HBO’s industry stars in their must-see third season

IPerhaps it was inevitable that the cast of Industry they would meet on a yacht. The show, which follows a group of Gen Z bankers working in the City, London’s Wall Street, focuses as much on its characters taking designer drugs in Berlin clubs or having sex in the office as it does on making high-stakes deals. Which means they party hard – and this season, they do it on a ship off the coast of Mallorca. The fact that this crucial scene was filmed in the Mediterranean and not in a huge bathtub in the show’s usual studio in the damp and cloudy city of Cardiff, Wales, is one of the many signs that Industry is gaining shine. “Mallorca was a nice change of scenery,” jokes star Marisa Abela in a video call.

In the opening scene of the third season, which premieres on HBO on August 11, Abela’s character, Yasmin, leans over the railing of the Mrs Yasmin, named in his honor by his father, a publishing magnate. She takes a drag on her cigarette between sips of champagne. When she turns around, her face is covered in tears. A curious person takes a photo, which will end up in the tabloids, reminiscent of paparazzi photos of Princess Diana or Amy Winehouse, the latter played by Abela in a biopic this year. One might be tempted to say, “Poor little rich girl,” if we hadn’t spent two seasons watching her relationship with her father deteriorate.

Yasmin’s American friend Harper (Myha’la), adorned with tattoos and designer sunglasses, tells her dryly but not without compassion: “You have to stop crying.” It’s a brief moment, but one that the show will return to in repeated flashbacks. Because unlike previous seasons, this one focuses on a mystery. Yasmin’s father, who is a criminal, disappeared. Its last known location: this yacht.

See more information: Industry Creators at the end of season 2

HBO is finally giving the show the coveted Sunday night time slot previously held by Succession It is The Game of Thrones, and cast last series star Kit Harington as a series regular, its most high-profile addition. The show’s relatively low cost, compared to prestige dramas filled with expensive celebrities and CGI dragons, was a selling point for the network. Producers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, who previously worked in finance, were green and cheap, as were much of the young cast.

The cable network desperately needs an Emmy-worthy series that will garner attention afterward Succession closed last year, especially with Euphoria It is The White Lotus not returning until 2025. Industry borrows elements from all of these programs: like Succession, takes pleasure in skewering the ultra-rich; as Euphoria, is full of sex and drugs, and despite having both in abundance, its Gen Z characters have the bleakest outlooks; and like White Lotus, this season plays out like a whodunit.

Despite a dedicated online fandom and critical acclaim, Industry never enjoyed the robust viewership of these other HBO darlings. But that can be attributed, at least in part, to HBO’s refusal to highlight it as a prestige offering. It has a reputation for being a Gen Z-focused show, although the writing and performances are on par with other series from prestige brands. Can the network position it now, with 16 episodes to go, to attract older viewers looking to watch on Sunday nights?

“When I first read the Season 1 script, I said, ‘This is what would happen if Euphoria It is Succession had a baby.’ I just want everyone to know that I said it first,” Myha’la said in the same call. “It’s sex and drugs in a world of money. I’m not mad at that comparison at all.”

If SuccessionLogan Roy was an elderly man at the height of his powers, the youngest and most diverse group of bankers in Industry they are Roy’s aspirants. It’s scary to watch them in their infancy in this relentless life cycle. For now, they defend the ideals of youth, even if they don’t always practice them. That tension is central to season three, in which Harington’s Sir Henry Muck—an old fool with a hilariously accurate name who is a perpetual disappointment to his family—enlists the bank to help launch a green energy company. The series takes aim at the hypocrisy of corporations who pay lip service to the idea of ​​going green but will go to bed with oil if there is enough money at stake.

It’s also taking a darker turn. As Industry expands its scope outside the trading floor and into the corridors of power – involving government officials, media moguls and members of the British landed gentry – the stakes are more than just money. We begin to see how these would-be powerful actors can cause irreparable harm to the world. “The concerns of the first season were: ‘What does everyone think of me?’” says Abela about Yasmin and her group. “They overcame that fear, but now they have adult problems. The problems are existential.”

Industry has matured as a show as it has narrowed its focus within its broad cast. In the first season, Industry accompanied bankers from different backgrounds. There was Gus (David Jonsson), the well-connected black gay Oxford graduate; Robert (Harry Lawtey), a middle-class white man who strives for good looks but can’t dress like his generationally rich co-workers; Yasmin, the multilingual British Lebanese heiress who, besides her charm, is useless at her job; and Harper, the black American outsider with no connections but unbridled determination and flexible morals. The show explores the ingrained class system in England and the racial dynamics at a national bank, giving these people the same goal and observing how they employ various despicable means to obtain the prize.

Analysis: Industry Season 3 is a devastating destruction of socially conscious capitalism

In seasons 2 and 3, the show focuses on Yasmin and Harper, best friends. Harper’s particular brand of American ambition comes up against Yasmin’s crutches of privilege and wealth. Yasmin’s job insecurities are exacerbated by Harper’s talents. They will undermine each other at the office and then share a bottle of wine the same night in the apartment they share.

“The things they love about each other are also the things they resent,” says Myha’la. “Harper thinks that Yasmin comes from money and uses her feminine wiles to her advantage. These are things that Harper doesn’t have or can’t use. Yasmin [thinks] Harper is smart. She is complicated. Harper maneuvers in ways that Yasmin cannot.” Abela interjects: “They fundamentally speak different languages. They are both quite selfish people who will never put each other first.”

This selfishness is what makes them so interesting. Both experience a range of bad behavior at work: sexism, racism, harassment. A lesser spectacle would position them as victims. But both women leverage these same bad experiences to get ahead – or else inflict this behavior on the women who come after them. The series is more interested in how toxicity can infiltrate an institution than in telling a story of overcoming hardship.

This also makes the characters increasingly complex as the series progresses. “For Yasmin, there are moments when the vulnerable young woman shines. But she has a lot more armor now, and that’s a side effect of being in an industry where, if you’re not fierce, no one will take you seriously,” says Abela. “She also refuses to learn to be a better person.”

From the jump, both Myha’la and Abela helped shape their characters. Harper was initially written as anxious. Myha’la says the producers were “adamant about bringing as much of me as I could.” This included being open about their limitations: “They said, ‘We’re not Black American women. We can’t write your experience,’” she recalls. “If I’m Harper, I’m entering a space where I’m trying to impress people. I won’t let them know that I’m not confident in my abilities. This to me is being a Black American 101.”

Harper suppressing her emotions also allowed Myha’la, who has since Industry debuted also starred in films Bodies Bodies Bodies It is Leave the world behind, to demonstrate your acting skills. “Coming out super confident also gave me a place to go,” she says. “Deciding when the cracks will appear was very important.”

Meanwhile, Yasmin gained a love interest in the first season: Robert, the banker born to working-class parents. The heiress was initially written to be shy at work and excited when taking orders from Robert in the bedroom, but this didn’t get through to Abela. “If she looks like a deer in the headlights of the trading floor, someone will hold her hand,” she says. “But the place where she can really display power is sexually. It would be a very bitter pill to swallow to let a clumsy guy take the lead in the bedroom.

Yasmin’s multi-season arc of teasing Robert not just with sex but also with wealth and status has become one of the show’s hallmarks. The relationship allowed writers to explore whether romances can truly cross class lines in a country where the divide between old money and new money is especially stark. This question becomes central in season three, when Harington’s spoiled Henry expresses interest in Yasmin.

This season, Harper and Yasmin deal with some serious daddy issues, literally and metaphorically. Yasmin despises her father for having affairs, but depends on him financially. Her disappearance – and the revelation of her theft – left her penniless and the target of the relentless paparazzi. Henry’s family owns one of these tabloids and a strategic alliance could protect Yasmin from scrutiny.

Harper, in turn, targets a father figure for revenge, his former mentor Eric (the great Ken Leung). Eric groomed Harper to be his replacement. But after mutual betrayal, she finds herself at risk of needing to return to New York, where a buried secret threatens to change her new life in London. Now that she is standing in a new position, she is obsessed with taking him down. “Cheating is serious business,” says Myha’la.

There are echoes in both stories of Successionis Shiv Roy, a highly competent woman who, despite espousing liberal ideals, wants nothing more than to please her money-loving father. Like Shiv, these women compromise in their quest for power. But Shiv’s safety was never in doubt, even if she didn’t become CEO of her father’s company. Harper has no safety net. Her only security is cash. And, for the first time in her life, Yasmin begins to feel vulnerable without her father. This gives this season a new sense of dramatic tension.

Those who care about the show’s salacious aspects may find depth in this desperate struggle to survive in the world of finance. And this season, for those who are surprised to hear a glossary of financial terms, there’s the police officer. If the show finally captures the audience it deserves, it will be allowed to expand its scope in Season 4. The Season 3 finale teases the potential to harpoon Silicon Valley startups, a Murdoch-like media empire, and America’s brutal billionaires. “Where Season 3 ends,” says Abela, “was definitely not in Yasmin’s Season 1 vision board.”