Industry Season 3 Review: HBO's Finance Drama Is the Best It's Ever Been

Late in Industry's third season, Robert (Harry Lawtey), the series' most forlorn figure, makes a pitch to potential investors. "I'm just here to give you an opportunity," he says, a rare genuine smile on his face. "Join us on the ground floor of what is going to be a spectacular journey. Mark my words." Such a line serves two purposes at once: It's a character-solidifying moment for a newly confident Robert, as well as a wink to the loyal fans who have stuck by HBO's perpetually under-the-radar British-American finance drama since its first season. Industry has made a habit of getting better with each season, but "spectacular" is indeed the best word to describe its frenetic, fascinating, and self-assured third season. If Season 1 was about a group of ambitious young people clawing their way into full-time jobs and Season 2 saw them trying to keep those jobs by any means necessary, Season 3 finds them settled in their roles and trying to carve out space for themselves. These new episodes (there are eight in total, all of which were screened for critics) are proof that the series, which has historically been spoken of as a de facto younger sibling to shows like Succession, Euphoria, and Skins, has fully come into its own.

Industry blew everything up in the final moments of the Season 2 finale, when the power hungry Harper (Myha'la) was unceremoniously fired from Pierpoint & Co. by Eric (Ken Leung), her mentor/adversary/father figure, who revealed the truth about her phony college degree to punish her after she got in too deep with corrupt hedge fund manager Jesse Bloom (Jay Duplass). "I'm doing this for you," he promised her moments before disaster struck, but the stunned look on her face said everything about how Harper interpreted it: betrayal of the highest order from someone she cared about. There's a case to be made that Eric really was doing it for her, rescuing her from potential prison time for the insider trading she'd committed earlier in the season. When Season 3 opens, they're both still feeling the reverberations from their separation.

Harper has finagled her way into a new job at a greenwashed American investment firm, and quickly catches the interest of a new mentor, Petra (Sarah Goldberg, a pitch-perfect new addition to the mix). Eric, under pressure after being made partner and unmoored in the wake of his marriage falling apart, is trying to force connections with the spoiled and embattled Yasmin (Marisa Abela) and Robert in a transparent effort to replace Harper. Industry knows that relationship is its strongest asset, and it knows it's found something electric in Myha'la and Leung's chemistry. Though the most glaring weakness of the season is the decision to keep Eric and Harper apart for most of it, the tension between them ratchets up even higher when they do re-enter each other's orbits, allowing for a fascinating shift in their dynamic. As Harper's motivations become darker than they've ever been, you can see how much she's learned from Eric in the way she carries herself, and how easily she volleys his own teachings back at him. One of the things this season does so successfully is hammer home that everything those two characters do, every move they make, is informed by the fact that they're no longer on the trading floor together.

9.0

Industry

at Max

Like

• The writing is sharper than ever
• The ensemble is on fire
• Kit Harington and Sarah Goldberg are perfect fits

Dislike

• Eric and Harper are kept apart for too long
• Yasmin isn't always the most compelling main character

Very much on the trading floor this season are Yasmin and Robert, whose already complicated dynamic is complicated even further by the new addition of Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington, obviously having a ball), the CEO of the green energy tech start-up Lumi. Robert works on Lumi's IPO while Yasmin — who spends the season simultaneously embroiled in a headline-making scandal caused by her father, the traumatic details of which are revealed via increasingly tantalizing flashbacks — falls into a messy relationship with Henry. Yasmin gets the main character treatment this season, and while some of her dialogue about the way her father has hurt her relationships with men feels unusually on the nose, Abela sells it by effortlessly channeling Yasmin's unwieldy rage.

Class and power disparities have always colored Robert and Yasmin's interactions, and it's fascinating to have such a literal manifestation of them in the form of the ridiculous rich boy Henry. But Industry's writers are careful to ensure that none of these relationships exist in a vacuum. The specter of Harper looms over every interaction between Eric and Yasmin; an explosive argument between Harper and Yasmin in the back half of the season is as much about Robert as it is about all the ways they've let each other down. The show's careful mapping of the characters' dynamics makes them hit harder when you realize how inextricable these broken people have become in each other's lives, how deeply their actions and perceptions of themselves and their own success relies on each other, and they're in no rush to get untangled.

Industry's most admirable quality is that it never disrespects its audience enough to assume that they need anything spelled out for them. It's not overly concerned with making sure you're keeping up with the fast-paced, inside-baseball quality of the financial jargon, but it injects each scene with enough emotion to keep it coherent to outsiders. Sprawling scenes on Pierpoint's trading floor are treated with the weight of heart-pounding action sequences, brought to thrilling life through a combination of sharp writing, clever editing, and dialed-in performances. It's a bold approach that has given each season the busily lived-in feel of a real workplace. You can catch some of the most interesting dialogue when you turn on subtitles and pay attention to what's happening in the background of a scene. It's the kind of thing that makes Season 3's standout fourth episode, centering on a few days in the life of Pierpoint's brash trader Rishi (Sagar Radia), feel earned: So much of Rishi's character has been built through those out-of-focus asides that by the time we finally see the details of the tragically Uncut Gems-esque existence he leads in private, it feels less like the creators getting pushed into giving a fan favorite a one-off spotlight and more like due time for a guy who's spend the past two seasons floating around the edges of the action.

Without spoiling too much (Industry is the increasingly rare television show that follows a weekly release schedule, and it's incredibly well suited for it), the Season 3 finale wraps things up so precisely and satisfyingly that it leaves you wondering whether co-creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay planned it as a series finale. A fourth season has not yet been confirmed, and while there's certainly enough story to leave the door open for more, it would be so fitting to get out right when the show (potentially) blows up. Maybe that would be the ultimate reward for those who were on the ground floor of the spectacular journey that is Industry.

Premieres: Sunday, Aug. 11 at 9/8c on HBO and Max
Who's in it: Myha'la, Marisa Abela, Ken Leung, Harry Lawtey, Sagar Radia, Kit Harington, Sarah Goldberg
Who's behind it: Mickey Down and Konrad Kay
For fans of: Industry Seasons 1 and 2
How many episodes we watched: 8 of 8