Stephen Kay Takes Charge: Why Taylor Sheridan Isn’t Directing Landman Season 2

When Landman Season 2 hits Paramount+ on Sunday, November 16, 2025, viewers will notice a major change behind the camera. Taylor Sheridan is still the creator, writer, and public face of the series. However, he is not directing any of the 10 new episodes.

Instead, one name appears on every directing credit: Stephen Kay.

For fans wondering “who directed Landman Season 2?” and why Taylor Sheridan is not directing Season 2, the answer is both practical and revealing. It says a lot about how Sheridan now runs his TV universe, and it shines a spotlight on a longtime collaborator whose fingerprints are all over his recent work.

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One Director, Ten Episodes: Who Directed Landman Season 2?

Season 2 of Landman once again runs 10 episodes, premiering November 16, 2025, and rolling out weekly through January 18, 2026, on Paramount+. Episodes drop at 12 a.m. PT / 3 a.m. ET on Sundays, with titles like “Death and a Sunset,” “Sins of the Father,” and “Tragedy and Flies,” according to Primetimer’s episode guide.

This time, every single one of those episodes lists Stephen Kay as director.

Actor Ali Larter, who plays Angela Norris, broke that news in a widely cited interview. She told The Hollywood Reporter, as later summarized by MovieWeb, that:

> “Stephen is directing all 10 episodes this year. Last year, Michael Friedman directed three; Stephen directed, I think, five; and Taylor directed a couple. That being said, Taylor would come in and direct all my stuff because he loves forming these characters, and he wants them big and bold.”

Episode lists compiled by outlets like MovieWeb refine that memory. They show that in Season 1:

• Taylor Sheridan directed the first two episodes
• Stephen Kay directed six episodes
• Michael Friedman directed two episodes

So, even in Season 1, Kay was already the primary visual voice. Season 2 simply makes that official: Stephen Kay is the sole “Stephen Kay Landman director” for the entire run.

Taylor Sheridan, by contrast, stays on as creator, executive producer, and principal writer, but does not direct any Season 2 episodes, according to Collider and updated series credits.

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From New Zealand to Texas Oilfields: A Quick Look at Stephen Kay’s Filmography

If you have been watching prestige cable and streaming dramas over the past two decades, you have probably seen Stephen Kay’s work, even if you did not know his name.

According to his biography and credits:

• Stephen T. Kay was born in 1963 in New Zealand
• He studied at Brown University
• He started in Hollywood as an actor, then shifted heavily into directing and writing

The Stephen Kay filmography stretches across both film and television:

Feature films

• Get Carter (2000), a crime thriller starring Sylvester Stallone
• Boogeyman (2005), a supernatural horror film

Television dramas and TV movies

• Episodes of The Shield, Friday Night Lights, and Sons of Anarchy
• True‑crime TV movies such as The Craigslist Killer (2011), Justice for Natalee Holloway (2011), and Blue‑Eyed Butcher (2012)

Action and genre series

• Multiple episodes of Quantico
• Episodes of Marvel’s The Punisher

In recent years, Kay has become deeply embedded in the Taylor Sheridan orbit:

• He has directed multiple episodes of Yellowstone, including key installments across Seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5
• He has also directed significant runs on Mayor of Kingstown, including season‑ending episodes
• He directed much of Season 1 of Landman, then took over all of Season 2

His personal connections overlap with Sheridan’s world as well. Kay is married to actor Piper Perabo, who plays activist Summer Higgins on Yellowstone. Their daughter, Lilli Kay, appears on Yellowstone as ranch hand and assistant Clara Brewer.

The professional relationship between Sheridan and Kay dates back to Sons of Anarchy, where Sheridan acted as Deputy Chief David Hale while Kay directed episodes. As CheatSheet has reported, that early collaboration helped establish a working trust that eventually extended into the Yellowstone universe and now Landman.

In other words, Paramount is not handing Landman to an outsider. They are handing a full season to a director who has repeatedly been asked to manage Sheridan’s biggest, most complex episodes.

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How Stephen Kay Became Sheridan’s Go‑To Closer

On several Sheridan shows, a pattern has emerged. Taylor Sheridan often writes or co‑writes every episode, but he does not personally direct all of them. Instead, he leans on a small circle of directors who understand his pacing, his use of locations, and his preference for practical, grounded setups.

Stephen Kay sits near the top of that list.

On Yellowstone, Kay handled some of the series’ most pivotal stretches, including late‑season confrontations and Season 5 episodes that Sheridan wrote. On Mayor of Kingstown, he directed major action runs and climactic chapters in Seasons 1 and 2, where the show’s violence and crowd scenes required tight logistical control.

By the time Landman Season 1 went into production, Kay had already proven he could:

• Work quickly with large ensemble casts
• Stage action and violence without losing character focus
• Maintain visual continuity across episodes written in a single voice

The Season 1 directing breakdown, with Sheridan handling the opening two hours and Kay taking the bulk of the remaining episodes, reflects that trust. Season 2 goes one step further. There is no rotation at all. Every script Taylor Sheridan delivers is filmed by the same director, episode 1 through 10.

For viewers, that likely means a more unified tone. Instead of three directors trading off blocks, Kay shapes the entire second season from the pilot‑style opener to the finale.

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What Stephen Kay Brings to Landman Season 2

While Stephen Kay has not yet given a long craft interview specifically about Landman Season 2, the elements we can see from reporting offer a clear picture of his approach this year.

Real locations, grounded scale

Season 2 once again leans heavily on real Texas and Oklahoma locations rather than staying on soundstages. According to Primetimer and local coverage, production shot in:

• Downtown Fort Worth
• The campus of Texas Christian University (TCU)
• Smaller North Texas communities such as Jacksboro and Benbrook
• Durant, Oklahoma, which stands in for parts of the oilfield world

That choice fits with how Sheridan and Kay worked on Yellowstone, using real ranches and landscapes to anchor the drama. It also gives Kay concrete geography to play with. Roads, well pads, college buildings, and small‑town streets are not abstract backdrops. They are locations he can return to across multiple episodes, which helps Season 2 feel like one continuous story rather than a string of disconnected chapter stops.

Character intensity over spectacle

Early Season 2 coverage has focused on emotionally heavy scenes between core characters, which Kay is responsible for staging on set.

Entertainment Weekly highlighted one such scene in Episode 2, “Sins of the Father.” Billy Bob Thornton and Jacob Lofland described an intense father‑son car conversation they filmed, where both drew on real‑life grief. Thornton said his tears in that sequence were genuine and not planned. That blend of raw performance and controlled camera work is squarely in Kay’s wheelhouse from Mayor of Kingstown and Yellowstone.

Season 2 also introduces Sam Elliott as T.L., Tommy Norris’s estranged father, with scenes set in a senior facility and storylines about reconciliation and regret. Again, the drama is intimate rather than purely high‑stakes action. Sheridan’s script supplies the emotional beats. Kay decides how close the camera sits, how long it holds, and how much space he gives actors like Elliott and Thornton to breathe.

Taken together, those choices show why having one director across all 10 episodes matters. The same person who designs the visual language for an early argument in Episode 2 is still there months later filming its emotional echo in the finale.

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Why Taylor Sheridan Is Not Directing Landman Season 2

There is no single, on‑the‑record quote from Taylor Sheridan that says, “Here is exactly why I stopped directing Landman.” However, recent reporting about his workload and deals paints a consistent picture.

Several overlapping factors help explain why Taylor Sheridan is not directing Season 2, even while remaining Landman’s writer and creator.

1. A packed slate of series

Sheridan’s current television slate at Paramount is unusually crowded. He remains the creative force behind:

• Yellowstone and its prequels 1883 and 1923
• Lawmen: Bass Reeves
• Tulsa King and the planned spinoff often referred to as NOLA King
• Mayor of Kingstown (with a fourth season premiering October 26, 2025)
• Special Ops: Lioness
• Landman itself

According to Variety and other trades, he has had as many as nine or ten series in production at once in recent years. In a 2022 interview, he acknowledged that he had to learn to delegate directing because he simply could not be on every set full time while still writing.

That pattern has only intensified.

2. A new NBCUniversal megadeal

Sheridan has also signed a major overall deal with NBCUniversal, as reported by Decider and People. The structure is unusual:

• An eight‑year film agreement starting around March 2026
• A five‑year television deal beginning in 2028, after his current Paramount TV contract expires

People notes that his existing television obligations to Paramount run through 2028, which means shows like Landman will continue there for several more years. However, the NBCUniversal pact adds another layer to his schedule. He is now planning for feature films and future NBCU series at the same time he is still delivering seasons to Paramount.

In that context, choosing not to direct Season 2 of Landman looks less like a sudden retreat and more like time management.

3. A wider shift toward delegating directing

We can also look at other corners of the Sheridan universe for clues. CBS and trade coverage of the planned Kayce Dutton spinoff, Y: Marshals, has described Sheridan’s reduced involvement there as a bandwidth issue. CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach acknowledged that he is “a very busy guy” and that the network will “take what we can get.”

That language tracks with Collider’s description of his role on Landman. He continues to control the story and the scripts, but he has stepped back from episode‑by‑episode directing.

Ali Larter’s comparison of the writing process between Seasons 1 and 2 underlines that point. She said that Season 1 began with all 10 scripts finished, while Season 2 started filming with only three scripts complete, with Sheridan delivering the rest as production moved forward. Collider and other outlets reported the same shift. That kind of rolling writing schedule is difficult to combine with being physically present to direct every episode.

One article on the modest delay in the Landman Season 2 release even tied the change to Sheridan’s “reduced involvement behind the scenes as he manages multiple projects.”

4. Trusting Stephen Kay to carry the season

The final piece is Stephen Kay himself. Paramount is not asking Sheridan to step aside without a safety net. Instead, they are turning over a full 10‑episode season to someone who has:

• Directed six of the ten episodes in Landman Season 1
• Directed multiple important Yellowstone episodes
• Directed finales and complex sequences on Mayor of Kingstown

MovieWeb and Collider both frame Kay’s Season 2 role as a logical extension of that track record, not a creative about‑face.

Put together, the reasons are straightforward. Sheridan has more shows and deals than one person can practically direct. He tends to keep tight control of the scripts. He has a proven partner in Stephen Kay who can deliver the kind of grounded, character‑driven drama he wants on screen. So he stays home with the laptop, and Kay goes to set.

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What This Means for Landman Fans and What Happens Next

For viewers, the most important thing to remember is that Taylor Sheridan still writes and oversees Landman. The West Texas oil world, the tone, and the long‑term arcs still come from him and co‑creator Christian Wallace. The shift is in who is physically calling “action” on set.

Season 2 arrives November 16, 2025, on Paramount+ and runs weekly through January 18, 2026, with Stephen Kay directing all 10 episodes from:

1. “Death and a Sunset” – November 16, 2025

2. “Sins of the Father” – November 23, 2025

3. “Almost a Home” – November 30, 2025

4. “Dancing Rainbows” – December 7, 2025

5. “The Pirate Dinner” – December 14, 2025

6. “Dark Night of the Soul” – December 21, 2025

7. “Forever Is an Instant” – December 28, 2025

8. “Handsome Touched Me” – January 4, 2026

9. “Plans, Tears and Sirens” – January 11, 2026

10. “Tragedy and Flies” – January 18, 2026

Season 1 was a major success for Paramount+. It became the streamer’s most‑watched original in its first month, with roughly 14.9 million households watching in the first four weeks and more than 35 million global views over time, according to reporting that cites Paramount’s figures.

As of late November 2025, Season 3 has not yet been officially ordered. Harper’s Bazaar, however, notes that Sheridan is expected to pivot back to writing a third season once he clears other commitments, and studio insiders reportedly see plenty of story potential left in the oil‑boom setting.

In the meantime, Season 2 offers something Landman has not had before: a single director, Stephen Kay, shaping every hour of the show while Sheridan focuses on the scripts. For a series about people who make their living on deals, leases, and long‑term bets, that division of labor feels fitting. Paramount has placed its bet on a trusted collaborator to keep the camera steady while its star creator spreads his attention across an expanding empire.