The Son cover art

TV shows have told a lot of different stories over the years, from a chemistry teacher who becomes a drug kingpin to a man who gets struck by lightning and can suddenly run really fast, but there’s one story that TV has never dared to tackle: The trials and tribulations of a Texas oil dynasty. Nope, that idea has never been done before, no matter what you may think. Until now, at least.


As reported by Deadline, AMC has just given a series order to The Son, an adaptation of Philipp Meyer’s book of the same name. The book is “a multi-generational epic telling of the story of America’s birth as a superpower through the bloody rise and fall of one Texas oil empire,” and the show will presumably be the same. It may seem a little dramatic to tie all of America’s success to one Texas oil empire, but Texans tend to have a pretty low opinion of their state as it is. We should give them this one to help them build a little bit of confidence.

The Son has been in development since all the way back in June of 2014, but AMC must be pretty confident in it for the show to get a straight-to-series order like this.