I’ve seen a lot of people online compare Industry to Succession, and I beg to differ. One key point that raises the stakes for the Pierpoint crew is that they’re all very young. (Eric is middle-aged, but let’s give him a pass.) Youth excuses some of their sexual and drug-induced follies. Youth can be blamed for some of their faux pas. Most important, their youth makes Industry a financial bildungsroman. These characters are growing, learning, becoming — their souls are on the line. Industry has been asking who its characters will become in the shadow of a behemoth institution like Pierpoint, and now, in its third season, the show is upping the ante: Who will Harper, Yasmin, Robert, and Eric be by the end of this journey?
For confirmation that the stakes are higher and the mood is heavier, look no further than the bags under Yasmin’s eyes in the opening sequence on the Lady Yasmin. (The makeup artist who made Marisa Abela look so exhausted and miserable should win an award.) Whereas previous seasons might have found us in the pulsing party scene on the boat, now we’re zeroing in on Yasmin’s haggard, beaten visage. Even the show’s visual quality has darkened, with shots that feel slightly grainy and drab like something seen through tired eyes. It’s as if every frame is reminding us that the bankers are now adults. They have worked at this game for years. Their decisions carry weight, and their unresolved baggage is heavy on their shoulders.
But before we get into all that, a quick recap of where we left off: Robert is struggling toward something like grace while still in the clutches of predatory client Nicole. Yasmin was cut off from her dad’s wealth after trying to pry herself away from his toxicity, which caused her to lose her spot on Pierpoint’s private-wealth desk. Most important: Harper lost her job at Pierpoint thanks to some spectacular backstabbing from Eric, who snitched on her to HR for having forged her transcript.
Alright. We good? We all caught up? Let’s begin!!!! With Yasmin! Fast-forwarding from her misery on the yacht (I guess trying to survive without Daddy’s money lasted approximately four seconds, which is annoying to me because I wanted to see her try to Anna Delvey her way through life), Yasmin is living in a very run-down house where she’s dodging paparazzi. The paps are after her because her father is wanted and at large, evading British authorities for crimes of embezzlement. (Shocker!) The British papers are calling Yasmin “the Embezzling Heiress†for short, using an extremely glamorous shot of her moodily smoking a cig on the yacht while looking into the glittering distance. But Yasmin’s actual life is far from glamorous. Her nerves are fried from avoiding the cameras, and she’s barely holding on at work, where she’s still on the trading floor. Yasmin is no Harper, and she and Eric, who is now her boss, know that. When William Adler looks out across the floor, talking to Eric about the need to fire someone, his first target is Yas. She was a nepo hire to begin with and never that great at her job; now, with her negative press attention, surely it would make sense to axe her?
Surprisingly, Kenny Kilbane argues for Yasmin to stay. I must now confess I am a little bit of a Kenny stan. I am a sucker for Irish accents as well as characters who go to AA. Last season, when he gave Yas a stapler in a Jell-O mold and she had no idea he was referencing The Office? Charming! Kenny also offers a foil to someone like Eric. Instead of continuing to feed his demons and climb the ladder that way, Kenny got help and became a nice guy. Now, he has become like Yasmin’s big brother and is the person who makes sure she gets to keep her job by going to bat for her when Eric starts making noise about firing her. Life comes at you fast, Yas!!
Everyone on the desk is all hopped up because of an ESG company they are taking to IPO. I will now attempt to explain these two financial topics based on research and my brief stint working in securities. (Please be nice to me.)
ESG investing is the same thing as ethical or socially responsible investing. The idea is that you are using your money to invest in a portfolio of environmentally, socially, or governmentally ethical companies instead of, say, Amazon or Lockheed Martin. But is ethical investing actually ethical? There seem to be huge swaths of gray area when defining which companies get to be ethical. Regardless, the bankers of Pierpoint have decided this is their big rebrand — Pierpoint is going all in on ESG investing this season.
The ESG company in question is a green-energy firm called Lumi. Pierpoint underwrites Lumi’s IPO, or initial public offering — i.e., when a company publicly issues stock. Pre-IPO companies are considered private, which means their investors are usually family, friends, and early contributors to the business. A company goes public when deemed mature enough to pass the rigors of national governing bodies like the SEC. Going public also means increased transparency — its quarterly earnings reports must be made available to the public, for example — as well as the opportunity for growth and increased value. Basically, an IPO is kind of like a debutante ball. The company is going to market. It’s an adult now! Lumi’s IPO being underwritten by Pierpoint means Pierpoint is essentially Lumi’s sponsor, assuring the financial world that the company is a good pick and solid enough for investments.
This IPO isn’t going smoothly, however, and Robert knows that better than anyone. Since last season, our feckless, baby-faced leading man has been embedded with the Lumi CEO, Sir Henry Muck (played by a wheedling Kit Harington in stark contrast to his straight-faced role as Jon Snow on Game of Thrones). Muck is mercurial, unstable, and likely a bad CEO, but that’s not the only problem: He massaged the numbers on Lumi’s earning reports so badly that a major investor withdraws the day before the IPO. Robert struggles to keep a handle on Muck and his antics. Now, with the investor dropping out, rumors are running wild that Lumi has been overvalued, a disastrous situation for the IPO and Pierpoint.
Outside of work, though, Robert seems to be faring pretty well. That house Yasmin is living in? Robert owns it, and he’s actually landlord not just to Yasmin but to Harper. He’s also in a stable, adult relationship with Venetia, of all people. I cheered when I saw them together. Cute! Healthy! Please, Robert, be in a good way!! Except then Robert leaves a sleeping Ven in the middle of the night to see Nicole. A friend of mine said they gasped when they saw this. Perhaps you did too. As for me, I was more in disappointed-mom mode. In the same way that backstabbing is Eric’s and Harper’s drug of choice, while cocaine and the male gaze is Yasmin’s, having sex with a predatory mommy figure is Robert’s main vice. I didn’t think Industry would let him off the hook so easily, even if I hoped otherwise.
I must say, however, that their postcoital cuddle is oddly loving; Robert is at ease with Nicole, and they rib each other as only old lovers can. For a second, I wondered if Robert and Nicole were good for each other, until the jump scare of the next morning. This is where I did audibly gasp (maybe even scream). Robert wakes up, having accidentally slept at Nicole’s, only to realize Nicole is dead next to him. (I think she had a stroke? Nosebleeds on TV always telegraph to me as some kind of brain issue.) He’s devastated, but he cannot tell anyone what just happened. So he just breaks down on the Pierpoint trading floor.
The person who cannot abide this is, of course, Eric. He takes Robert in hand and forces him to repeat the following mantra: I AM A MAN, AND I AM RELENTLESS. (Later in the day, I tried this out to see if it would make me feel powerful, but I just found it funny.) Also, even though it looks as if Eric is trying to get Robert to snap out of his sobfest, in reality, he’s saying the mantra for his own good. Life in Ericland isn’t all gravy. Sure, he has been made a partner at the firm, getting applause from a room full of senior white people. But with greater responsibility comes more significant pains in the ass, like having to fire someone, not to mention that Eric’s personal life appears to be a mess. His wife has left him (I guess his momentary indiscretion last season got back to her?), he’s going on benders, and Kenny had to take him in and sort him out when he spent three days drinking whiskey. The night before a crucial IPO launch, he goes out with Yasmin and her lawyer friend, which includes him doing a lot of coke and having sex with the friend. I said this last season, and I’ll say it again now: I DO NOT LIKE WATCHING ERIC BEHAVE LIKE THIS. It is like walking in on a parent having sex. Also, his vibe with Yasmin is WEIRD. He doesn’t admire her in the same way he admired Harper. If anything, he seems to detest her incompetence … but also seems attracted to her? I am not looking forward to wherever this is going.
The next morning, Eric gets to the floor in rough shape. He seems colossally hungover, and he has forgotten it’s his turn to take care of his daughters, who are waiting for him on the floor. He has also impulsively decided to fire Kenny instead of Yasmin or Robert, which means I hate him. It’s obvious that he’s firing Kenny not because of any real financial reason but because Kenny dared to see him in a vulnerable place. Eric, I think, hates to be seen as human.
Or rather, there was only one person he tolerated on a person-to-person level, and he already fired her. Yes, I am talking about our queen, Harper Stern. Thanks to a call from Yasmin, Harper has landed on her feet–ish and is working at FutureDawn, an ESG hedge fund. Much to her chagrin, she isn’t a trader and is instead an administrative assistant. Still, she’s doing her wily best to find her way into a financial position. The person she has set her sights on to help her is Petra (played by Sarah Goldberg of Barry). Petra is a disgruntled partner who feels FutureDawn is stifling her intellect and is dogmatically devoted to investing in ethical companies only. Like Harper, Petra appears to be someone who places all their bets on their own competence. Eric, at his best, is also like this (which is probably why his current spiral is so upsetting). All this to say, Harper remains Harper-ing.
The episode ends with the Lumi IPO, at which Muck casually mentions that Lumi sources the exchange’s power. Just as the company goes public, a power outage plunges Pierpoint and Lumi into chaos. I guffawed. Lest we forget, Industry isn’t just sexy and thought-provoking. It’s funny as hell, too.
Loose ChangeÂ
• One of the casualties of season two appears to be Gus, who isn’t in this season’s premiere. I have to say I’m a bit disappointed! I loved that character and the way he helped narrate how other powers, like government and education, interacted with the banking industry. Justice for Gus!
• Another slight casualty is, hate to say it, Harper. I do get it: We’ve already seen her be so good at her job, and there’s not a lot of narrative runway to see her be even better. The show is also increasingly about the effect Pierpoint has on people, so keeping tabs on a Pierpoint-less Harper gets messy. That said, Myha’la Herrold is such an excellent actor that I’m hopeful she’ll get meatier scenes in future episodes.
• You have to admire Mickey Down and Konrad Kay for making ESG investing the big financial topic for the season. It’s a neat synecdoche of the question troubling the show’s heart: Can any of our characters be good? Will they grow into sound adults? Money, finance, banking — is it all just inevitably poison to one’s soul?
• There’s a quick flashback when Yasmin remembers walking in on her dad eating out a pregnant staff member from the yacht, which is so gross but also makes me wonder about this show’s strange relationship with sexual assault. It’s a source of trauma but also something the characters struggle with. Is Robert’s relationship with Nicole abusive? Is Yasmin’s sleeping with Celeste inappropriate? I’m curious to see how the show expounds on this ambiguity as the season progresses.
• I love it when Yasmin and Harper are friends.
• WE’RE BACK, BABY!!!