HBO’s smash hit “Industry” returns for its third season on Sunday, replete with coke-fueled ragers, an afflicted embezzler heiress, “corporate girlie” influencers and “woke” investing.
The British-American series follows a group of fledglings-turned-financiers at Pierpoint & Co., a fictional London-based investment bank, as they juggle life, love, survival and late capitalism.
Created by ex-bankers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, the cult-favorite series has slowly garnered critical acclaim for its gripping on-screen examination of power, institutions and identity. The show — dubbed “the first great Gen Z workplace drama” — is poised to capture the attention of audiences still grieving the loss of “Succession,” per Variety. A masterclass in storytelling, with Season 3, “Industry” may finally clinch a long-overdue Emmy nomination.
“Expanding the world of these characters was sort of the mandate for the writer’s room at the very start,” Down said in a news conference. “In Season 2, as the characters grew and got a bit more responsibility, we could raise the stakes a bit. By the time we got to Season 3, we wanted to show how Pierpoint and banking fit into a wider sort of industrial complex.”
The talented cast is helmed by Myha’la as infamous antiheroine Harper Stern, a Black American banker from upstate New York who is determined to succeed by any means necessary. Thanks to her boss and saboteur Eric Tao (Ken Leung), Harper’s scheming results in a painful ousting from Pierpoint in the Season 2 finale. She leaves behind two colleagues from her cohort: frenemy and nepo baby Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) and working-class boy toy Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey).
“Industry” Season 1 chronicled the graduates’ initiation into Pierpoint, as audiences watched a class of young traders endure the ritualistic hazing of corporate Britain. With the Canary Wharf finance world as a backdrop, the underlying racial and class tensions color the interactions between employees and influence characters’ respective behaviors in a manner that doesn’t feel didactic.
“Every time we go into writing a scene, there are tiny little calibrations, which we always think about in terms of who wields power in the scene,” Kay said. “That’s got a lot to do with their background, where they come from. We sort of think, scene by scene, what would actually happen in a corporate setting between these two people in terms of what they want from each other, what they can give each other.”
The sophomore season of “Industry” was emblematic of a coming of age; the series found its stride, and within Pierpoint, so did the characters. In Season 2, Harper, Yasmin and Robert are confronted with the realities and choices of institutionalization: conform, rebel or exit.
“Do you want to operate within a system and be successful?” Pierpoint wealth manager Celeste Pacquet (Katrine De Candole) succinctly asked Yasmin last season. “Or do you want to dream you can change it, and be left behind?”
Season 3 of “Industry” continues to unpack these themes — blurred boundaries, murky relationships and abusive power dynamics — but at the forefront, it grapples with where these characters derive validation. Eric, Harper, Yasmin and office mainstay Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia) are all conduits to explore identity and self-worth. How each of them respond is uniquely different.
“The show is interested in how people have a fixed identity, but then the trading floor — and this is something we know from our experience — forces them to perform an identity as well,” Kay said, referencing Rishi as a good example. “The gap between those two things is kind of where the interest in the characters lies. Does it matter whether the workplace made me like this, or whether I am actually, naturally like this? And is that even an important question?”
Radia, who was upped to series regular, shines this season. He wrestles with his demons: money, masculinity and marriage. A brash fan-favorite market maker on the Cross Product Sales desk, Rishi is known for his lewd, sardonic commentary on the trading floor. During the press conference, Radia was asked how he portrays a character so starkly different from himself.
“When you’re researching a character and trying to put together a character, it’s not that difficult when there’s an influx of information, whether it’s films, reading up on finance books and things like that,” Radia said. “On top of the fact that, in London, especially in the finance sector, there’s a big South Asian diaspora that is present. I’ve got friends who work in that industry. I’ve got family who work in that industry. It was a bit easier than I thought it was going to be.”
In Season 3, Pierpoint makes a play for environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, colloquially known and villainized by right-wingers as “woke capitalism.” The bank is managing the IPO process for a renewable energy company called Lumi, founded by entrepreneur and CEO Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington). It’s all hands on deck to take Lumi public, and as Eric ascends within Pierpoint, he is determined to demonstrate his capability and reject any quietly held notions of being a “diversity hire.”
Under Eric’s leadership, this IPO cannot be a bust, and Yasmin is desperate to prove her worth to him in Harper’s absence. Yasmin, marred by scandal brought by her father and discarded by Celeste, no longer works in Global Wealth Management, and is on the trading floor, seated right next to Harper’s ex-boss.
Meanwhile, Robert is out leading deals and babysitting a very volatile, classist Muck, subconsciously yearning for praise from Yasmin and the boss man while poorly tending to his mommy issues. Speaking of parental wounds, Harper is free from the clutches of Eric and Pierpoint, but not entirely liberated.
“When we find her in Season 3, of course, this could feel like the lowest of the low for her,” Myha’la said of her character. “She’s keeping a diary and forwarding calls. That is not what she’s meant to be doing, and she doesn’t want to do that, but that’s her ticket to stay in London. That’s always been the thing — I want to stay here in this world. This is where my life is, and I’m staying — so happy for her, for that.”
Now, Harper is a desk assistant at an ethical impact investment fund, that of a former Pierpoint client. She is eager to return to the cutthroat, fast-paced trading lifestyle, so Harper insists on finagling her way to what she wants with the help of a new colleague, Petra Koenig (Sarah Goldberg). However, according to Myha’la, she may depart from her Machiavellian ways and wonder, do the ends always justify the means?
“Harper’s going to ask this morality question of herself for the first time maybe, and see if it’s possible for her to function in this industry and this world in a way that’s different, that’s not so isolating, that’s not so sneaky,” Myha’la said. “She’s asking herself questions for the first time: Do I have to be this way? Does it have to be this way? That was new, which was absolutely exciting to explore what that feels like in her body.”
Be it the relentless pursuit of power and money — or her adamant refusal to go home — what motivates Harper and her ex-colleagues is tested this time around. The chipper graduates we met in Season 1 are bright-eyed no more.
“Industry” Season 3 sheds light on the aftermath of institutionalization, what happens once you’ve made your choice, and whether these characters sink or swim.
Season 3 of “Industry” premieres Sunday on HBO and airs weekly. HuffPost will be blogging this season of the show, so follow our coverage each week.
