The fact that we’re basically on the cusp of global economic armageddon makes this perplexingly thrilling show even more edge-of-your-seat. Industry — the Gen Z financial drama, set in a fictional investment bank in The City — takes us right to the beating heart of British capitalism. And while the characters are fictional (and the drugs and sex probably a bit overstated) the financial situations that Harper, Yasmin et al find themselves in are, if not real, then real-adjacent.
Take, for instance, Jesse Bloom, a new character for season two played by Jay Duplass. He’s a high profile American investor who, we’re told, made billions during Covid after giving an interview to CNBC predicting a crash in the market, which caused stock prices to fall. He bought the stocks up cheap during the slump and made a fortune. It’s a story so close to that of a real-life hedge fund manager that HBO’s lawyer had the writers tweak the script. By all accounts, a global recession is looming, and if there’s any show that’ll give us an insight into why, it’s this one.
