Ali Larter on ‘Beautiful’ Scene with Billy Bob Thornton (Exclusive)

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Landman season 2 finale.

Ali Larter loves how Landman season 2 ends.

The high-octane Taylor Sheridan drama wrapped up its second season on Sunday, Jan. 18, with a slower scene between Angela (Larter) and Tommy (Billy Bob Thornton).

Tommy’s day started off stressful — their son, Cooper (Jacob Lofland), was questioned by police for the murder of a man who attacked Ariana (Paulina Chávez) and he successfully negotiated a new business deal with Danny (Andy Garcia) after Cami (Demi Moore) fired him from M-Tex. But he ended it with a quiet moment with Angela, staring at the sunset.

“I live for those scenes, because so much of Angela, when I’m playing her, is high stakes, high emotion, something wild is happening,” Larter, 49, tells PEOPLE. “To be able to have a really quiet scene, I just think it was an important and beautiful way to end the season.”

While the scene is quiet, it’s powerful. “You know, honey, the time’s coming when tragedy’s gonna dominate our days. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s cancer, maybe my mind goes,” Tommy said. “Or, god forbid, maybe it’s you. Car wreck or whatever. But not today. Today we win.”

Angela then helped him see how she chooses to look at life. “Baby, I win every day. You do too — you just don’t see it. But it’s there. I mean, it’s all around you. You just gotta take the time to notice,” she responded.

The scene “talks about how so many of us feel in life,” Larter says. “When we remember that there’s no guarantee for tomorrow, that is really beautiful.”

She adds, “You see the essence of who this woman is and what they share with each other, which is just really… It’s quite special.”

There’s a “turning point” for Tommy this season, Larter says, and his dad, T.L. (Sam Elliott), is to thank.

After T.L. moves in with the family, Tommy begins “really seeing his father’s life — and his crushing mortality and what that looks like — and having death within the family, and then [he’s] going, ‘What life do I want to live?’ “

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“So, we get to see Tommy happy,” Larter says. “But I love him when he’s in crisis, so watching him in the finale is just a blast. Billy’s brilliant in the [episode]. He’s built for that.”

Reflecting on the show’s second season, Larter says “everyone’s growing” as the story unfolds. “People don’t really realize that Landman, a lot of it is about the family,” she says. “They’re making mistakes, and they’re messy people.”

“Nothing is softened in our show for the sake of someone feeling at ease while they watch it. That just doesn’t happen.”

Landman season 2 is now streaming on Paramount+.