‘Industry’ Season 3 Review: It’s Time to Buy Stock in HBO’s Sexy, Live Wire Finance Drama
When HBO’s Industry premiered in late 2020, it felt like Gen Z’s Succession with a little Skins in the game. It was a fresh and thrilling erotic drama with despicable characters in their early twenties who you were somehow rooting for all the same. Industry’s third season is bolder and even more lavish (complete with a Barry Lyndon reference), reflecting both the rise in the show’s critical acclaim and the characters’ salaries and responsibilities at their Pierpoint desks.
Throwing us into the lion’s den with fresh-out-of-uni grads vying for permanent positions at the fictional, prestigious investment bank Pierpoint & Co., showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay created one of the sharpest, sexiest shows on television, earning a cult following along the way. The show’s characters knew that they needed to perform if they wanted to stay at Pierpoint, and even after being confirmed in permanent posts at the company, that competition, hunger, and ticking clock never ceased. It’s a strong setup for a series, allowing each season to be more dynamic and meaner than the last as the central characters plunge deeper into the industry, losing themselves and any hope of ever getting out. Without ever dumbing down the finance jargon-heavy dialogue or pulling punches from the whip-smart, timely politics at the center of each season, our showrunners delivered something that felt honest to the experiences of young people in a cutthroat, addictive, toxic work environment. Down and Kay have leveled up and you’ll want to invest in the series if you haven’t already.
The third installment opens aboard the Lady Yasmin, a luxury yacht named after the series’ siren (Back to Black’s Marisa Abela). We’re outside of London, somewhere in the Mediterranean, but the setting’s beauty is cloaked in a summertime sadness–an ominous feeling that stretches across the season’s eight episodes. Yasmin’s new lifestyle is one of the rich and, unfortunately, infamous. Her father, publishing mogul and all-around scumbag Charles Hanani (Arthur Levy), has gone missing after getting tied up in embezzlement charges, and Yasmin is the poster girl of the fallout to the bloodhounds of the British paparazzi. Back in London, she’s still determined to prove that she isn’t just a poor little rich girl and is back on the sales floor of Pierpoint after a brief, unsuccessful stint in wealth management. Even though she’s pinballed around desks, she’s far more self-assured than in the first two seasons when she mainly second-guessed herself while retrieving lunchtime salad orders. We know she’s still bad at her job, though, and she’s desperately trying to convince her colleagues and the audience otherwise, scolding her new coworker Sweetpea Golighlightly (Miriam Petche), who creates TikToks for her “corporate girlies” in the process. When Eric (Ken Leung) asks her what she wants from her role at Pierpoint, she replies, “I want to prove that I belong here.” For Yasmin, this isn’t about the work itself; it’s about proving that she can get out from under her influential, predatory father’s thumb and that she isn’t just looking for a man in finance with a trust fund. In Season Three, it seems that that’s a fool’s errand, though, and that the inner workings and exclusivity of the ultra-wealthy British elite are just too difficult to escape. Once you’re in, you can’t get out, but would you even want to escape once you’ve tasted the doldrums of the other side? Down and Kay toyed with this idea for Yasmin in the first two seasons, but really push her to confront it now, holding a magnifying glass up to her privilege and ugliest characteristics. She’s a character full of contradictions and weaknesses, but Abela continues to develop her with ease, forcing us to question what kind of power she has and if she’s wielding it for anything other than her own desires. She feels like a savvy seductress who can get anything she wants from the men in her orbit. However, it’s impossible not to feel genuinely sad for her, not as a woman who can’t escape her generational wealth, but her deep familial scars.
Speaking of the men in Yasmin’s orbit, Eric has finally been named partner at Pierpoint. After a sad boy Season Two and a Harper-sized wound, Leung embodies Eric with the energy of a pitbull, eager to show his teeth to the associates on the sales floor and his colleagues in the boardroom. Leung continues to give one of the strongest performances in the series, disarming the younger associates at Pierpoint to make them believe that he is a mentor with their best interests at heart. This season, Kay, Down, and Leung lean even further into Eric’s toxicity, highlighting the qualities he needed to gain power at the company and outlast so many. As he gives Robert (Harry Lawtey) a pep talk, forcing him to repeat, “I am a man and I am relentless,” back to him, you realize that some of his worst qualities were lying dormant during the first two seasons. His soul is rotten to the core, which makes his newfound investment interests all the more fascinating. Eric and the other higher-ups are committed to making Pierpoint the market leader in responsible investing, shifting to green, ethical investment baskets and ESGs. Board members call it “woke investing” and wonder if it’s all just a fad to make them look good in the eyes of the public. Industry continues to showcase some of television’s more incisive writing as each season is always at the forefront of the critical political issues dominating the news and media landscape and how the youngest, most ambitious workers in finance clash with them. In Season Two, when our characters returned to the office after COVID calmed down, the intersection of finance and healthcare and the pressure of Brexit loomed large. Once again, Down and Kay have their finger on the pulse, interrogating the faux goodness of ethical investing and the performative nature of those who claim to practice it. But the bell seems to be tolling at Pierpoint for reasons other than just the new partnerships that Eric and his team seek to secure.
One of those key partnerships is with Pierpoint’s new client, Henry Muck (Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington), and his green energy tech company/rich boy pet project, Lumi. Lumi aims to bring affordable energy to as many people as possible, so it’s a natural fit for Pierpoint’s new strategy. Robert is managing the firm’s relationship with Lumi, which is further complicated when Henry expresses interest in Yasmin. Robert, with his heart of gold and cocaine, is still in his Sunset Boulevard phase with Nicole (Sarah Parish) but continues to pine for Yasmin. The sometimes exhausting “will they/won’t they” dynamic that dominated the show’s first two seasons is even more discouraging this season, given one man has a salary and the other a net worth. Lawtey is perfectly vulnerable as Robert, convincing us he’s one of the only characters worth rooting for. Harington is a wise casting choice for Henry as he effortlessly channels the type of bravado only found in a gorgeous man who has no clue what he’s doing–a particular Cruel Intentions-inspired pool scene is naturally a highlight. His over-the-top aggression at the Lumi offices doesn’t feel much different than Jon Snow heading into battle in The North, though, and is less interesting than the scenes that expose his insecurities more subtly. With a kink straight out of an episode of Girls and a bottle of wine so expensive that it could be up for auction at Sotheby’s, Henry feels at times like a composite sketch of some of the world’s richest playboys and, at others, a less-realized take on Succession’s Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard).
While Yasmin, Eric, and Robert have Lumi on the brain, the most important player is missing from the Pierpoint floor. In the shocking final few minutes of Season Two’s finale, Eric finally gave Harper (Myha’la) the ax when HR flagged that she forged her undergraduate transcript and never completed her degree. Down and Kay smartly made this the reason for her firing, and somehow, not that she was embroiled in insider trading with Jesse Bloom (Jay Duplass), showing exactly what you can get away with in this business. Illegal activity is fine at Pierpoint and in finance writ large as long as you have the proper credentials. With her work visa and life in London in the balance, viewers will return to the new season wondering what would become of Harper. Episode Director Isabella Eklöf wisely waits about thirty minutes into the season’s first episode to reveal our Machiavellian anti-heroine’s location, recalling some of our greatest monster movies (Jaws, Alien). The other characters are compelling, but this is the Harper show, and season three is Myha’la’s career-best work. Industry may be an ensemble-led series, but Myha’la is the clear standout, delivering one of television’s best dramatic (and comedic) performances. She creates a flawed, funny, wicked character and the ultimate foil to the finance bros that plague the City of London; you can’t help but want her to succeed.
Harper caught a lucky break and was hired as an administrative assistant for Anna Gearing at FutureDawn, an ethical investment fund. But keeping Anna’s diary and maintaining small talk with her vapid coworkers isn’t where she belongs. Soon enough, she’s bored out of her mind, lurking in doorways and using her privileged access to get closer to trading and the activity at Pierpoint. When Yasmin calls to see if Anna is interested in Lumi stock, Harper reminds her, “I have no skin in this game.” We know that’s a lie, though, and she’s just itching to get closer. The power in Myha’la’s performance and the writing of the character is that we’re just as eager for her to find her way back into the fold. She sees the opportunity in Petra (another HBO darling, Barry’s Sarah Goldberg), another American expat and a portfolio manager at FutureDawn who goes against the grain and questions the purpose of ethical investing. Goldberg and Myha’la play off of each other perfectly and make for an exciting pivot in the show’s trajectory–it’s even more fun to watch Harper work the industry from a new angle. Placing her within a company like FutureDawn and outside of Pierpoint creates an even stronger opposition between Harper and her ex-colleagues and investment banking more broadly, as she brilliantly pushes up against the season’s focus on ethical investments and forces the audience to question all of it. It makes it all feel a bit futile, pinpointing just how ironic it is when wealthy people feel the need to pretend to care. Harper can see right through that, and watching her from the edge of your seat is delicious.
Down and Kay take significant creative risks to elevate the show to new heights, but they don’t always pay off. A handful of montages feel cheesy and obvious, and a few loose threads and stones left unturned may frustrate viewers. A bottle episode detailing the toll the industry has taken on Rishi (Sagar Radia) may just make you wish that Harper was back onscreen. Industry’s greatest details lie in the environment created by and for the actors. The Altman-like crosstalk on the sales floor capturing the rumblings about late nights and country estates, and Nathan Micay’s New Wave-inspired synth score ignite the world of the show, making it feel alive and like it could all come crashing down at any moment. It’s not always fun to watch deplorable people with a dangerous proximity to billions fly too close to the sun, but Down and Kay remind you that Icarus flew before he fell, making the series and its third season all the more thrilling.
Grade: A-
The third season of the HBO Original series Industry premieres Sunday, August 11.
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