What to Remember for Season 3

Photo: Nick Strasburg/HBO

You don’t have to know much about the world of finance to understand that it is inherently dramatic. It’s win or fail, crash or prosper, live or die. It’s an arena, and traders are the gladiators. That’s why Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s Industry opened a store in London’s business capital in 2020, and follows young graduates as they enroll at prestigious investment bank Pierpoint. Much of the drama takes place on the trading floor, where characters bark jargon at each other to nail-biting effect, setting up high-stakes trades worth millions of pounds. It’s frantic, terrifying and unbelievable to watch. You won’t understand a single word you say.

All this competition requires risky moves that can change someone’s fortunes in an instant. In season two, no one felt this more than Harper, who spent eight episodes trying to curry favor with tech billionaire Jesse Bloom, only to get screwed when he entangled her in his live-TV insider trading scheme. Yasmin’s story arc in season two saw her attempt to cozy up to a more powerful figure, but it backfired in her face. And a word for poor Danny Van Deventer, aka DVD, who seemed like a genuinely nice guy, but still ended up with a dagger in his back.

While some fell, others rose. After being demoted to the drudgery of Pierpoint’s client relations department, Eric rose to the top, using a threat to expose Pierpoint’s culture of indifference around sexual abuse to force a return to the trading floor. Oh, and chef’s kiss for Gus, perhaps the only character involved with Bloom who didn’t get fucked, though he did spend a good deal of time fucking Bloom’s son. Robert’s season was more of a mixed bag thanks to his increasingly weird dynamic with Nicole, a wealthy client who sexually exploited him and used him as her broker in return—which, given the size of her trading, gave him a pretty hefty position on the trading floor.

Just as the financial landscape is shaped by economic, technological, and political trends, the value of our coke-sucking, horny ensemble is determined not just by what they do, but also by what happens to them. So who’s flying high heading into Sunday night’s season three premiere, and who’s holding a toxic asset? Let’s weigh in on where IndustryThe show’s key players — and some of its key side bets — are on the trading floor following the events of season two.

Gus discussed almost everything Industry Season two. He moved into politics and got a new job in a constituency office for a soft Tory MP; he also got a new twink, who ‘tutored’ Jesse’s son Leo at Oxford. He lost his job in the constituency office after he let slip to his MP that he had leaked privileged government information that Bloom was using to his advantage, but he didn’t care, because Bloom gave him a new job – and £35,000 in cash. The last shot we see of Gus is of him reclining in Bloom’s private jet, surveying the city lights below with a satisfied grin. Good for her! To the moon, baby. Sadly, Gus’s exit at the end of the season leaves him without a role to play in season three… but that just means his stock will remain high, right?

If we were to measure Eric’s worth by the entire season, he would be lower on this list, but the man is enjoying the fact that he has become a partner at Pierpoint – and he is back on the recently merged trading floor as everyone’s boss. It’s a far cry from earlier in season two, when he literally couldn’t sleep from stress and then had to endure the emasculating humiliation of being sent to Pierpoint’s retirement home (read: customer relations). Oh, and after Harper outdid him during the Bloom saga, he had her fired for using the fake college degree she used on her Pierpoint application. No doubt part of it was out of his protective instinct for her — Harper had “unknowingly” engaged in insider trading with Bloom, so in Eric’s thought process maybe he was keeping her out of jail. Still, could anyone begrudge him a little Schadenfreude? Yeah, he’s on a roll, but Eric has this strange ability to get screwed, so keep that in mind going into the new season.

It would be fair to say that Jesse won the whole damn season, both by shorting pharmaceutical firm FastAide and winning a long piece with rival firm Rican with huge financial rewards. Which he of course orchestrated during an appearance on CNN in which he resurrected the British government’s investigation into Amazon’s acquisition of FastAide in an interview. He taught Harper a thing or two along the way, his son got into Oxford, and he’s still one of the most powerful financiers in the world. But with all that said, it’s unlikely he’ll be appearing in season three – especially not with Kit Harington stepping into this season’s financial catalyst/antagonist role.

Nicole is inside Industry not only to show the corrupting power that money can have on a person’s soul, but also how sexual predators in positions of power so often get away with it. Nicole got away with it a lot in season two, not only in her sickening exploitation of Robert’s desire to make a name for himself – not to mention his obvious mother issues – but her attacks on Venetia and Harper are also ignored by Pierpoint. Her position in this ranking doesn’t reflect a moral judgment on her character, since she’s clearly a terrible person, poverty-to-riches or not – but to ignore the power she wields would be to miss the point.

Ah, Mr. Mommy Issues himself. Season two for Robert was essentially the story of his Oedipal relationship with Nicole, who saw him as a cute young toy to play with/fuck. He remained deeply anxious, neurotic, and strangely sexy throughout; we also got to meet his innkeeper father, who didn’t seem like the type to return phone calls, give hugs, or do anything else that would betray even an ounce of affection. So, you know, you really feel for Robert. Can he escape Nicole’s iron grip on his crotch, both figuratively and literally? We’ll see in season three. Until then, he’s holding out—but don’t write off a major spike in the near future just yet, as long as he stays off the gears.

Rishi played a more active role in season two after becoming something of a fan favorite, probably because he’s been making the most blasphemous, dark zingers Down and Kay can think of. He got married in season two, before having sex with Harper in a pub toilet, which may or may not get him in trouble. Harper also let him walk out of a deal with Bloom midway through the season, and he reluctantly joined forces with Harper and Eric — and later DVD — to collectively sell themselves to a rival bank with Pierpoint on the verge of massive strategic layoffs. That did rather training, but he did get the last laugh when he kept his job at Pierpoint instead of her. The more Rishi in season three, the better.

Yasmin was probably too cruel to Kenny in season two — yes, he was a drunken asshole to her in season one, but he also deeply regretted it after becoming a teetotaler. On the other hand, he was was just a little tragic and embarrassing. A little too paternal without the warm self-awareness. He was and probably will remain just a little…meh. Decent money says he will remain in the background, because he is both a very unattractive person and generally quite harmless. He is the kind of asset your money manager would put in a stable, boring portfolio for small, steady gains.

After acquiring (read: stalking) tech billionaire Jesse Bloom—who made a huge chunk of his money during COVID from entirely ethical healthcare investments—Harper used their relationship as leverage to climb Pierpoint’s slippery slope. It turns out (unsurprisingly) that Bloom was playing her the whole time, but the real blow came at the end of the finale, when a rehabilitated Eric framed her to HR for faking the college degree she never got on her Pierpoint application. But there’s no chance that Harper will go down for good; she’s demonstrated a deft cunning too often that will undoubtedly see her through season three. Will she return to the Pierpoint fold? It makes one wonder if she’ll even want to.

Yasmin spent much of Season 2 negotiating a move from the FX department to Celeste Pacquet (Katrine de Candole) in Pierpoint’s upper-tier private wealth division, which involved a lot of wine dinners with beautiful Europeans. Once under Celeste’s wing, she tried to convince her father to bring his firm to Pierpoint, but he turned out to be something of an old fuckboy, so she cut him off. Unfortunately, Celeste — with whom Yasmin had been having an affair after a long “will they, won’t they” — told Yasmin that she was only worth anything to her father’s portfolio, sending Yasmin back to the trading floor. Oh, and her dad cut her out of their joint account and changed the locks on their house, so she’s also broke. That couldn’t have happened to a nicer fake baby! If the general logic is to “buy low, sell high,” then Yasmin is a pretty good stock to own right now. But if there’s one more thing we know about Yasmin, it’s that she… unbelievable resilient, so expect a rebound in the new season.

DVD essentially took over the trading floor from Eric in season two; although he didn’t get an official promotion, he was the most senior trader on the floor and became the de facto manager of the CPS desk. He and Harper had a bit of a thing going and it seemed like his stock was going up, but then came the finale where he got stabbed in the back and got one of Pierpoint’s very involuntary firings. I didn’t like him much anyway. See you later!