The third season of Industry— the HBO drama that follows the chaotic and cut-throat lives of a group of financiers working at the fictional bank, Pierpoint & Co.—is a season of television that will go down with the greats.
In the extended finale episode, which aired Sunday night, Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) announced her surprise engagement to Lord-in-waiting Henry Muck (Kit Harington), breaking the hearts of fans everywhere who hoped she would ride off into the sunset with soft-boi banker Rob Spearing (Harry Lawtey.) Pierpoint’s London operation collapsed, leaving ruthless boss Eric Tao (Ken Leung) as “yesterday’s man,” with his protege Harper Stern (Myha’la) becoming Forbes magazine’s face of the future. And Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia)? I’m still processing that scene. Whew.
The show’s third season has been operating on a whole other level. The script has become noticeably sharper, and the show seems more confident about what it really wants to say. The quality of the writing and performances has drawn inevitable comparisons with Succession.
On the surface, this seems a little lazy. (And the show’s co-creator, Konrad Kay, recently shared an article arguing just that.) Although these shows are both made by HBO and are ostensibly about wealth, they are quite different. Industry dissects the British class system, specifically, and how parental trauma influences people from a variety of backgrounds, whereas I see Succession as more of a case study in one very messed up family, as an allegory for how power operates in American society as a whole. But there is some truth to the comparisons, mostly because both shows have drastically moved the “eat the rich!” canon forward, into a much more challenging place.
Art that attempts to skewer the elite often contains a “trouble in paradise” motif. The film Triangle of Sadness, for example, portrays a luxury cruise that goes horribly wrong, leaving the guests and the crew stranded together. Here, the dynamics flip: The (mostly useless) wealthy guests become dependent on the more savvy crew for their survival. (It’s sort of like Below Deck meets Lord of the Flies.) In Netflix whodunnit Knives Out, there was a similar dynamic shift. At the start of the movie, the Thrombey family argue amongst themselves their deep political divisions and personal resentments. But when Harlan Thrombey—the family’s patriarch and best-selling crime novelist—leaves his fortune to his nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), they immediately put their surface-level differences aside and unite against her.
Season 1 of The White Lotus had a similar “us vs. them” dynamic. It focused on strained relations between the wealthy guests and the staff at a palatial Hawaiian resort. In heartbreaking fashion, hotel masseuse Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) had her dreams crushed by Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), a neurotic millionaire who cruelly reneged on her promise to fund her own massage studio. Then there was Kai (Kekoa Scott), a (beautiful) Hawaiian hotel porter who was convinced to steal an expensive necklace out of a safe. (The theft ended up going horribly wrong and he was arrested.) Finally, hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett), met his death after a long-running beef with spoiled overgrown frat bro, Shane (Jake Lacy).
Season 2, this time set in Sicily, was a little more challenging. We saw Tanya’s husband trying to scam her out of her fortune with the help of a group of evil “high end gays.” In the finale, Tanya blew them all to smithereens with a gun, before falling to her death off the side of a luxury yacht. In other words, it was rich-on-rich crime.
If Industry really is the “successor to Succession,” as has been claimed, it’s because both shows portray how wealthy people f— each other up, too, even as they tread over the “little people.” Succession might have kicked off with Roman (Kieran Culkin) ripping up a check for $1 million in front of a poor family, but really, the Roy family are their own worst enemy. Most of the show is taken up by the siblings trying to win their terrifying father’s approval. They are either screwing each other over to get closer to Logan (Brian Cox), or being screwed over by him. The show even ends with Shiv (Sarah Snook) depriving Kendall (Jeremy Strong) of the job of CEO, in no small part because she couldn’t bear to give him what he wanted.
Industry goes deep on generational trauma, too. Most of the characters are dealing with a parental figure who has abandoned them, or let them down. Yasmin and Henry both bond over having fathers who have “ruined” their lives, while Rishi and Eric are doing a good job of doing that to their own children. In Episode 6, Eric tells Yasmin that he is probably a worse father than his own, continuing the cycle for another generation.
Industry also portrays the elite as living quite precariously. After Yasmin’s publishing magnate father, Charles, disappears amid a decades-long sexual abuse and embezzlement scandal, he leaves her with nothing but debts and a now-toxic last name. Before this, she had lived a relatively comfortable life, but suddenly she is fighting for survival in the elite. As for Harper, she might end the season on a high, but at the start, she’s working as an assistant after being unceremoniously fired by Pierpoint in the Season 2 finale. A character like Henry—an old-money aristocrat whose obscene wealth shields him from any consequences for his actions—seems to exist to highlight that, even among the wealthy, there are “untouchables” and then others who can still lose it all.
This distinction reminds me of a scene from the second season of Succession. Here, “Cousin” Greg (Nicholas Braun) frets about possibly being written out of his uncle’s $250 million fortune, but takes solace that another relative will leave him $5 million. “You can’t do anything with five, Greg. Five’s a nightmare,” says Conor (Alan Ruck). “Can’t retire, not worth it to work. Oh yes, five will drive you un poco loco.”
Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), the only person in the inner circle who wasn’t born into wealth, also scoffs at the idea. He tells Greg he’ll be the “poorest rich person in America, the world’s tallest dwarf.” In the penultimate episode of Succession, after Logan’s death, it’s revealed that he spent exactly that much—$5 million—on a mausoleum to entomb his body. It’s pocket change for them.
In Industry, Rishi falls into the “poor rich person” category. At the start of the season, he has a big country house, a posh wife, and a flashy car. But we soon learn that, beneath his showy lifestyle, he’s deep in debt because of an out-of-control gambling addiction. In the finale, it all catches up with him. He loses everything—his job, the house, his wife—and ends the season as a broken (and broke) man.
He is the exception that proves the rule, though, because most of Industry’s characters land on their feet: Eric’s time at Pierpoint might be over, but he leaves the company $20 million richer. Plucky newbie Sweetpea got a job with Harper, who finally lived up to her potential. After a brief downturn, Yasmin married her way into the 0.01 percent, and even Rob—the show’s resident “sad boy”—was given the chance to start a new life in California. It’s a representation of the fact that, once you’re in these circles, it’s probably quite difficult to crash and burn completely.
What people really mean when they compare Industry and Succession is that the qualities of these shows makes them feel a certain way. They deliver gasp-worthy TV moments, while also capturing the subtler brutalities of money, love, and power. These shows don’t merely scream “eat the rich,” they reveal how the rich eat themselves.
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