Harper blows up everything on Industry

You know things are going to get wild whenever Industry takes trips away from Pierpoint’s London offices. Remember Rob’s visit to the Netherlands? Yas and Harper’s trip to Berlin? Or how about that hunting trip in Wales? To say they all upped the tension in their given episodes is an understatement. So when I saw we were headed to Bern, I was thrilled. This Swiss town is hosting a conference roundly focused on green investments, with clean energy and socially-responsible financial decisions taking center stage. Think of it as Davos for the green dollar—or, as one character puts it when describing Lumi and the kind of funds that alight on Bern, “the poster child for a new kind of capitalism.”

But can capitalism really make room for such socially-conscious minds? Is this an economy that, as Eric (Ken Leung) flippantly puts it during a key panel, can make the “maximum amount of money and the maximum amount of good”? Answers vary among the Bern crowd, which include both green dollar evangelicals—like Anna Gearing (Elena Saurel)—and those slightly more cynical about the entire enterprise— like Anna’s portfolio manager, Petra (Sarah Goldberg). The two once-close friends arrive in Bern with decidedly different agendas: After all, the fallout from Petra hedging FutureDawn Partners’ investment in Lumi has left them at odds with one another. As her lawyer informs her at the start of the episode, Anna is leveraging a rather vindictive contract offer to keep Petra in check. (She’s included, among other things, a “philosophy clause” to keep her from going behind her back and investing in gas and oil, say, but also some strict stipulations about her agency and her profit making.) It’s all enough for Petra to yell “FUCKING CUNT!” and then catch herself.

As she steadies herself, she and Harper (Myha’la) all but decide to go on their own. Maybe they can travel to Bern and woo some of Anna’s investors away from her? It’s the kind of gamble that’s high risk but high reward—or namely, what Harper knows how to do best. All they need is $300 million dollars to get started and get ahead in the game.

Meanwhile, Anna is hoping her panel with Lumi founder Henry (Kit Harington) and Eric (who’s been tasked with that gig last minute) is enough to turn around the energy company’s disastrous public IPO rollout. Eric needs a win and is quite motivated (he even refuses to drink on Henry’s private plane as he, Yas, and Rob prep for the conference), but Henry may be a bit distracted. Mostly by Yas (Marisa Abela), who keeps trying to toe the line between wanting to get taken seriously and ignoring the tabloid press and leveraging the kind of attention and privilege that affords her. It’s why she doesn’t hesitate to go into Henry’s private cabin on his plane, leaving her Pierpoint colleagues behind.

Once everyone arrives at Bern, it’s clear how much is riding on the Lumi panel—not just for Pierpoint and Anna, but for Eric and Henry. That may be why everyone is on edge. Rob (Harry Lawtey) knows, for instance, that a fellow atendee (Joel Kim Booster) is slated to publish an internal analysis on Lumi. Knowing his predilections (and perhaps overplaying his hand, in the process), Rob follows him into the sauna (where, yes, the Fire Island star does bare it all—he even touches himself throughout this entire exchange) and tries to get some intel into what and when that analysis will drop. But other than being told he’s in a text chain where he’s been dubbed one of the hottest straight Pierpoint employees, Rob doesn’t get much out of the nude encounter. 

Meanwhile, during evening festivities before the Lumi panel you just know will fail spectacularly, Yas and Harper get to bond a bit more. It’s clear Yas is still reeling from the events on the yacht (not to mention having to endure further ridicule by Henry’s douchebag friend Xander), and while she’s comforted enough by her former Pierpoint colleague, Harper mostly leverages that moment of vulnerability into a networking opportunity: She has Yas introduce her to Otto Mostyn (Roger Barclay) and all but shows her cards saying she and Petra are there opening a new fund and lobbing the kind of words a man like Mostyn thrives on. (“I prefer a kind of feminism where woman can be cunts.”)

The next day what would’ve been a chance for reinvention for Petra and Harper proves to be a disaster-in-the-making. All their meetings are a bust, with folks either not taking them seriously (and sending their lowly junior-ranked employees) or outright dismayed at their pitch. (Hearing Petra bomb a meeting with the line “Let’s get Jesus out of those sandals and into some Jordans” was a highlight of the episode.) It’s hard, it turns out, to launch a new fund that’s not beholden to green ideals at a conference about those very tenets. Realizing how ill-equipped they are to succeed, Petra puts a stop to it: “Forget this ever happened,” she tells Harper, disappointed in herself that she ever thought it could work. I mean, she didn’t even have a way of showing anyone her investing track record, something Harper then sets her sights on, again leveraging Yas to help her retrieve it.

Which all brings us to the Lumi panel, which does end up sounding as self-congratulatory as you’d imagine. And yet, midway through, that aforementioned analysis publishes. It’s basically a death-knell, both in content and in timing, leaving Eric, Anna, and Henry scrambling to reframe the narrative once more. And if that hadn’t been enough, Harper takes the mic to seemingly just ask a question but instead lobs a loaded hand grenade at FutureDawn Partners, Pierpoint, Henry, and everyone else in the room. She announces that she’s part of a new fund (with Petra, who’s aghast at the revelation, as is Anna) and wonders whether the panel wasn’t just a way to whitewash Lumi’s disaster.

That one-two punch is enough to rattle the entire room. Soon Lumi’s stocks are plummeting even more—and enough to send Petra into a tailspin. (“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”). That is, until Otto Mostyn shows up unannounced. He was intrigued by Harper’s brazen pitch; he only cares about making money and the bloviating throughout the conference was clearly boring him. What better way to upend it all than to fund this upstart venture with two women who have no fealty to identity nor ecological politics. (“New look, same great taste,” Harper notes when making it clear to Mostyn they’re all speaking the same language.) He’s ready to commit some money to their venture, and Harper knows exactly who she wants their first meeting to be with that following morning. 

But first, we get an intimate scene between Yas and (a very naked) Henry at a pool he’s had closed off from everyone else. They trauma bond a bit about their time in the limelight; he shares how he’s struggled since his dad killed himself and how he’s battled depression and suicidal ideation himself. Sure, she still thinks he’s a bit of a playboy but she grows increasingly drawn to him, teasing him more and more with every new disclosure. That it all ends with him walking away, going into the bathroom and dumping all his Lumi stock (making a bit of money before the company all but implodes) just solidifies how self-serving every single one of these characters is. It’s the only way they manage to survive.

Which brings us to the breakfast meeting between Harper and Petra on the one hand, and Yas and Eric (hungover, having spent the night with a sex worker) on the other. It’s a humiliating moment for Eric and a triumphant one for Harper, who now finds her former boss at her whim. He can’t not take this new account but is utterly emasculated by the end when Harper insists he make eye contact with her. Here’s the cruelty Petra had warned her about; it’s so unnecessary and yet so in keeping with how Harper is intent on playing this game: with spite—and a terrifying sense of drive and ambition.

By the time Eric boards Henry’s plane again, he’s clearly in worse shape than he’s been so far. What doesn’t help: the way Yas heads back again to Henry and proceeds to hook up with him. Professional? Perhaps not. But again, she’s also figured out how to play this game so it tilts in her favor. And now: onward!

Stray observations

• • I did not anticipate Industry giving us “He has a big uncircumcised hog” as a line of dialogue yet here we are!
• • Can Eric’s midlife crisis get any bleaker? He’s resorting to “typical fuckboi prevarication” with lovely hookups in London and paying for sex workers in Bern—and trying to be reassured by both that he’s a good enough fuck. 
• • “Fortune, good night: smile once more; turn thy wheel!” Honestly, anyone who quotes King Lear when starting up a business meeting (as Mostyn does) deserves our utmost disdain. It’s almost as pretentious as Harper then choosing to call her new fund with Petra Leviathan. 
• • It’s getting to the point where Harper’s reputation now precedes her (what with both Eric and Jesse Bloom gabbing about her stint at Pierpoint). Will it finally catch up with her?
• • I can’t be the only one who had all too vivid flashbacks to Cruel Intentions while watching that pool scene between Henry and Yas, right? Speaking of, what do we feel is most impressive: Harington baring his bare ass or his delicious intonations of that Brit-posh accent?