Industry - Series 1-4, come chat all things Pierpoint where there's more bonking than banking!

[Netaporter]

Just binge-watched S3. What a ride!

Anyone else had a look yet?

Well that review entirely misses the point - as it is primarily a show about women, turning a man’s world into our playground …

Wow, that's your take on it? What an aspiration...

What was the sport Henry was playing in the first episode?

I agree Diana’s death was ridiculous. I also wondered if she was Rishi’s new girlfriend at first. I think the actress sounds and maybe looks a little like Carey Mulligan.

Why did Jesse go to prison?

@CitrusPocket , I think the game was "Eton Fives".

@bulb34 I love your take on it. I kept watching and will watch the next series but I have always found the people loathsome and the humanity bleak. Except Robert, who is just about human but even then... But I don't mind a bit of bleak, I don't have to like the characters to feel compelled to watch I guess (the writing's good, the acting's excellent etc). But that quote about the changing expectations of masculinity etc - ugh. I agree, I couldn't give a toss how hard it is to be a man in the world either. But I have to say I didn't take that message from the show - if I had, I'd probably have stopped watching.

@CitrusPocket I agree. The Diana death was laughable in terms of story evolvement! I also thought she was someone else with the new do. And it was confusing too how she was in what randomly seemed to be his flat with a birthday cake.

And why was Rishi's arm in a sling?!

And have to say that while I'm sure Kit Harington is a nice bloke IRL he's hardly a great actor - he was likeable in GoT but very wooden and charisma-free, same here but not even likeable.

I think Rishi's arm was an injury picked up at another fight in a casino/bar/being roughed up by the loan shark's heavies - it's not spelled out for us, it's just there to indicate that his life continues flailing out of control. He and Diane have separated, he's in some featureless flat because his wife has thrown him out, but perhaps there's still some spark there and hope for reconciliation, hence she comes to see him on his birthday - not expecting Vinay to turn up.

... and kill her!

Interesting, I must be alone in finding the whole premise of the series, but most especially S3 just abhorrent, so hollow and vapid, for all the high drama

I think that is the intention. To show a world that people don’t really understand filled with hollow and vapid people who think they are so important and all us “little people” should be grateful for them. They are deliberately made to be unlikeable. The nepo baby, the know it all, the outsider they are all there.

As others have said the portrayal that people can manage millions, sometimes billions of pounds each day after going on all night benders is ridiculous and you wouldn’t last two minutes on a trading floor these days behaving the way they do. So yes it is all for the drama

One thing that irrationally annoyed me was how many of them used mobiles. No trading floor I have been on has allowed you to have your phone on.

I think that is the intention. To show a world that people don’t really understand filled with hollow and vapid people who think they are so important and all us “little people” should be grateful for them. They are deliberately made to be unlikeable. The nepo baby, the know it all, the outsider they are all there.

But I struggle to understand what is so compelling about all that? It might grab me if there was some sort of redemptive element to it, a shard of light, a moment of warmth, but the relentless bleakness is just depressing.

What’s to understand? It’s a drama. Not all entertainment shows are light and fluffy, some are depressing and that’s their hook

To me what’s compelling about this is it is a very different show to the usual police, medical or murder show. The characters are not perfect but who is.

And I disagree about moments of warmth, there definitely is fleeting moments of warmth across some of the friendships and relationships before the drugs and making money mentality kicks in

It's hardly a drama, more like a bleak, acrid soap opera. So you think shows are either depressing or light and fluffy? There is also meaningful, TV that has something to say about what it is to be human. Which the Industry doesn't, with these brittle ghouls inhabiting a toxic world that is so far removed from real life it rings hollow and empty. You seem to confuse deliberately bleak and depressing with meaning. The show is superficial, which is perhaps the point of it, but the point isn't profound enough to make it interesting.

@bulb34 well, it's plainly not your thing. Personally, I found the Rishi episode a really brilliant portrayal of addiction, and I hope it gets nominated for as many awards as are going. I think the story of Yasmin has become increasingly affecting as she attempts, and fails, to achieve some kind of independence and authenticity. I don't know if her story is one of actual sexual abuse by her father, or a more subtle early sexualisation which has leached her of her self-esteem and capacity for kindness. There are lots of interesting characters, and along the way some fun, wit and bad behaviour. I don't suppose it is a very realistic portrayal of a workplace, any more than ER or West Wing were of their respective milieux.

But perhaps you've expended enough of your valuable insights on a thread and show which you insist is uninteresting. Why not start a thread on something you love, and give us the opportunity to be educated?

Ooh, the thread police has arrived!

Ooh, witty. I am enjoying teasing your self-importance, though, and your condescension towards those who enjoy a show that you think worthless and - bewilderingly - beneath attention.

But you, as MN is fond of saying, do you. Are there any other TV shows you feel worthless, yet simultaneously want to expend a lot of energy upon, and tick off other people for enjoying? Maybe you could extend your gaze to other art forms? Seen any pointless exhibitions recently? Vapid theatre? Banal ballet? Please, tell us!

But I'm going to desist now, since poking a harmless bear is a childish pursuit.

Thanks, I'll lap up the compliments, especially 'harmless bear' 🐻

Yes I‘ve enjoyed the development of Yasmin and her relationship with her father over the different series. With Rishi I felt the gambling came from nowhere and so I didn’t buy into it so much. I also didn’t really buy that Diana would have some kind of hot affair with Nicholas. The man cuts his hedge at 5am ffs.

He did come across as an absolute prize twat, the hedge-cutter. At least to me.

I am embarrassed to say I found the Rishi episode super stressful. When he really started spiralling with the gambling I had to shut my eyes and cover my ears until DH alerted me that it was safe to watch again. I was getting palpitations.

I’d imagine the affair was anything but ‘hot’! She had a passionate, sparky relationship with her husband - but he was probably always more engaged with work and gambling and his growing debt than with her as an actual person. He certainly had zero respect for her - given his encounter with Harper just before his wedding.

By contrast Nicholas probably thought of nothing but her, and probably put some effort into treating her with kindness and gentleness and making her feel important in her own right.

Yeah, Nicholas-hedge-cutter-and-coke-cadger (at least buy your own) was only ever a consolation and a pretty dull one at that for Diane. Although we didn't see much of Rishi and Diane's relationship, I did think the writers conveyed her despair-hope-despair cycles alongside her gambling-addicted husband pretty well, and her love for him. She can't stop trying to save him and help him - the cake to prevent his birthday being totally ignored being a case in point.

By contrast Nicholas probably thought of nothing but her, and probably put some effort into treating her with kindness and gentleness and making her feel important in her own right.

That makes a lot of sense, I hadn’t thought of it like that.

I thought the Rishi episode captured a certain aspect of British society really well. You can have all the money in the world, marry an English rose, buy a multimillion pound cottage in a gorgeous village, but if you weren't part of that set from the start then they will find all sorts of ways to make you feel like an outsider. In the politest way possible, of course! Add the racial angle and its obvious that Rishi never stood a chance of being accepted by them.

Curious about why Nicholas acquired his dog though?

I agree!