Spoiler alert: this recap is published after episode two of Industry season two airs on BBC One in the UK. Do not read on if you haven’t watched it.
Our economy may be in a worse state than it was a week ago, but episode two of Industry picks up right where the premiere left off – with Harper on the scent of a deal with Mr Covid, Jesse Bloom, leaving Eric in the lurch at a breakfast meeting with an important client.
“It’s a shame, because I prefer the two of you together,” Felim, the fund manager, sighs of the evident rift between Eric and his drifting mentee; and, thinking back to their electric interactions in season one, I can’t help but feel the same.
Harper’s decision to skip the buffet to show face with Bloom demonstrates that she is prepared to defy Eric – although whether it’s to find “an anchor” at Pierpoint before rumoured redundancies, or to jump ship altogether, remains to be seen.
Bloom has cottoned on to this capricious quality, too, steering her to keep it above-board – but settles on the side of being impressed by her risk-taking and initiative.
By the episode’s end, Harper’s gamble has paid off as she reels in a deal big enough to knock Felim down the queue. “Who taught you to fish?” Bloom says, ringing off.
With Harper’s stock high, no wonder the New York office’s envoy Danny Van Deventer is taking an interest – as denoted by the strictly professional “u up?” texts at 2am. (Don’t mistake her response for intimacy, warns Harper.) But even with her pick of potential father figures, she only has eyes for “@pogdaddy911”, who claims not to be the person she is looking for.
Not to say that it all comes down to daddy issues on this show (Rob is at least open to cultivating some mummy ones), but an unannounced and unwelcome drop-in from Yasmin’s father does go some way to explaining why she is the way she is.
Given his long history of inattention and despite his obvious awfulness, you can see Yasmin almost succumbing to his charm: as drawn to him as she is repelled.
She is, after all, her father’s daughter: delivering on the sexual but impersonal relationship with Maxim that her father claimed to have had “priced into [their] relationship” since she was a child. By the end of this episode, she is at least making it work for her, bringing her father’s money to the office.
Factor in her self-absorbed artist mother’s memorable appearances in season one, and it’s a helpful insight into a character who can be the hardest to root for – as Celeste recognises, too.
Everyone’s just jealous, she tells Yasmin over macarons in her office, and Yas is happy to believe her – or rather, to have that “crystallised”.
Given Yas’ closest connections at home and at work, it is easy to see why she might be drawn to someone seeming to show a genuine interest; but her response – making a pass at a client in a misguided effort to impress Celeste – highlights how inexperienced she is, unable to tell provocations from solicitations.
Yas might speak three languages in this episode alone, but that doesn’t mean she is worldly – as we suspect Celeste might have known all along, rewarding her protege’s participation in her “interesting experiment” with her silver shoes. But it’s hard to say whether either is motivated by business or pleasure.
Sweet Bobby, meanwhile, is rapidly gaining confidence having been taken under the wing of Pierpoint’s “characterful” client Nicole. As he confides in her: “My mum always used to say to me: ‘If there’s still going to be an upper class in this country, then you’re going to be a part of it.’”
Robert does his best to keep Nicole on businesslike ground, declining wine with dinner and steering the conversation to deals. But the commonalities between them – as working-class “success stories”, seen to be succeeding in defiance of their backgrounds – are hard to ignore and lead to a certain, ah, rapport that is quickly, uncomfortably monetised.
After all, as Celeste says, some of her most personal working relationships bear the most fruit. But it’s striking how often, when the young Pierpoint analysts strive to keep work and pleasure separate, their seniors seek to lead them into temptation.
Closing up
Harper concludes the episode on a career-making high, having landed the kind of deal that minutes earlier Rishi and Eric were scoffing about as a unicorn – and one that she owns alone.
But Yas, too, has recovered some self-possession, informing her pompous boss Hilary of her move to the “frothy”, feminised, client-facing (or client-flirting) side of the business. It’s all just unlikable people moving other people’s money around, she tells him – “so let’s just lean into it, shall we?”
Older, wiser Harper likewise knows now to savour the win without taking the next for granted, learning from Bloom that it is “all just a cycle of victory and defeat”.
It seems both women have new clarity about Pierpoint and their colleagues that may make it harder for them to be used as pawns. Given their cross-the-floor, over-the-floor rapprochement, they may even team up. Everyone needs an ally at work – even if a friend is too much to hope for.
Closing down
Eric was right to reprimand Harper (as he stresses: a third-year analyst) for taking a gamble with Felim, but in freezing her out and smacking down Danny, he is forcing his two disgruntled mentees into an alliance that could have real repercussions for his future.
As Eric said earlier in the episode: “People are just knots of fear. We loosen them, we win.” Sitting out Harper’s standing ovation at the end of the episode, he seems more tightly wound than ever.
Adding insult to injury, Rishi and his other colleagues have been keeping detailed tabs on his trips to the gents: “His diet must be very fibrous.” Working from home did have its advantages …
Most impenetrable City speak
Rishi: “This morning, I am horny for flow.” This is within minutes of Yasmin having just told Celeste of her experience with “flow-slash-execution stuff” (sounds “delicious”, says Celeste over those macarons). Is this a yoga thing?
Best burn
Maxim, reading a little post-coital Chavs: “This Owen Jones is surprisingly readable, for a socialist.” (Contacted for right of reply, our Owen told me that it was a career high.)
Boldest power play
Yas’s boss Hilary has immortalised himself in bronze as a gift for his wife. Happy birthday, darling!
Lowest ebb
It is a testament to the desultory sex in Industry that Rob’s backseat, new-suit handjob isn’t necessarily the most bleak, with Gus’s racialised run-in with a “skinny white boy from Kensington” giving him a run for his money. But my heart went out to Nicole’s presumably longsuffering chauffeur, facing a short walk round the block – and a long night of the soul.
Industry season two is on BBC One in the UK, HBO Max in the US and Binge in Australia.
