You don’t have to be a fan of HBO’s Industry – though you should, as it’s easily one of the best shows of the decade – to know that there’s something going on between Eric Tao (Ken Leung), a cutthroat salesman at the fictional Pierpoint & Company investment bank in London, and Harper Stern (Myha’la), his equally shark-like protege.
Pick any scene featuring the pair from the first two seasons of the high-pressure financial drama, and you can detect something charged: shifty glances, dilated pupils, a cannily choreographed awareness of where the other is at all times. The background chatter of the show, now in its third season and finally picking up fans in HBO’s Sunday primetime slot, has been peppered with side comments about what’s going on with those two. “I need you to know,” says Harper defensively to a new manager early in the second season, “that he and I do not have the kind of relationship that people are saying we have.”
