This story contains spoilers for the season three finale of Industry, Infinite Largesse. There is a moment in the final episode of the third season of Industry , HBO’s buzzy drama set in the world of high finance, where Eric Tao, the managing director of the investment bank Pierpoint (think Goldman Sachs on steroids), decides to address the trading floor. It has been a tough few days, and with the legacy bank facing potential oblivion, he must inspire the team.
“Money tames the beast,” Eric explains. “The end of the story is money.” Once considered a risky investment for HBO, the network’s sexed-up series about the world of high finance is finally blowing (and growing) up.
Credit: HBO/Binge For a show driven by money – the making of it, the spending of it, its power to corrupt – it’s a neat trick. Yet, in season three, Industry broadened its scope, exploring a world beyond Pierpoint’s anxious trading floor where money is only the beginning of the story. Across eight episodes, the latest series offered commentary on almost every contemporary issue imaginable, from sexual politics to the monopolisation of media, green energy, white privilege, mummy issues, daddy issues and cocaine’s stranglehold on the upper middle class.
“I think we finally figured out how to write the show three seasons in,” laughs co-creator Konrad Kay. “Everything feels more expansive, and it goes to places it was afraid to go to in seasons one or two.” Kay created Industry alo.
