(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Mixing personal and professional lives is a signature of Industry. In the cutthroat world of investment banking, any relationship can become transactional. Nothing is off limits—the friend who will help bury a body might also stab you in the back. The truth about what went down on the Lady Yasmin luxury yacht, coupled with a present-day betrayal, offers another chapter in the ongoing saga of Yasmin (Marisa Abela) and Harper’s (Myhal’a) best frenemy chronicles, and it doesn’t disappoint.
The desire to find out what happened on the party boat—and Charles Hanani’s (Adam Levy) subsequent disappearance in the face of criminal charges—have made Yasmin a tabloid target. Well, it turns out that Yasmin wasn’t entirely joking last week, telling Robert (Harry Lawtey) that she killed her father. But it also isn’t that simple. During an argument, Yas wished her dad would die. That then becomes a reality when Charles calls her bluff and jumps into the sea.
Flashbacks to this ill-fated voyage show a debauched nightmare, with Charles behaving in all his sleazy glory. The abject horror of witnessing Yasmin’s father’s sexual antics is matched by feeling his boner through his pajamas during his apology hug. Charles sinks low, calling his daughter “a f—ing whore” and “spectacularly talentless” (Yasmin’s “I speak seven f—ing languages” response is very Betty Draper-coded). Remember these insults: Someone will repeat the choice sentiments before the episode is over.
With loud music blasting from the deck below, no one hears Charles yelling to stop the boat. “F—ing help me!” he repeats at a frozen Yasmin. By the time she grabs the lifebelt, Charles has disappeared from view. Cut to Harper finding Yasmin in her cabin in a state of (understandable) shock.
Harper snaps straight into “taking care of it” mode. No matter what has previously transpired, Harper is the woman you want by your side in a crisis. Whether or not Yasmin could be charged with anything is unclear, but not telling the captain about the man overboard is a big no-no. Yas needs a pal like Harper who can come up with an alibi unprompted. Well, at least until a professional time bomb explodes in their faces.
Learning that Pierpoint is monumentally screwed is something Harper wants to exploit without revealing she overheard Yasmin and Sweetpea (Miriam Petche) talking in the bathroom. While Yasmin deals with swirling guilt and grief after her father’s body is found, Harper tells Petra (Sarah Goldberg) the rumors about an investment bank juggling losses from no-longer-hot ESG companies and loans that need repaying. To cover her tracks, Harper suggests former-employer Pierpoint should be last.
Harper and Yas should be entered in TV’s Toxic BFFs Hall of Fame. Harper doesn’t want Yas entangled in the Pierpoint-destroying plan, but Petra has zero qualms. First, Petra tells her partner, “Friendship and contempt are just two sides of the same coin,” before observing that Yas is “comically s–t at her job” (harsh but fair).
Later, when Harper learns that Petra has arranged a meeting with Yas (who Petra calls “the least inquisitive salesperson in the Northern Hemisphere”), their fundamental philosophical differences reveal potential cracks. Harper goes full Gen Z, saying she wants to be “more vulnerable” with each other. Petra is nauseated by this prospect, opting for the “not here to make friends” reality competition approach: “We are colleagues. Yasmin is your former colleague.”
Boundaries are fundamental for Petra, something Yas attempts with her boss Eric (Ken Leung). Over a blue steak lunch in which he sinks multiple martinis, Yas stops Eric before he finishes his clumsy pass and calls him out for this pathetic attempt. After she has left, Eric has the saddest wank in the men’s room, proving her point.
Back at the office, if Eric could see beyond his ego, he might’ve stopped the trainwreck meeting in which Yas effectively gives Petra and Harper the means to take down Pierpoint. Instead, Eric blows up at Yas when he realizes what she has done. Then he confronts his former protege, Harper, calling her a “little f—ing c–t.” Eric observes that everyone is collateral to Harper, including “the only girl stupid enough to call you a friend.” All things considered, attempting moral superiority is a bit rich.
Calm and collected, Harper explains she is enacting Eric’s philosophy that people are a means to an end. It then gets deeply personal, with Harper delivering a knockout blow, bringing up to him how his family has fallen apart.
These words of war are simply the warm-up act as Eric calls Yas to tell her not to come to work tomorrow or any day after that because of the list she gave Harper and Petra. “Your friend f—ed you,” says Eric. Part of this is pressure from higher-ups due to the tabloid attention on Yas (including someone leaking Charles’ autopsy photos on Reddit), but this parting sentiment reeks of “if Eric can’t have Yas romantically, then neither can Harper platonically.”
Industry continues to hit phenomenal heights not only due to its confidence in pushing the story forward but how it reflects back on events from previous seasons. Take the bitter fight between Harper and Yas at the end of this episode, tapping into their deepest insecurities and darkest secrets. It is a sequel to their epic arguments from Season 1 that went equally as hard before they made up in the second season finale.
Back then, Yas said to Harper, “You play broken really well, but to be honest, you’re just a bit of a c–t, aren’t you?” Harper has previously thrown Yas’ privilege at her, which happens again here. Yasmin doesn’t recognize Harper as the girl on the boat who protected and loved her: “You revel in my disgrace. You revel in other people’s pain. It f—ing nourishes you.” Never has therapy-speak about narcissism and inferiority complexes been this riveting, with Abela and Myha’la landing every single gut-punch observation to underscore their bumpy history.
Harper echoes Yas’ father when she says that Yas swings between being a sex object and a victim at her convenience. “You are talentless and useless and a f—ing whore,” Harper says. If your jaw isn’t on the floor, then we must be watching different shows. They trade slaps (Yas hits first) before the episode closes with happier times. Sure, Yas was trying to keep it together after her dad’s swan dive, but never will this duo be as close as making bad taste jokes and pouring one out for Charles.
As Harper rubs Yasmin’s back, it feels like the two of them are against the world. But, like Pierpoint, the trauma-bonded friends are destined for disaster.
The post ‘Industry’ Shocker: Did Yasmin Really Kill Her Father?! appeared first on The Daily Beast.
