MIndustry's creators and writers, Icky Down and Conrad Kaye, are in a dangerous but privileged position. Their show, about young Londoners working on the cutthroat ends of the financial sector, has become a sleeper hit. With the arrival of Season 3, the industry has taken its place as more and more people speak that one language. The spotlight burns.
Fortunately, that comeback episode suggests this is the moment Down and Kaye had been planning all along. The industry will return enhanced and sharpened with all the things that make it great. Google it and you'll be in more of a hurry than ever before.
The main characters now live together in a beautiful and chic townhouse, but they can never have fun because everyone is constantly in danger of work. It's like this life without a cozy home. The head of the Stress League is an heiress named Yas (Marisa Abela) whose career in investment banking cannot escape the shadow of her evil plutocrat father. When she arrives at the Pierpoint trading floor on her big day, an article about Yas's family pops up on her annoying colleague's screen via MailOnline's shaming sidebar.
Today is important because tomorrow is Lumi's IPO. Lumi is a green energy startup from the unique mind of the wonderfully named Henry Mack (Kit Harington). His surname is a symbol of some kind of privilege, giving people the confidence to play with billions. It's a unit of pounds, and it's a far cry from the ultimate example of the kind of pseudo-vision that modern high finance inexplicably worships.
“I found myself deep asleep under my desk,” Mack said in an interview with a deadpan Amol Rajan (playing himself). In it, Mac tries to come across as a down-to-earth entertainer. “That's me trying to be humorous. That could be cut, but it didn't really land.”
The rich man's futile quest to be interesting and likable is one of a thousand modern observations that the industry gets right, but for Pierpoint's younger generation, the market has made it clear that Lumi is no basket case. Persuading people is serious business. Eric (Ken Leon), Yas's boss and the sensitive working class conscience of the show's Rob (Harry Lortie), has a new senior management role to uphold, and he has to fire someone to protect the team. There is an order from above to slim down and a dangerous man. Stock prices go up.
These are the necessary conditions for disruption, and the industry is not shying away. Whether it's a sudden death or a night of impromptu cocaine-induced confessions in a half-dressed lawyer's office, the big events that should have been saved for the season finale are burnt out in the first episode. Everything becomes heated in the end. burning.
But none of it feels unnecessary. This show highlights the absurdity of people playing high stakes games that are impossible to understand. Because, somewhere, someone with more money than you is constantly tweaking the rules. This is what made the industry temporarily difficult for new entrants in the past. But the fact that personal relationships and personal weaknesses matter is all clear by now, especially if you zoom in far enough. A phone call or well-managed discussion here can mean professional life or death, as everyone is reeling in complex secrets and hidden alliances. Eric's final choice about who to fire cannot be predicted until it becomes inevitable.
Meanwhile, Industry continues to nail the big story beats as well as the details. The scene where Yasu is called to a meeting with Mook and finds the purported innovator in funky green shirtless at the Piccadilly gentlemen's club Five Courts is quite hilarious, but by the end of episode two , Yasu encounters the toxic men within her. Life has become very shocking.
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Unveiling the whims of the super-rich is one way the industry is post-succession show. Another lighthearted pleasure these two series have in common is the writers' command of cultural flotsam and how people interact in the digital age. We meet up again with Harper (Myhara), who has a new job at an ethical investment firm. You have to press pause to read the text she just received (“My Mubi account is about to expire and it’s still expired”) “I haven’t seen your decision to leave yet – Are you thinking?”) and saw her respond with a photo of herself with her hand down her pants.
It's pretty tame by industry standards, but it's earned the right to be the wildest drama on television, and it doesn't miss that opportunity. “What's my cortisol level?” Anna's boss says as Anna's position with Rumi becomes ashes. “You always feel like there's a shooter in the building.” Industry thrives on that danger.
