Landman has never been a quiet show. It deals in blowouts, boardroom coups, and the human cost of the West Texas oil boom. Yet one of the sharpest scenes in the Season 2 premiere does not happen on a rig or in a truck. It happens in an office at Texas Christian University, across a desk from an admissions counselor named Greta Stidham.
Her conversation with Ainsley Norris runs less than ten minutes of screen time. Still, it reorients a big part of the family story and quietly plugs Landman into a real college, with real admissions numbers and a real campus.
Here is how that scene works, what it says about TCU, and why Greta Stidham is likely to matter all season.
- Landman Moves From Oilfields to a College Campus
- Who Greta Stidham Is Supposed to Be
- Why Ainsley Ends Up in Greta’s Office
- Inside the Admissions Interview: Line by Line
- The Priority Walk‑On Loophole
- How Ainsley’s Test Score Compares to Real TCU Numbers
- The Real TCU Behind the Fictional Office
- The Actor Giving Greta Her Edge
- How Viewers Are Responding to Greta and the TCU Plot
- What Happens Next for Greta, TCU, and the Norrises
Landman Moves From Oilfields to a College Campus
Paramount+ renewed Landman for a second season in March 2025, after a first run that premiered on November 17, 2024 and wrapped in January 2025. Season 1 followed Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris as he climbed from landman to head of M‑Tex Oil after CEO Monty Miller’s death.
For Season 2, which debuted on November 16, 2025, the show keeps its oil‑patch setting but adds new pressure points closer to home. One of those is Ainsley Norris’s college future.
Early coverage in outlets like TVLine and Collider flagged that the new season would spend more time in Fort Worth and on Texas Christian University’s campus. Production reports from spring and summer 2025 backed that up. Cameras rolled not only around Midland and smaller North Texas towns like Jacksboro and Springtown, but also on TCU’s grounds in Fort Worth.
Into that setting, Landman introduces Greta Stidham.
Who Greta Stidham Is Supposed to Be
Greta Stidham, played by Tony‑winning actor Miriam Silverman, first appears in Season 2, Episode 1, titled “Death and a Sunset.” She works as an admissions counselor at TCU, meeting prospective students and evaluating files.
Pre‑season cast breakdowns described her in blunt terms. TVLine called her an “intimidating university admissions counselor.” Primetimer labeled her “Ainsley’s tough‑love college counsellor, blocking her path with bureaucratic hurdles tied to family scandals.” Collider framed her as trouble specifically for Angela and Ainsley Norris, saying most of Silverman’s scenes would be with Michelle Randolph and Ali Larter.
Another opinion piece, on SoapsNews, went further and branded Greta “a predator in academic garb,” arguing that her real power comes from controlling access to education and wielding university bureaucracy. That language reflects the writer’s view, not the show’s, but it signals how strongly this character landed even before the premiere aired.
In other words, Greta was marketed as a kind of domestic antagonist. Not a cartel enforcer or a rival oilman, but an educated professional with a stack of files and the power to say yes or no.
Why Ainsley Ends Up in Greta’s Office
By the time Season 2 opens, Ainsley’s plans have shifted. In Season 1, she talked about attending Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Recaps of the new premiere in outlets like TVLine and our own Landman.tv note that she abandons that plan after a breakup with her boyfriend, Dakota.
Angela Norris sees a chance to reset. She wants something she considers more prestigious and more local. So she takes Ainsley to Fort Worth for an admissions interview at Texas Christian University.
TCU is a real private Christian university founded in 1873. As of fall 2025, the school reports a total enrollment of 12,980 students, including 11,152 undergraduates. The campus covers about 302 acres on the west side of Fort Worth. It is selective but not in the ultra‑elite category, with recent acceptance‑rate estimates hovering in the low‑40‑percent range.
Against that backdrop, the show places a single applicant: Ainsley Norris, cheerleader, daughter of an oil executive, and soon‑to‑be walk‑on at TCU.
Inside the Admissions Interview: Line by Line
The interview scene plays out in Greta’s office at TCU. Several independent recaps, including Landman.tv, TVLine, DMTalkies, and Men’s Health, align closely on the key beats.
First, Greta looks over Ainsley’s file. She notes that Ainsley’s grades are “acceptable but not impressive,” according to DMTalkies. Her standardized test scores are fine but not stellar. Her vocabulary, as Greta quickly demonstrates, does not match TCU’s more academically driven applicants.
Then Greta starts asking questions meant to reveal how Ainsley thinks.
When the conversation turns to cheerleading, Ainsley launches into what TVLine aptly described as a “eugenics‑adjacent” theory. She argues that rules forbidding cheerleaders from dating football players are “really detrimental to humanity in general.” As Ainsley explains it, those rules prevent “the prettiest girls” from having children with “the tallest, most athletic boys,” who would then produce “really, really pretty and athletic” babies.
Greta does not let that slide. The Landman.tv recap quotes her response almost verbatim. She calls Ainsley’s line of thinking “easily the most offensive and elitist statement uttered in this office.”
The scene tightens from there. Ainsley starts crying, overwhelmed by the tone and the vocabulary Greta uses. At one point she says, “You’re using a lot of words I don’t fully understand.” Greta answers, calmly, “I’m doing it on purpose.”
ScreenRant’s analysis of the character later summed it up this way: Greta “despised Ainsley, and told her so to her face.” Whether “despised” is too strong a word is debatable, but the hostility in the room is not.
Yet Greta cannot simply stamp “deny” and move on.
The Priority Walk‑On Loophole
Here is where the show steps out of pure personality clash and into the mechanics of college admissions.
Multiple recaps, including DMTalkies and Landman.tv, explain that Ainsley arrives at TCU classified as a “priority walk‑on” or preferred walk‑on for the cheerleading squad. The cheer program has already flagged her as a student they want on campus. Admissions still has to certify that she meets minimum academic standards, but the decision is no longer fully discretionary.
Landman.tv adds a precise number: Ainsley’s ACT score is 29.
On screen, Greta frames that as barely good enough. In coverage, the phrase “met minimum requirements” comes up several times. She clearly wants to reject the application on character and academic grounds. The priority‑walk‑on designation and the test score prevent that.
So, despite the crying, the “eugenics‑adjacent” argument, and the barbed back‑and‑forth, Greta signs off on admitting Ainsley to TCU. Ainsley hugs her in a rush of relief, which Greta visibly dislikes, and sprints outside to share the news with Angela on the TCU quad.
Men’s Health, Harper’s Bazaar, and other outlets grouped this among the premiere’s most talked‑about scenes. Many emphasized that athletics, not intellectual promise, ultimately carried the day.
How Ainsley’s Test Score Compares to Real TCU Numbers
The show could have glossed over the numbers. It did not. Giving Ainsley a 29 on the ACT invites comparison with TCU’s own published data.
According to TCU’s admissions office, the middle 50 percent of students entering in fall 2025 scored between 29 and 31 on the ACT. For the class entering in fall 2024, TCU lists an average incoming GPA of 3.78 and a middle ACT range of 29 — 33. A separate 2023 — 24 profile pegs the average ACT for enrolled students at 29, with a 26 — 31 range.
In other words, a 29 ACT is not marginal for TCU. It is right at the median. It sits dead center in the 29 — 31 band the university itself uses as a shorthand for competitive scores.
TCU also remains test‑optional through at least 2027. Applicants can choose whether to submit ACT or SAT scores at all. However, the school still publishes these ranges and acknowledges that scores in that band reflect a typical admitted student.
That makes Greta’s “minimum requirements” phrasing interesting. On a strictly numerical basis, Ainsley’s 29 is not a floor score. It is perfectly typical for a TCU admit. The tension seems to come from everything else in the file: decent but not dazzling grades, limited vocabulary, and that alarming cheerleader‑football monologue.
The priority‑walk‑on status then nudges a borderline application firmly into the admit pile. The show is not inventing that dynamic. Real‑world admissions offices do weigh recruited athletes and special‑talent applicants differently, even at schools that emphasize holistic review.
The Real TCU Behind the Fictional Office
Part of why the Greta Stidham storyline feels grounded is that it was filmed in real TCU spaces.
A location breakdown of the Season 2 premiere points out that around the 21:43 mark, Angela and Ainsley walk through recognizable parts of TCU’s Fort Worth campus. The production used the interior of the Mary Wright Admission Center for office scenes, along with exteriors of Sadler Hall and Milton Daniel Hall. Viewers also see the iconic Horned Frog statue, a common landmark in campus tours.
This was not Landman’s first trip to TCU. A 2024 TCU Magazine feature described how hundreds of TCU students, faculty, and staff worked as extras when the show filmed a track‑and‑field meet for Season 1. The university’s location team spent weeks coordinating that shoot.
By November 2025, TCU was openly framing Sheridan’s productions as a kind of learning lab. A campus news release said series like Landman have given “hundreds of TCU students” hands‑on film experience and led to internships and jobs. At the same time, the university stressed that the show “is not meant to be a commercial nor represent real characters.” In other words, Greta Stidham is not a stand‑in for any specific TCU staffer.
Still, the choice to put an admissions counselor in the Mary Wright Admission Center, debating a 29 ACT score on screen, shows how directly Landman is now using the university as a character, not just a backdrop.
The Actor Giving Greta Her Edge
Greta’s impact depends heavily on performance, and Miriam Silverman brings a particular toolkit to the role.
Silverman is an established stage actor with both a BA and an MFA from Brown University. In 2023, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, playing Mavis Parodus Bryson. She also took home a Drama Desk Award for the same performance.
On television, she has appeared in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Blacklist, Fleishman Is in Trouble, and the Prime Video series Dead Ringers, among others. In 2025 she also played Gretchen Reagan in Apple TV+’s Your Friends & Neighbors.
When news broke that she was joining Landman, trade outlets highlighted her as a serious addition to the ensemble. A preview in Collider noted that most of her scenes would be opposite Michelle Randolph and Ali Larter, hinting that the admissions storyline would keep connecting to the Norris women.
Silverman herself sounded enthusiastic. In a July 2025 Instagram post, she called the Landman team “an exceptionally fun and talented group of people” led by Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Demi Moore, and others.
In the TCU interview, her theater background shows. She delivers lines like “I’m doing it on purpose” with tight control, never raising her voice but making the power imbalance obvious. The effect is less cartoon villain and more professional who has seen too many entitled applicants.
How Viewers Are Responding to Greta and the TCU Plot
Early reaction suggests the TCU scene is one of Season 2’s conversation starters.
TVLine’s premiere recap singled out the interview as a highlight, praising the brutal honesty of Greta’s questions and the dark humor of Ainsley trying to reason her way through them. Men’s Health and Harper’s Bazaar both mentioned the interview in their episode rundowns, focusing on how Ainsley ends up admitted despite saying all the wrong things.
DMTalkies leaned into the structural angle. Their recap emphasizes that Greta wants to deny Ainsley on principle, but the priority‑walk‑on status and the ACT score leave her hands tied. That tension between stated standards and practical pressures mirrors real debates around college admissions.
On Reddit, a thread titled “Ainsley’s interview” shows viewers split. One commenter defended Ainsley as “very nice” and argued the admissions officer “needs Ainsley in her life.” Another called the scene painful and said it made Ainsley look “really, really stupid.” The disagreement mirrors an earlier divide in Season 1, where some audience members saw Ainsley as a naive but kind teenager, while others found her grating.
What few people dispute is that Greta Stidham arrives fully formed. She is not introduced gently. She walks in, assesses, judges, and, in the end, approves Ainsley for reasons that bother her.
What Happens Next for Greta, TCU, and the Norrises
For now, we have only seen Greta Stidham in one main setting: a TCU admissions office, during one very bad interview.
However, pre‑season reporting provides some clues about where the storyline could go. Primetimer’s recurring‑cast breakdown suggests Greta will continue to appear as Ainsley’s “tough‑love” counselor, bringing up family issues and not just grades. Collider’s preview notes that she will also share scenes with Angela, creating a new arena where Angela’s protective instincts can clash with institutional authority.
Meanwhile, all of this remains anchored to a real, growing university. TCU’s own numbers show enrollment edging close to 13,000 in 2025, with a typical ACT score right where the show put Ainsley. The campus buildings you see on screen are actual admissions spaces and residence halls, not generic sets.
That combination of precise data, on‑location filming, and pointed writing makes the Greta Stidham storyline feel different from some of Landman’s more explosive plots. It is about access, class, and who gets to decide whether someone is “TCU material.”
If Season 2 follows through on the hints in Episode 1, Greta will not just be the woman who stamped “admit” on Ainsley’s file. She will be a recurring reminder that the Norris family’s problems now run from oilfields and corporate suites straight into the heart of higher education in Fort Worth.
