‘Industry’ Season 3 Review: A wickedly entertaining cocktail of business and pleasure

A still from Season 3 of HBO’s ‘Industry’ Photo credit: HBO

HBO’s ongoing prestige drama, which just wrapped its third season, is hard to describe. Although it has compared to HBO’s other shows that once occupied its prime airing slot — legacy And Excitement – the industry Lacks a clearly defined overarching theme that others have. However, it’s much easier for fans of the series to describe what the show makes them feel. Fast-paced, captivating, and always threatening to pull the rug out from under its characters — in its third season, the industry It seems to have finally settled into its own unique groove that makes it one of the best shows of 2024.

Initially set on the trading floor of a top, fictional, London investment bank — Pierpoint — the industry Follows the professional and personal lives of young professionals working there. In its first season, the main characters were still fresh graduates, giving showrunners Mickey Down and Conrad Kay an easy way to make the show sensational by introducing these newbies to the horrors of the profession. the industryIts sophomore season garnered much critical and popular acclaim, while Down and Kay brought back a more cohesive show. Its latest season has similarly garnered attention for its sharp, yet dramatic, writing that delivers a delicious overload of drama in every episode.

Miha’la returns as Harper Stern, fresh off the previous season’s firing and finding herself holding down a mundane desk job as an assistant, while her former mentor Eric Tao (Ken Leung) gets a promotion at Pierpoint. Marisa Abela has been given a wide berth this season to play the doomed heiress, Yasmin Kara-Hanani, who has the eyes of the world on her as a scandal unfolds surrounding her father — who is conspicuously absent from the current timeline. Meanwhile, Robert Spearing (Harry Lotte) is faced with the task of deciding whether or not to join this cut-throat industry, compulsively down on his luck.

A still from Season 3 of HBO’s ‘Industry’ Photo credit: HBO

Over the next eight episodes this season, Down and Kay write these characters into their worst nightmares while their best dreams come true. It feels like an ever-changing graph of extreme ups and downs — not unlike what Pierpoint employees stare at all day. If it’s the financial jargon that turns you away from this show, you’ll be relieved to know that even the actors shouting across the floor aren’t aware of the business sense. A constant in this heart is the end the industryIts ever-changing motivation.

The audience does not need to understand the economic implications to understand the play, it only needs to understand the immediate emotional turmoil the character is experiencing. The feeling of being groped by a trained person strikes with the same intensity regardless of whether you understand the intricate techniques of how it was executed. It’s largely in part writing skills combined with partner’s acting chops – both go back to focusing on the most basic human emotions.

Maiha’la and Kane’s understanding of Harper and Eric constantly inspires and sabotages each other’s next moves that exist beyond what happens at Pierpoint. Similarly, the stories of Yasmin and Robert seek a professional future beyond Pierpoint, but find themselves constrained by their personal demons. For characters living in a selfish world the industryThere is no ‘happily ever after’ in sight.

A still from Season 3 of HBO’s ‘Industry’ Photo credit: HBO

the industry Yet there remains a show that eludes a clear definition. For it to be called a family drama its characters are unrelated and they betray each other so that it is characterized as ‘friends coming-of-age in London’. The lines between professional and personal are also somewhat blurred to define what constitutes a workplace drama. Down and Kay, themselves new entrants to the TV business, come from backgrounds in investment banking jobs that they both quit. In their pursuit, writing the industryIt seems to prove just how unhelpful this particular act is with humanity at the heart of their characters. There’s no moral preaching to drive home this point, just characters coming back again and again to make bad moral choices for our viewing pleasure.

What’s remarkable this time around is that the actors and showrunners have taken stock of the past two seasons to settle in more comfortably this time around. Down and Kay pull off the show to strike a healthy balance between an immersive experience for the audience without overloading it with unnecessary details. Instead of following multiple desks at Pierpoint, the show narrows its focus to one. At the same time, the showrunners manage to bring in a new cast Game of Thrones‘ Kit Harrington plays an eccentric old-money CEO, and barrySarah Goldberg as Petra Koenig who teams up with Harper to start a new firm. At Pierpoint, new graduates step onto the trading floor with Miriam Petch as Sweetpea, a fresh Gen-Z worker.

the industry achieved its highest viewership ever and expanded its fan base, which was reflected in a finale that went out with a bang. There is no mercy for when the industry character, it ends up translating into a bountiful experience for the audience. With the show already renewed for a fourth season, it seems foolish not to be bullish the industryFor high returns on your viewing experience.

Industry is available for streaming on JioCinema