nathan’s documents. Tommy recognizes it. Some outlets treat it as a new character. Others, relying on press kits, call it Gallino’s alias.

What is not in doubt is the story function.

Whether Dan Morrell is a man we will meet or a name we will only see on contracts, Episode 2 uses him to confirm something Season 1 only hinted at. The cartel is no longer hovering at the edge of Landman’s West Texas oil patch. Its money is in the ground, under Cooper’s boots, and on Tommy’s desk in black and white.