Scene from Billy Bob Thornton's New Show Goes Viral as His Character Savages Green Energy (2025)

A scene from Billy Bob Thornton’s new show is going viral after striking a chord with Americans skeptical of the green energy racket.

The clip went so viral that it apparently ruffled the feathers of the president behind a powerful green energy trade association, prompting him to pen a long-winded and desperate mockery of the show in response.

The video, taken from the the third episode of the first season of “Landman,” gained tens of millions of views across social media after its Sunday airing.

In the scene, Thornton, the lead actor in the show, savages wind turbines as an inefficient power source heavily reliant on the petrochemical industry.

“Do you have any idea how much diesel they had to burn to mix that much concrete?” Thornton’s character, Tommy Norris, asked Rebecca Falcone, played by Kayla Wallace, regarding the turbines surrounding them.

“Or make that steel and haul this s*** out here and put it together with a 450-foot crane?”

It’s not just the raw materials or the petroleum-chugging supply chain needed to shape and put them in place that Thornton’s character called out; he also savaged the long-term demand of the alternative energy.

“You want to guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that f***ing thing? Or winterize it?” Thornton’s character asked. “In its 20-year lifespan, it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.”

While not mentioned in the show, disposal of turbine parts is a perennial problem in the industry. In 2020, mapping satellites revealed damaged turbine blades, too strong to crush and so resilient that they won’t decompose if left outside, are simply being buried beneath the earth.

Thornton’s character didn’t limit his ire to wind energy.

“And don’t get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery,” he said. “And never mind the fact that, if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It’d take 30 years if we started tomorrow.”

He emphasized the foundational place petrochemicals have on world society.

“And, hell, it’s in everything,” he said. “That road we came in on. The wheels on every car ever made, including yours. It’s in tennis rackets and lipstick and refrigerators and antihistamines. Pretty much anything plastic. Your cell phone case, artificial heart valves. Any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers. Soap, f***ing hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats. You name it. Every f***ing thing.

“And you know what the kicker is? We’re gonna run out of it before we find its replacement.”

The video clip can be seen below.

WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some readers may find offensive.

Every left-winger should have their eyes held open and be forced to watch this on repeat until it sinks in.

pic.twitter.com/o9mdkh5fWE

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 25, 2024

Despite the tens of millions of views and countless comments, it seems not everyone is happy with the viral video.

“The scene has circulated furiously around social media, being shared by fossil fuel advocates, oil executives, and even a U.S. Senator,” Advanced Power Alliance President Jeff Clark wrote in response to the video. “The problem is that it’s misinformation and, to respectfully use Tommy Norris’s vernacular, it’s total bulls***.”

Is it any surprise that the head of the APA, an industry trade organization that promotes alternative energy, is protesting this scene’s popularity?

Clark went above and beyond, however, and submitted a 10-paragraph, 757-word rewrite of the scene.

You’re free to read it, but just know that 95 percent of it is a fantastical rant against the type of people Clark apparently pictures Thornton’s character, and his scene’s many fans, to be.

When it comes to wind turbines, it seems the story is anything but clean.

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