Industry (2020)
So, basically, I gave into the hype I saw for this show but I haven’t found anyone who has actually watched it and I want to talk about it. I have no choice but to let my thoughts be known in this post. This show is a lot. I think the only other time I have been treated to a death in the first episode to really kick the story into hyperdrive is with Downton Abbey or a murder mystery, of course.
There was little mystery around Hari’s death to our core cast of characters. The pressures of his early career in investment banking meant that Hari was regularly popping pills and working late into the night. What felt like a slow build-up to an inevitable tragic ending for Hari, was shockingly cut short in little time. This was a brutal introduction to a show that is determined to not let its viewer take a breath.
Harper, Yasmin, Robert, Gus and Hari are recent graduates who are working at an investment bank called Pierpoint on a trial basis. All of them are trying way too hard, whether that be backstabbing their competitors or failing to establish any work-life balance, our young characters cover every unhealthy employee habit.
This show is high anxiety and rich with second-hand embarrassment. Every young character makes various rookie mistakes. Harper Stern, played by Myha'la Herrold, becomes Industry’s closest answer to the lead character as the story unfolds.
She is under the most pressure to perform as her stakes are the highest. Harper is an American import and her future career and visa are reliant on her status at the company. Yet, her ego and deceptive nature often risk her reputation at the company. Harper is always speaking out of turn in meetings, with varying results. She also stupidly confesses to receiving a bonus that is double that of anyone in her cohort. She is under the constant surveillance of her maniacal boss, Eric Tao. Eric is brought to us with an impressive performance by Ken Leung.
But there’s more intrigue to be had with our ensemble cast. Robert uses his excessive lifestyle to gain favour with his former high flying boss. This fails to gain him any praise with his boss, but instead, he’s told to pull his head in and save the big nights for entertaining clients. It’s not uncommon for Robert to ruffle the feathers of many of his Pierpoint colleagues. He also establishes tense love-hate relationships with both our main women characters, Yasmin and Harper.
Marisa Abela plays Yasmin Kara-Hanani, an overachiever born into wealth, who speaks fluent Spanish, and Arabic, in amongst her many skills. She’s in a tired relationship and finds herself drawn into a deeply sexual power play with Robert. Like Harper, Yasmin is trapped in a stressful relationship with her line manager at Pierpoint, Kenny Kilbane, performed by Conor MacNeill. Kenny is an outrageously inappropriate manager who doesn’t hesitate to insult Yasmin for her privileged background and to taunt her for her lack of responsibility within the company.
David Jonsson plays Gus Sackey, perhaps the show’s most enigmatic young character. He is engaged in a secret affair with one of the other employees, who refuses to publicly come out as gay. Gus was also privy to a top tier education, like Yasmin, and he has been friends with Robert since Oxford. Each character seems to have their own motivation to prove themselves at the company, but Gus seems above it all.
In the concluding episode of the show, each character is forced to stand in front of a panel of Pierpoint’s most important business managers. They call it a RIF speech, but it seems more like an interrogation. Most of our characters stumble in the room, but Gus simply enters the room, says a sentence he was dared to say for a 1000 quid and leaves. This is a triumphant but puzzling exit from the company. We are led to believe that working for Pierpoint is crucial to these characters' future success in their careers in a highly competitive industry. Gus simply says “fuck this” and bails, but where does he go? That was my main point of interest after finishing this series.
I also found that this show thrust you into the convoluted world of investment banking with little preparation. I was left confused by the constant throwing out of jargon and I know that many of the happenings of the show were above my head. It’s an HBO show, so this meant that my moments of utter confusion were intercut with many scenes of heavy drug use, tits making appearances, and even some surprising cock cameos. It seems that modern shows need to truly push the envelope to capture our attention.
The writers were also constantly torturing me with their character development. I’m still uncertain who the true villains of this show were, perhaps they all were. Even our young characters were particularly cavalier about Hari’s death. The women were often faced with uncomfortable to downright illegal confrontations with their male bosses. It seems at Pierpoint not a day goes by without someone threatening a colleague, or turning up to work smelling like a brewery. How do they get any work done at this supposedly successful company?
I did like that the hedonistic storylines and the British youth gave this show the same feel as the celebrated teen drama Skins (2007-2013). There is literally an episode of Skins, called Skins: Fire, in which a beloved character works as a stockbroker and gets involved in insider-trading. Industry really leans into the most extreme excesses of the finance industry. At one point, Robert’s nose starts bleeding during his RIF interview and is later called out for being a coke addict. This show is wall to wall drama and viewing all eight episodes left me feeling thrilled and exhausted in equal measure.
If I do have a complaint, it's that at times Industry feels brought down with its own self-seriousness. There are moments of humour, mainly through the show's more shocking plot developments. Harper often has some truly cutting one-liners. For example, in a bafflingly insensitive move, a coworker pretends to pass out while our characters are gathered together and inhaling lines of cocaine. After the relief of realising it was only a prank, Harper says to this dickhead, “No one here knows you like that.” The cutting delivery of this line had me laughing out loud. These comedic moments could have been sprinkled more throughout the plot. We mostly saw constant stress be inflicted on our characters, and I needed more moments of comic relief.
Also, at one point the show introduces a couple of women who were clearly very queer coded, but they weren’t given any substantial air time on the show, which I found to be a shame. Industry is more interested in constantly chopping and changing and taking its viewers to unexpected places rather than lingering on any one moment. This show is not in any way a relaxing escapist romp.
I guess if there is a point to Industry, it’s that the demands of capitalism bring out the villain in all of us. We are made to empathise with the characters, particularly Harper, only to be shocked by their truly cruel actions in the same episode.
With all that being said, I was impressed enough that I would tune in to the second season. At least in season two, many of the characters have been given permanent contracts, meaning that the viewer won’t be left in a constant state of anxiety as our characters make potentially fatal mistakes with their jobs on the line.
You can catch Industry on Neon in New Zealand, that is if you still want to watch it after I spilt the beans on the whole thing.
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