Industry Recap: Most Companies Fail

A friend of mine texted me while watching last week’s episode of Industry: “It feels like the show is way less interested in financial deals and is now just about each character’s pathologies.” I couldn’t agree more. In my premiere recap, I said that the show’s tone has significantly darkened, both in a narrative and visual sense. This episode is another proof point that the high-wire glitz of previous seasons is no longer the show’s focus. Consider the Welsh hunting episode, “The Fool,” from last season, where the thing being lampooned was not so much our characters but rather the British custom of going on shoots. Even last season’s Berlin episode, “Kitchen Season” (arguably one of the best), where we finally got to see Harper face her brother, had moments of a sort of touristy point of view: the Hanani pied-à-terre, Berlin’s club scene, mentions of being “back on the continent.”

As a recapper, I must tell you that this episode follows Harper, Yasmin, Robert, and Eric as they go to a Davos-y ESG-focused conference. I will, of course, be detailing specific plot points. But what’s interesting about this episode isn’t the change in scenery but rather our characters’ continual development (or fumblings).

Yasmin is first up on the chopping block. This is a lighter episode for our embezzling heiress, full of vamping versus any solid development. Sir Muck invites Yasmin to attend the ESG fiesta in Switzerland. It’s frustrating to her because she’s not clear on why she’s being invited since Eric is representing Pierpoint and Robert is still a liaison to Lumi. Once Eric, Robert, and Yasmin board Muck’s private jet, it becomes clear that Muck is trying to claim Yasmin as his romantic interest. He’s not pursuing her so much as he is subsuming her, making her sit up front near him, letting people imply a relationship into existence.

On the plane is one of the smarmiest characters ever to grace Industry’s screen, which is saying something, as most of our characters are not exactly hypermoral types. Said character is a rich-kid DJ who is a friend of Muck’s. Rich-DJ-Kid insists he recognizes Yasmin. Of course he does! I’m sure they went to the same polo club or something, but Yasmin tries to shrug it off. This works on the jet ride over, not so much at the rich-people party Yasmin later finds herself at with Muck, where the Rich-DJ-Kid pegs her as the Hanani Heiress. (Are you still a heiress if you have nothing you are inheriting?) After insulting her and essentially slut shaming her, Rich-DJ-Kid really rankles Yasmin by asking, jokingly, if she killed her missing dad.

Later, Yasmin and Muck run into each other at the pool in the hotel where they’re staying. There’s some important new information that is divulged in their conversation, namely that Henry’s dad killed himself and that Henry also suffers from suicidal depression. But the primary thing that’s happening is Yasmin and Muck sizing each other up; Lumi is failing, which has humbled Muck enough to get him to engage in an honest, not side-ways, way with his desire for Yasmin. Yasmin seems to be genuinely weighing whether or not she wants to date what I can only describe as Charles Hanani Lite. The cherry on top of the scene is when Muck gets out of the pool, and we see that he’s been buck-naked under the water all along. I could do a close reading about this, something about his vulnerability and emotional nakedness, blah blah, but really, it’s just always funny to see an unexpected butt on screen.

Whatever happened in the pool seems to have worked, because the episode ends with Yasmin hooking up with Muck on his private jet back to London. This happens in relatively full view of Eric and Robert, which is puzzling to me. For someone who cares so much about what her boss thinks, Yasmin sure is completely fine with getting it on in his general vicinity. Couldn’t be me!

Moving on to Robert and Eric! I didn’t expect a buddy comedy during my sarcastic, sexy money show, but here we are. (Someone cast Harry Lawtey and Ken Leung in a movie as, I don’t know, unlikely wingmen or slapstick roommates. Thanks!) As I said, Robert is being taken to fake Davos because he is the Lumi guy, but Eric’s presence creates more court intrigue. Eric receives a call from Wilhelmina, a higher-up in Pierpoint who appeared to be golfing in the dark (??), asking if he’ll take Bill Adler’s spot speaking on a panel about ESG funds. Adler is taking “family time,” which feels very suspicious. Eric also seems to think it is suspicious — he doesn’t want to be the firm’s fall guy. But he also has an insatiable appetite for success, and it’s this ambition that drives him to say yes despite his initial reservations.

The financial “problem” of this episode is that Lumi’s IPO was saved, but Lumi continues to do poorly post-IPO. Rumors continue to swirl that the company was over-valued by Pierpoint, and the other ESG companies in Pierpoint’s IPO pipeline are starting to get spooked. Eric is supposed to deliver a convincing enough talk at this panel that the next ESG company in said pipeline — Europa Gas — doesn’t walk. Another crucial part of this delicate balancing act is timing when Pierpoint’s analyst — Frank Wade, played by a smoldering Joel Kim Booster — will publish his outlook on Lumi. If Frank publishes a report recommending “Buy” (i.e., investors should continue to buy Lumi stock), he’s implying Lumi still has Pierpoint’s backing and confidence, which should help stabilize Europa Gas’ nerves. But if Frank publishes a “Hold” (don’t buy or sell Lumi stock but wait and see) or “Sell” (get out quick! Lumi is about to blow!), these positions will spook Europa Gas, rendering Eric’s mission a failure.

Robert’s job is to essentially be Eric’s eyes and ears and find Frank at fake-Davos to try to get him to commit to publishing a “Buy” report. He does this by approaching Frank in the sauna, where Frank basically comes on to him. And … cut to black? I am certain that the show is implying Robert hooks up with Frank to get him to publish a favorable report, but I’m unclear as to why we had to have the fade out. Or I could be completely wrong, and maybe they didn’t hook up, though Frank and Robert’s later interactions don’t suggest that. Either way, I found myself puzzled and a little disappointed!

Maybe none of this matters because Robert’s exertions don’t do anything to keep Frank from publishing a “Hold” report in the middle of Eric’s panel. This causes everyone in the room to freak out (more on this later). Europa Gas pulls out, leaving Eric with an egg on his face. Eric nurses his wounded ego by sleeping with a prostitute, introducing himself as Robert. Robert is really getting the short end of the stick this episode, though I think Harry Lawtey is really doing a lovely job with Robert as the tragic fool. When he has to tell Eric he didn’t come back to the room because he didn’t want to interrupt Eric’s sex? Amazing stuff.

Now, onto the meatiest part of this episode: all things Harper. It’s a blast from the past to watch Harper Stern dance on a knife’s edge, making giant bids for power. We begin with Petra venting to Harper about the golden handcuffs Anna has her in — Anna and FutureDawn are trying to increase their control over Petra’s financial decisions, even as Petra claims it’s her investments that make up the lion share of FutureDawn’s profits. Maybe if Harper hadn’t already inserted herself between Anna and Petra, digging at the crumbling foundation, Petra would have simply continued to be a disgruntled employee. But no, Petra sees something like an equal in Harper, and together, they decide to go out on their own. They will start their own hedge fund and need seed money to do this. Where better to court cash than at ESG-Davos?

Reader, I crowed when I realized we would finally see Eric and Harper in the same room. Forget Henry Muck and Yasmin’s half-hearted will-they-won’t-they (because it’s been evident from the start, they will). I am excited by the destructive furor at the heart of Eric Tao and Harper Stern’s not-love affair. Some of the most emotionally affecting scenes of this show have been between these two characters (as always, hats off to Ken Leung and My’hala); think of all their smoke breaks where they level with each other, think of Eric’s face in the elevator on the way up to Harper’s firing.  I understand taking three episodes into the season to put Harper and Eric in the same room has kept the narrative tension taut and uncompromising. Still, I’m glad these two finally had to reckon with each other.

Before we can get there, Petra and Harper’s attempt to get funding is not going well. People are taking the piss, wasting their time, and Petra is a bad salesperson. She’s too much of a wonk, I think, to sell herself to these money types, no matter how good she may be at the actual financial job. It looks like all hope is lost, especially when Harper attends Eric’s talk and gets on the mic during the Q+A to announce that she’s part of a hedgefund spinning out of FutureDawn. That information is supposed to be a secret, and Anna is on the panel, effectively blowing up Harper and Petra’s spot. Harper goes on to essentially eviscerate Eric in front of the entire crowd, basically sacrificing the cautious launch of her and Petra’s fund at the altar of revenge.

Petra is, understandably, furious. After the talk, she packs up to leave until there’s a knock at the door. It’s Otto Mostyn, the shark-eyed capitalist lurking maliciously in the shallows this season. He liked what Harper had to say in the panel and moreover liked how ruthlessly she cut through the platitudinal bullshit surrounding ESG funds. He’s interested in providing Petra and Harper with the 300 million they need to start their fund. It’s undoubtedly a deus ex machina-type moment, but I don’t care; I loved it. I’m so happy to see Harper back in the financial game, relinquished from assistant-hood. Not to mention, one of the things about this show I have always liked is how badly Harper can behave and how that bad behavior is often rewarded, not punished.

Now that Harper and Petra have money for their fund, they need someone at a bank to help facilitate their buying and selling. And because Harper has a taste for the draconian, the bank she goes to first is her alma mater, Pierpoint. This results in Harper and Petra sitting down with a colossally hung-over, unprepared Eric, covered in glitter, fresh from his escapade with the prostitute. Not only is he nursing his wounds after Harper humiliated him on the panel stage, now he can’t bring himself to look her in the eye as she becomes the client he must service. On the one hand, it’s a delicious, Shakespearean comeuppance; Eric, who pushed Harper out of Pierpoint, is now forced to lick her boots as he stews in his own midlife crisis. On the other, in the same way I love when Yasmin and Harper are friends, I also love when Eric and Harper are good, so I feel a little sad. But Industry isn’t feel-good TV, and nothing drives that home more than the exquisitely discomfiting exchange where Harper forces Eric to look her in the eye.

Loose Change

• We get both a Gus shout-out and a Jesse Bloom shout-out in this episode. Gus is working for a venture capitalist in Palo Alto (really? He never seemed like an America type to me), and Jesse’s doing time in prison for insider trading. I loved that Otto called Jesse for a character reference on Harper — it felt like hearing about an old friend.

• RIP Lumi! You lasted all of four seconds!

• I haven’t written much about what happened on the boat because I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. I’m not super keen on Industry becoming Big Little Lies, and I was wary of going into trope territory by introducing a murder. At first glance, it feels like the only taboo the bankers haven’t broached: Harper’s committed insider trading, Robert’s had sex with someone old enough to be his mom, and Eric has backstabbed every which way, but no one has committed murder. Then I thought back to the first episode of the show, where Hari dies from overwork, essentially killed by Pierpoint. The treatment has been so smart, so against sentimentality, it’s easy to forget that the mystery of Charles Hanani’s whereabouts isn’t the first time the show has framed the games played in the financial world as life-or-death. If anything, it’s less a diversion and more a full-circle moment. That is to say, I think Charles Hanani is dead. I’m not sure if Yasmin killed him. Either way, I’m trusting the writers of Industry not to go full-blown melodrama over it, and so far, they’ve succeeded.

• My’hala and Harry Lawtey recently interviewed each other in Interview, discussing how Lawtey did his own hair this season. I feel vindicated by this as my notes for this episode are continually punctuated with “Robert hair,” “Better Robert hair??” and “What’s up with Robert’s hair!” He doesn’t look like someone suffering from early male pattern baldness this season. It just looks … softer and nicer. Good job Harry!

• Leviathan is a silly name for a hedge fund, sorry.