EDGE Rewind: Watch Season 2 of HBO's Sleek 'Industry' for More Financial and Sexual Hijinks
EDGE is reaching into its archive and sharing some of our favorite stories from the past.
In its first season HBO's "Industry" came in as something of Gen Z "Succession." Set in a fictional London investment bank, Pierpoint & Co., it followed the lives of some highly accomplished recent college grads competing for prestigious positions over a summer. The competition is so fierce that one, Nabhaan Rizwan, even dies, while another, Oxford grad Gus Sackey (David Jonsson), becomes disillusioned and drops out.
Season Two, which comes to HBO on August 1 for an eight-episode season, centers on the three trainees central to Season One who have passed the test: American Harper (Myha'la Herrold), privileged Yasmin (Marisa Abela), and working class hero Robert (Harry Lawtey). Advance word on this season finds Lawtey developing a close bond with Harper while distancing from Yasmin, with whom he had a toxic flirtation last season that ended with his being masturbated by her in an office bathroom.
It was moments such as that one that helped make "Industry" a sleeper hit, with clips circulating on social media the morning after broadcast. The early reviews of Season Two are indicating the show remains as steely and sexy as ever, and has found its stride as a drama. The Daily Beast writes: "If you savored the complete chaos of 'Industry's' first season, you might be wondering what else the finance drama — full of graphic sex, drug use and violence of all kinds — has left to showcase in its second round. But as Pierpoint's terrifying managing director of Cross Product Sales suggests, there's always more cash to gain, co-workers to undermine, clients to sleep with, and ketamine to snort in the corrupt world of finance. And unlike an equally sensational show like 'Euphoria,' the series' writers and creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay have an interest in examining power and pleasure beneath all these pearl-clutching moments."
Vogue is even more enthusiastic: "It wasn't a great show yet in season one — it had more mood than heart — but it was a very, very cool one, with a headlong energy that hit like a drug high. Now it's back, and having devoured the seven episodes made available to critics, I'd like to go long on Industry's prospects and declare this show prepped for a 'Succession'-style breakout. Down and Kay have added new characters, amped up the narrative stakes, and the young actors — Herrold and Abela in particular — are giving the most exciting performances on television."
And then there's its more eye-opening memes in which the Pierpont wannabes diverted themselves with sex and drugs in their off-hours (and sometimes while they were on the clock). No one was more randy than Robert (Lawtey), who never met a hookup — gay or straight — he didn't turn down.
"Early on," EDGE wrote last year about Robert's antics, "he offers to let Gus (David Jonsson), his roommate and fellow Pierpoint hire, give him a blow job to cheer him up. (Gus is brooding over his closeted boyfriend.) In another, Robert has fast eye contact with a visiting student in one of Pierpoint's men's rooms. Cut to post-hookup, when he's boasting of the sex to Jasmin, a co-worker with whom he is having a X-rated flirtation on a dating app."
But nothing all season compared to the sexy flirtations between Yasmin and Robert. Early on, Yasmin shares pics of her having oral sex performed on her by bf (sexy Jonathan Barnwell). EDGE wrote last year: "This escalates to the show's most talked-about scene — in which Robert meets up with Jasmine in a public restroom during the holiday party where she masturbates him. When he shoots, she instructs him to lick his semen off the mirror. You will have to watch the show to see if he does."
You can watch Lawty's NSFW scenes at Mr. man.com.