HBO Invests Wisely in Industry Season 3

Naturally, the comparison is a bit reductive, but not unearned. Succession belied its Shakespearean ambitions with razor-sharp dialogue and a penchant for droll class satire within the upper echelon of corporate America, turning a classical tale of princes and princesses jostling for their father’s throne into a modern parable of how abuse festers across generations. Industry’s aims are slightly more modest, but the show has never shied away from its unflinching portrait of a business as corrosive to the fabric of our society as it is to the minds and bodies of the people who swipe their keycards into its offices every morning. Whereas Succession focused on the quest for sustained power, Industry is more interested in what drives the primitive hunt for short bursts of adrenaline and dopamine in a world order teetering on the edge of collapse. It’s existential and hopelessly unsustainable—a trenchant manifestation of this generation’s flair for pessimistic narcissism. As one young character muses in the second season, “Covet something, get it, covet something else, maybe get it, then die.”

If the previous two seasons framed their social critiques around corporate identity politics and the individuals and systems that exploit human misery for profit, Season 3 takes square aim at the shallowness surrounding “ethical investing.” The remaining Pierpoint crew, which includes Yasmin (Marisa Abela), Robert (Harry Lawtey), Rishi (Sagar Radia), and their boss Eric (Ken Leung), gear up for the IPO of Lumi, a sustainable energy corporation spearheaded by the wet-behind-his-ears Sir Henry Muck (Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington, new this season). Meanwhile, Harper (Myha’la), still fresh from being ousted from Pierpoint by her former mentor, settles into a humdrum assistant role at the women-owned-and-operated FutureDawn (an exquisitely terrible name for a company in a show that sports many). She seems humbler, she’s got a boyfriend, but she’s bored and disparaged by her new boss Anna (Elena Saurel). Dark circles bloom under her eyes, which have grown lifeless like a shark’s. But FutureDawn portfolio manager Petra Koenig (Barry’s Sarah Goldberg, also new) senses the eyes of a predator cooped up in a fish tank and takes a special interest in the young woman unbeholden to the “dogmatic” codes of ethical capitalism.

Certain supporting characters also step to the frontline in surprising ways, including one who takes centerstage on an adrenaline-pumping, Uncut Gems-esque midseason episode, while some protagonists feel pushed to the outskirts of the storyline. It’s a move that might frustrate some fans, but it winds up working to add color to the harsh fluorescent lights of the trading floor as well as some bite to the show’s pathos. The more we get to know these characters and how their personal lives interact with their professional personalities, the juicier it is—and the more it hurts—to see them inevitably belittle and betray one another.

In the first season, the question that hung over the show was whether the recent graduates hired by Pierpoint would earn full-time positions or get kicked to the curb—and which of these outcomes was worse. It gave the season some welcome structure, but without providing enough context into the characters’ motivations for entering such a field, the stakes were frustratingly low. By now, the initially jittery young staffers that make up the cast have grown up and settled into their politicking roles, and the question has become whether there’s still time to rectify the harm they’ve done to themselves, their friends, and the world at large. Sure, they’ve mastered the art of vulgar floor banter and bathroom key-bump snorting, but the specters of their misdeeds, traumas, and grief haunt the young financiers’ every move. The tension has ratcheted up; their screw-ups and personal dramas might not just cost them their jobs but could also land them in prison and sway global markets, not to mention doom them to perpetuate the very cycles of abuse that have fractured them so severely. These moments—or, at least, the threat of them—make Industry’s third season so intoxicating.

As always, the show’s dialogue can be so verbose and steeped in financial jargon that long stretches go by where, to a layperson like me, it feels like the words are being spoken by the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon (“Talk about an emergency rate hike, the NPC are raising rates by 200 basis points.” If you say so!). My extremely high analytical skills at least let me gather that more money equals good, less money equals bad. It’s a testament to the consistently magnetic acting and Nathan Micay’s synth-heavy, pulsing score that the suspense never drops, even when you can’t understand the specifics of what’s going on (I asked my least morally bankrupt friend in banking to enlighten me on some basic terms; it did not help).

It’s both irritating and giddying to let the jargon go in one ear and out the other, but it’s one of the show’s superpowers. There’s a pleasure to be had in fighting to and then quickly giving up on unpacking the characters’ exact stressing and scheming; a psychological distance is created that allows each Machiavellian chess move and ludicrous Hail Mary to arrive in a fashion as exciting as it is crushing. When Harper and Yasmin’s already fragile friendship is tested in stomach-churning ways, the personal quickly becomes inextricable from the professional, and the insults each hurl at one another could just as easily be shouted in their living room as they could a conference room. Each character only has his or her own best interest at heart—but it feels like for the first time they may be trying to soften the collateral damage of their egoism. In a show where hope shines as often as the sun does in a London winter, that feels like a win.

This is perhaps what makes Season 3 such an improvement and downright electrifying at times. Creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay have found a way to turn their myopic investment banking show into an intimate psychological drama that fits squarely within the pantheon of some of HBO’s bleakest, sleekest shows. It wavers between pulpy family melodrama, steamy erotica, and heart-racing white-collar crime thriller at the drop of a hat while discovering new textures to characters that ensure no one lands squarely on one side of the good-bad person spectrum. Plus, the show has finally bought a few shares in a sly sense of humor, something sorely missed from earlier iterations. As one very old, very white, very male potential investor in Harper’s newest venture remarks somewhat flippantly to her, “You have such a progressive look.” “New look, same great taste,” she responds. HBO may have touted Industry as a younger, hipper, more diluted version of Succession or Billions, but don’t let that spook you before it goes public on Sunday. The network has proven it still has great taste.

Industry Season 3 premieres Sunday, August 11th on HBO and streaming on Max. 

Michael Savio is a freelance writer and former editorial intern at Paste based in New York. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in cultural reporting and criticism at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

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