Industry Recap: Selling Worthless Positions

Industry
Useful Idiot
Season 3 Episode 7
Editor’s Rating ★★★★★
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Years ago, a writing instructor told me writers should avoid party scenes. They’re often chaotic, introduce too many characters, and, in general, are very, very hard to do well. That’s why I’ve always taken Industry’s party scenes as proof of the show’s excellence. Some of my favorite episodes are party episodes: Seb’s failed sushi dinner party, the Christmas party where Greg ran into the doors, and Harper and Yasmin in the club in Berlin. In Industry, parties are opportunities to showcase subterranean tensions alongside ludicrous set pieces. “Useful Idiot” is no exception, though no one is at the actual party in this episode.

It’s Pierpoint’s 150th birthday, and the traders are supposed to be celebrating. But no one is celebratory because Pierpoint’s share price has plummeted. The end is nigh. The bell is tolling, etc etc. Eric is telling Rishi (who has a broken arm and Vinay breathing down his neck) to sell everything he can and make money wherever possible. The light on the floor is flickering and hellish, like a real-life version of Robert’s hallucinatory trip. 

The mood is even grimmer on the 13th floor, where Eric and Bill Adler are summoned for a summit on how to save Pierpoint. It’s a curious scene. As a viewer, I’m so used to seeing last-ditch hail-Mary attempts to save this or that thing, and usually, I am meant to care if the thing is saved. (Westeros from frozen zombies, the known world from an alien who got rid of half the population by snapping.) In this case, I do not care if Pierpoint lives or dies. Instead, I’m watching these scenes for pure drama. I want to see building tension and release. I want to see Eric shake off his sticky midlife mess. I want to see the ruthless, wide-grinned man from season one who out-maneuvered Daria to return in the final moment.

And at first, Eric sort of waffles. He’s confused about why he’s at the illustrious table, as is the new Pierpoint CEO, Tom. Eric is a bit of an ingenue, blinking in the bright lights as the head honchos of Pierpoint look for someone, anyone, to infuse the bank with enough cash that it doesn’t completely unravel.  Their first stop is, of course, the government. It’s an American bank, so they call the assistant secretary to the U.S. treasury, who is hilariously wheezing away on the phone, flatly rejecting Pierpoint’s pleas. Thank goodness — I just remembered that I do care if a big bank survives or fails if it means the little guy (a.k.a. us) has to pay for a government bailout of said bank.

As the group moves on to other possible sources of cash, Bill Adler pitches his big idea. He’s been warming up a relationship with Mitsubishi and wants to bring the Japanese bank in to solve Pierpoint’s problems. There’s a manic glint in his eye, and it’s clear that Adler sees this move as his way to the top. To me, it sounds like the ravings of a very ill man, which is deeply sad. 

Maybe Eric has been so lackluster and gross all season because there wasn’t anyone exciting enough to knife in the back. In the conference room, watching Adler and Wilhelmina battle over their succession in the bank, something starts to flicker back to life in Eric. He’s assessing the room, seeing what cards he could play. This horrible moment in the bank’s history could be just the opportunity for him to launch his career forward. But who will he screw over? Wilhelmina or Adler? 

When a Barclays acquisition backed by Wilhelmina falls through, it looks like Adler’s suggestion of bringing the Japanese in is the only viable option. Before they arrive, Eric meets Bill in the bathroom to review the proposal deck, which has a discrepancy that Eric notices. He chooses to say nothing about the deck — Nature is healing, Eric is being underhanded for his own gain again. When Mitsubishi is at the table, Eric throws Adler under the bus, apologizing for the inaccuracy on page 12. It’s not something that could throw the deal itself off, but it’s enough to throw Adler out of his game. Eric gaslights Adler into thinking that they talked about this in the bathroom, which causes Adler to unravel, confessing his brain tumor at the table. Of course, the Mitsubishi deal falls through, but more importantly, as Bill is sent home to convalesce, Eric twists the knife, dropping the act. This elicited a complex set of feelings in me. On the one hand, I’m happy to see Eric stop messing around with his incestuous psycho-sexual drama with Yasmin and turn his attention to more grown-up matters at hand. On the other, I think he may have just killed Bill Adler, which, uh, does not say great things for his personal growth. 

No matter! Eric has a backup plan to save Pierpoint, which involves calling up Ali, the Arabic-speaking trader plopped unceremoniously on his desk this season. He turns out to have ties to the Egyptian royal family. In a graceful series of moves, Eric maneuvers a deal where Ali’s family floods Pierpoint with cash for a controlling stake in the bank. It’s not lost on me that Eric’s idea was simply Bill Adler’s idea, just dressed up in a different kind of sovereignty. That is to say, it’s not that Eric won because he had a better idea, but because he was more willing to play dirty than Adler was. Am I happy for him? I don’t know. 

Braided into this storyline of Pierpoint’s possible failing is Rishi struggling to survive by essentially selling himself out to Harper, saying he’ll act as her mole on the inside to help time when she sells and buys back the Pierpoint stock she’s hoping to short. There’s also a storyline of Harper being chewed out by Petra when Petra finds out how Harper actually got the information necessary to short Pierpoint, i.e., illegally. I must confess these two storylines felt like mere threads to me, which indicates just how un-Harper focused this season has been. We’re in the penultimate episode, and Harper is a blip who barely gets her comeuppance. I don’t even care about what’s happening with her! I am sad because I want to see more of Myha’la, but I am not sad because this episode’s second half is about Rob and Yasmin.

Where to even begin with these two. At first brush, it seemed like a case of garden variety workplace horniness, but over the course of three seasons, these characters and their will-they-won’t-they-mostly-won’t-they have developed a complex, cynical tragedy. Robert never seems to feel man enough to make a move on Yasmin. Yasmin can’t see Robert as a viable romantic option because he isn’t deeply awful to her. Not to mention the giant chasm of class that separates the two of them and the way they see the world. 

Yasmin, unemployed, is blindsided by yet more horrible news. Though Hanani Publishing is willing to take care of all of the damages caused by her father’s embezzlement, they want Yasmin to be the public fall person for Charles’ inappropriate (dare I say abusive) relationship with women who he paid off across his lifetime. Sins of the father, sins of the daughter, etc etc. Ought Yasmin take their urging and accept culpability for her family? While I am in favor of Yasmin facing the music and growing up, this seems cruel to me. She isn’t Charles. In fact, she is a victim of Charles. Even after she “killed” him, he seems to keep on winning. 

To take Yasmin’s mind off of the new clusterfuck, Robert invites Yasmin along with him to Wales, where he is interviewing for a job as the finance guy for a hallucinogen startup. That passing moment two episodes ago where Henry said someone should monetize tripping — well, Robert seems to have taken that to heart. While the two are on their road trip, Yas gets a call from Maxim, who you may remember from last season as her sometimes-fuck-buddy/family friend who handles the Hanani family assets. Hi Maxim! Maxim is calling from a retreat in San Francisco (??) to tell Yasmin he somehow knows about the blackmail ploy the Hanani Publishing people are pulling, and he wants to give her leverage: Hanani Publishing was in on Charles’ payouts to the women. Yas could potentially blackmail Hanani Publishing into covering her father’s embezzlement damages if she were willing to throw the women Charles/Hanani Publishing paid off under the proverbial bus. 

Before Yas can do anything with this information, she and Rob get to their destination, a quaint little bed and breakfast. I am reminded of season two Yas, who sneered at staying in a Marriott; oh, how times have changed! After checking in, they get a bite to eat, or rather, Robert gets a battered sausage for them to share, which he declares perfect. Oh, Robert! Your definition of perfect is not Yasmin’s definition of perfect! She needs Michelin stars and luxury oozing out of every pore; you are a humble man happy to eat carby meat on a nice night. It’s never going to work.

Yasmin gets coy with Robert and says there will be no room hopping, to which Robert calls her on her weird sexual mind game. For once, Yasmin gets honest with him, saying that her first instinct with love is to make it ugly as quickly as possible. I mean, yeah, I get it. Your dad weaponized intimacy. Of course, you want to transform love into something despicable. It’s what Yasmin knows best, and what she imagines keeps her safe. 

When the pair share a clandestine kiss in the hallway between their rooms and no room swapping indeed occurs, the lack of sex between them is somehow the most intimate, romantic thing. But Yasmin ruins it all by taking way too many mushroom pills and cutting her hand open, requiring Rob to come in and clean up her mess as she moans about wanting to be a good person. Yasmin! WHY! ARE! YOU! LIKE! THIS!!!

The next morning, Yasmin decides not to take the high road. She will throw those women under the bus if it means her hide is saved. I am disappointed by this decision. Sure, Yasmin might not be popular if she takes the face of the Hanani Publishing scandal, but how many people are aware of the publishing house scandals? Surely her money would have insulated her from any real harm? Rob, on the other hand, kind of gets the job and kind of doesn’t. The University associated with the psilocybin startup has put the kibosh on funding, which sounds like it might be bad news but instead means Rob now has a job looking for funding from venture capitalists. The two of them in the car is a study in opposites. Yasmin has firmly mired herself in her father’s mess, engaging in the sort of selfish tactics that he might have. Robert, on the other hand, has found something to lift him out of Pierpoint and into another life. I can’t imagine these two will end up together.

Loose Change

• Shout out to the Pierpoint bathrooms. Seriously, these stalls have seen nearly all of the vital drama of this show, from Hari’s death in season one to Harper and Yasmin’s small power struggles. I like the way they are used by the series, such as de facto confessionals, a place where the traders are stripped down under harsh LED lighting. 

• I must confess I was afraid when I learned Yas and Robert were going on a road trip. There have been so many allusions made to Princess Diana this season when it comes to Yas and her being hounded by the paparazzi (for example, her charity day costume); once she and Rob got in their car, I felt sure they were both going to die in a horrible pap-driven accident. I am happy to report that this was merely a case of me looking way too far into the subtext. 

• In EXTREMELY important news, Industry was renewed for a fourth season! I was beginning to think this was the final season based on how these character storylines were shaping up, so I am surprised. My face is the surprised Pikachu meme. I can’t believe I read this so wrong!

• While I, too, found the check-out girl at the bed and breakfast annoying, Yasmin was so condescending and awful to her. I suppose it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she decided to do the un-feminist thing with HP.