Harper Finally Confronts Her Old Friends In Season 3, Episode 6 'Industry' Episode
Spoilers ahead.
'I have no memory of ever loving you,' Yasmin tells her father at the outset of episode six of Industry, which might as well be the title of the episode itself. (Or a sad-indie single.) The actual title is 'Nikki Beach, or: So Many Ways to Lose,' but the theme of the episode is deception—and self-deception most of all. Yasmin is lying to herself, like all characters within Pierpoint’s corrosive ecosystem. The Hanani scion has always loved her father; she’s loved him at every juncture of their deeply perverse relationship. Which is why, when Charles calls his daughter 'fucking talentless' on the deck of his yacht, she goes for the jugular. She says she wishes he’d die. She can’t stand that she still means so little to him. She can’t bear the shadow of his leering in the absence of his care.
But when Charles does, in fact, launch himself into the ocean—as if acting on her dare—Yasmin slips into something like a trance. It takes several long moments before the spell breaks and she gasps, 'Dad!' as she rushes for the boat’s life ring. By the time she’s untied the flotation device to toss to him, the boat has sped along; he’s floated too far, or perhaps already drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. He’s disappeared from her view and from her life.
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This is the first time in season 3 that we finally get a clear picture of what happened to Charles. Yasmin didn’t exactly kill him, as she suggested at the end of last week’s episode. But she didn’t save him when she could have. 'I left my dad in the water,' she admits to Harper when her former colleague discovers her alone in the yacht’s underbelly. Once the full extent of Yasmin’s involvement—or lack thereof—is clear, Harper leaps into action, helping her friend shower whilst securing the life ring back in its proper position. 'We’re gonna take care of it,' she promises.
But in the present day, Harper and Yas have set their attentions on very different targets. Yasmin has gone to see her father’s washed-up body. Harper is on the hunt for information about Pierpoint, and specifically about the bank’s ESG investments. In a London park, Harper accidentally-on-purpose runs into James Ashford, a Bear Stearns employee. After some well-played small talk, he inadvertently reveals that he met Petra in 'the lobby of The Priory,' a local mental health hospital. Harper files this useful tidbit away and manoeuvres the subject back to her initial quest: digging deeper into the s0-called 'balance-sheet motherlode' she overheard Sweetpea and Yasmin discussing in the bathroom at Pierpoint last episode.
Harper takes what she learns from Ashford to the Leviathan Alpha offices, where she lets slip to Petra that she’s 'heard' about a senior secured debt 'time bomb in the sector.' She reveals she’s been trying to uncover what debt is causing such a stir, and Petra correctly deduces what Harper’s not saying: She has an inside source. But Harper brushes Petra off, replying vaguely, 'I’ve done the research, and I have a network.'
Petra isn’t convinced until Harper shares what Ashford disclosed that morning: Banks are working like hell to rid themselves of their ESG investments. 'So you think the banks are doubly exposed?' Petra suggests. 'Maybe,' Harper says. But, of course, she knows the answer is yes, and that Pierpoint is the worst offender.
While Harper enjoys a quick cigarette-and-coffee break with a traumatised Yasmin, Petra does her own due diligence. She learns that, lo and behold, it’s Pierpoint’s debt the corporate credit guys most want to offload. What a coincidence! She demands Harper call her 'useful wallflower,' a.k.a. Yasmin, to set up a meeting with Pierpoint Asset Management so they can determine the depth of the bank’s ESG woes. Harper isn’t thrilled with this idea. Yes, she relishes the idea of screwing Pierpoint over, but she’s less keen to screw Yasmin specifically. (I mean, her friend just got back from viewing her father’s bloated corpse.) 'Come on,' Petra insists. 'Friendship and contempt are just two sides of the same coin.'
For now, Yasmin remains blissfully ignorant of Harper’s impending betrayal. Her chief concern, instead, is Lord Norton, who grants her a 'courtesy call' about a story brewing at his paper. One of his crime reporters has tracked down a source aboard the Lady Yasmin—Charles Hanani’s yacht—who claims to have witnessed something that negates the 'prevailing narrative' around his death. Yasmin, who knows such a claim is sure to implicate her, asks how they can kill the story. Norton suggests she give Henry Muck a call. Apparently, the former Lumi CEO’s depression has returned with a vengeance, following the company’s spectacular failure. And given that all of Norton’s assets will go to Muck when the lord dies—Norton has only daughters, and this is English aristocracy, remember?—his legacy rests on young Henry’s shoulders. Norton implies that, should Yasmin want to stop the story, she has but one choice: Go to Muck. Make him happy. Rescue him from himself.
Meanwhile, a new CEO has landed at Pierpoint. His name is Tom Wolsey, and Rishi claims he’s 'a butcher masquerading as a surgeon.' Rishi, too, senses the blood gushing into the water thanks to Pierpoint’s debts. And with his own outrageous debts on the rise, Rishi has good reason to worry. He pumps Eric for information, but Eric plays coy: 'I don’t think you know as much as you think you do.' Rishi knows better than to believe him.
Sweetpea, too, wants to protect herself. She’s started taking interviews with other companies, one of which is with Leviathan Alpha—and with Harper, specifically, who’s hoping to acquire insider information on Pierpoint through a channel other than Yasmin. Sweetpea’s smart enough not to fall for it, but Harper’s interrogation nevertheless rattles her, and she spills her worries to Anraj and Rob. 'I think Pierpoint might be absolutely fucked,' she tells Rob.
'Yeah,' he replies with nothing more than a shrug. 'What else is new?' (Mind you, this man was 'Pierpoint’s whipping boy' last episode. Why should he care if it all goes up in flames? He’d welcome the cleanse!)
As Petra and Harper bop around town investigating various banks’ ESG portfolios, they learn that Deutsche Bank has nine distressed ESG companies on their docket; Citibank has seven; and J.P. Morgan has 22. But Pierpoint is next on their list, and Petra’s set up a meeting through Yasmin—much to Harper’s chagrin. Pissed, Harper takes the prime opportunity to bring up Petra’s supposed rehab stint at The Priory. But Petra wasn’t in rehab for a 'substance abuse' problem, as Harper accuses; she was there dropping off her son. Petra rightfully tells Harper off for her shoddy detective work, and reminds her that their relationship should remain professional. Friends aren’t exempt from Petra’s list of useful contacts simply because Harper wills it so.
Yasmin is too distracted by the long list of awful people around her to recognise she’s in danger. Eric takes her out to lunch, during which he attempts a ludicrously uncomfortable come-on. That choice ends with Yasmin storming out of the restaurant and Eric jerking off in the bathroom. She later invites him to Pierpoint’s own meeting with Leviathan Alpha, but Eric rejects her out of childish spite, and so Yasmin takes the meeting without him—thus dooming Pierpoint in the process. In that meeting, Yas reveals to Petra and Harper that Pierpoint not only has more distressed ESG investments than any of the other banks; it has more than all of them combined.
Petra and Harper march that information straight over to a competing bank, where they find themselves sitting before a few familiar faces from prior seasons: Kenny, Daria Greenock (Freya Mavor), and Jackie Walsh (Caoilfhionn Dunne), all former Pierpoint employees. The Leviathan Alpha team tells these 'cast-offs' that they want to short Pierpoint itself, 'in as much size as you will give us,' Harper says. 'That’s why we’re bringing this trade to their biggest competitor.'
Harper stresses Pierpoint has been in trouble for a while, and Jackie agrees: 'It’s no wonder they brought in Wolsey to fix it.' Daria adds that she 'heard the CFO, Wilhelmina Fassbinder, is using [the former CEO’s] senility to make unilateral plays and change the direction of the company.' (In other words: Wilhelmina seems largely to blame for Pierpoint’s ill-begotten ESG play, but I doubt she’ll take the fall for it.)
Leviathan Alpha wants to work with these former Pierpoint colleagues to manage their short discretely. Because the position would be greater than 0.5 percent of Pierpoint’s market cap, it would normally trigger a public share notification—alerting banking regulators and other investors of the bet. Working with this bank of 'cast-offs,' as Kenny so artfully refers to it, would allow Leviathan Alpha to build its position quietly before the news goes public and a deluge of other investors catch on. That also allows Petra and Harper to buy credit default swap (CDS) protection at lower prices to ensure they earn a maximum profit if (when) Pierpoint goes into its death-spiral.
'You realise that this trade could cause the sort of panic around Pierpoint that may not be able to be contained, right?' Kenny asks.
To which Harper smiles and replies, 'Don’t they deserve it?'
When Eric catches wind of this scheme—thanks to Yasmin’s unfortunate cluelessness—he rushes over to the Leviathan Alpha offices himself. The scene that follows is cathartic, in a deranged sort of way. Eric confronts Harper at her own desk, condemning the fact that, to her, 'Everyone’s collateral, right? Even the only girl stupid enough to call you a friend.'
Harper throws this philosophy right back in his face, telling Eric that, alas, she learned from the best. Like mentor, like protégé. Furious, he sizes her up. 'I’m guessing you live with the feeling that you’re a monster,' he says. 'And now there’s nothing stopping you on your path to whatever behaviour provides you with an externalised fantasy of what you really think of yourself every moment of every day. I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that what you think about yourself is true.'
The only reason Eric knows this is because he feels the same way about himself. He’s always seen too much of his own reflection in Harper. So it shouldn’t surprise him when she has no qualms attacking with the bluntest weapon available to her. 'I heard your family fell apart,' she replies. 'A shame. But maybe now you can finally go after whatever it is that you really want.'
Back at the office, a dead-eyed Eric sees an email from Bill Adler, asking why Yasmin’s still on Pierpoint’s payroll now that Charles Hanani’s autopsy photos are floating around Reddit. Isn’t she past the point of being a liability? And now that Eric knows for certain Yas won’t have sex with him, he doesn’t have any reason to protect her. He calls her and fires her, supposedly for accidentally leaking proprietary information to Harper. 'Your friend fucked you,' he says. Then, as he watches Pierpoint’s stock plunge, he calls Bill. 'I hope you’re on a flight to London,' he urges. 'The market knows we’re dying.'
At last, we reach the showdown everyone knew was coming. There was never any hope that Yasmin and Harper would make it to the end of season 3 with their friendship intact—not with Harper’s repeated manipulations and Yasmin’s mounting desperation. Still, I can’t say that foresight made their death blows any less ugly to witness. Were they entertaining? Sure. But ugly. Very ugly.
Even after an appalling series of insults ('You do not want friends. You want people to make the hierarchy of your world make fucking sense to you.' 'Do you have any capacity to see beyond the projection of your own insecurities?'), it wasn’t until Harper calls Yasmin 'fucking ordinary' that I audibly winced. When it comes to key details she can exploit for personal gain—as with Petra’s supposed time in rehab—Harper has a near-perfect memory. She’s a bottomless depository for these sorts of tools. She knows that Charles Hanani referred to his own daughter as 'talentless' and 'a fucking whore.' So when Harper calls Yasmin these exact words near the end of the sixth episode, I wasn’t surprised when Yasmin slapped her across the face. In fact, I laughed, despite myself. Ouch, babes! Maybe try working it out on the remix?
Finally, 'Nikki Beach, or: So Many Ways to Lose' brings us to the said shore of Nikki Beach. There, in a flashback to the yacht, Harper reminds Yasmin not to make her distress so obvious to the other guests on the boat. If the two women play this right, no one will ever know the truth about Charles Hanani. But Harper will always know the truth about Yasmin: She’s 'the loneliest girl to have ever had a boat named after her.'
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