TV

Sex, drugs and the capital market: "The Industry" has become one of the best series on television

The harshness and cynicism still remain in the drama from HBO, but a large part of it turned in the second season into a restrained and touching emotion.

Her heroes try to be better, while at the same time not revealing it too much to show weakness.

The result is captivating, refined and complex.

Review without spoilers

Ido Isaiah

09/20/2022

Tuesday, September 20, 2022, 4:52 p.m

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share by email

• Share in general

• Comments

  Comments

Trailer for the second season of "The Industry" (HBO, BBC)

True to its name, there is something industrial in the series "Ha-Industry" (originally "Industry").

Something gray and battered that sticks out like a weed through the bright tiles of the seemingly shiny workplace of the protagonists, rookie stockbrokers in the London branch of the fictitious investment bank Fairpoint.

It is a money factory where the workers are the conveyors, the screws and the gears, only in their case they make a great profit.

Talented and ambitious young people who want to devour the whole world, branch all the drugs, fuck everything that moves, and at the same time show up like professionals for a tailored, elegant, brutal, trampling work day.

As required by this field that tries to make the rich get even richer, the climate in which there is no compromise, man to man wolf, the new rookie is the approach of the one who will come after him, and of course everything is part of an organizational culture that is well aware of what is happening and allows it to happen.

It's not always easy to see.

The young heroes of the series - led by Harper Stern (Mihalla Harold), Yazmin Hanani (Marisa Abella) and Robert Spearing (Harry Lauti) - have to absorb a lot, and they pass on the injustice done to them, including among themselves.

When Yazmin first arrived, she was rudely abused by her caretaker, Kenny (Connor McNeil).

She channeled her frustration into exploiting Robert, coaxing him without giving in and abusing him emotionally.

Harper, for her part, fatally injured a colleague when she saw an opportunity to win a big client - a pattern she would repeat again in the future.

Stepping on the bodies that are left on the way up.

on the run

Mijala Harold and Marisa Abella, "The Industry" (Photo: HBO, BBC)

There were many twists and turns throughout the first season, which premiered in late 2020 on HBO and the BBC, who are co-producing the series.

It had sweeping deals that we saw happen in real time and entertaining twists as you'd expect from surprising backstabs, but "the industry" didn't really excel.

In retrospect it turns out that that season only prepared the way, it was the stable graph before the sharp increases.

The second season - which ended yesterday (Tuesday) Bis, Hot and Cellcom TV, next to the broadcast abroad - was a captivating, refined and complex emotional experience, during which "The Industry" became one of the best series on television.

One of the most striking elements of the series is the blunt way - absolutely not for the faint of heart - in which it describes the consumption of sex and drugs.

They are young people who want to have fun, aren't they?

But what was already clear then and is made even more clear in the second season is that these are attempts to relieve pain.

Each of the heroes is running away from something, trying to make something of himself regardless of where he comes from, whether it's a billionaire father who paved the way for you or a broken family with a dubious resume that made you run away without looking back.

However, what is meant to numb the wounds only adds to the confusion and the constant noise, and sex is mainly used as a tool for power struggles and often takes place in the grayest areas imaginable.

More in Walla!

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" has everything it needs to succeed.

Now she needs to find Gandalf

To the full article

No throbbing, choking in the throat.

Harry Lauti, "The Industry" (Photo: HBO, BBC)

That is why what is so exciting in the second season is the attempt of some of the characters to sober up, to be better.

How good can you be when you work in a place that seeks to cultivate your worst qualities, and when the reminders of all the crap you've done are standing in front of you in human figures?

Nevertheless, they try, creating a small struggle between light and darkness that goes beyond their own limits and manages to touch others as well - and in the case of one of them, also leaves in favor of something that will fill their soul more adequately, or at all.

Meanwhile, the accounts of the soul also exist when it comes to sexual exploitation.

The second season presents an impressive and thought-provoking storyline about consent, bitter relationships, intergenerational exploitation and silence.

What increases the power and beauty of this cleansing is the restraint that "the industry" uses.

The purposefulness with which she describes the purchase and sale of shares, she applies to these moments as well.

In a place like Fairpoint's trading floor, cynicism is necessary armor, honesty means showing weakness.

So these processes necessarily take place and are crowded mainly among the characters, while they try not to allow it to slide out and expose them.

But of course, they have no choice but to look directly at the places they try to push to the margins of their consciousness, in particular the mental patterns that their parents framed them in, and the result often chokes in the throat.

More in Walla!

The television hell of "The Handmaid's Tale" is slowly coming to a close, and it will end in blood

To the full article

thought

Ken Leung, "The Industry" (Photo: HBO, BBC)

stepping on corpses on the way up.

"The Industry" (Photo: HBO, BBC)

Everyone's acting is excellent as required, and they manage to convey the inner turmoil of their characters in subtle and heart-wrenching nuances.

But the real greatness of the "industry" lies in the writing.

One that combines complicated professional idiom (kudos to the Hebrew translator, Anat Hess) and enigmatic, even lyrical statements that seem as if something more was supposed to be said and we have to complete it and turn it around.

Eric (Ken Leung, "Lost") is the prime exponent of these phrases, with statements like "Our advantage is our color" or "Are we the targets?"

- A thought that is interesting to hear it from the mouth of a fox who mod fights like him.

Even in the macro, it is a wonderful script.

In this season more than in the past, the "industry" surrounds and assimilates us into its world.

In the scenes on the trading floor you can almost hear the background conversations - jokes, jokes, comments and so on.

More importantly, "The Industry" turned out to be the only series on television that harnesses the Corona virus into a real narrative force.

Both in the effect of the epidemic on the stock market, both in its effect on the heroes, and, by virtue of this, on the shock waves that remain at this particular point in time.

A time when most of humanity was forced to look within itself.

More in Walla!

"Mo": Israelis may be annoyed by the Netflix series, but it's totally worth it

To the full article

It is a combination that attracts and disgusts at the same time, which makes "The Industry" a series that reflects today's reality more than any other drama (or comedy) on television.

The formative years of her protagonists, the period when they truly consolidate their personality, are characterized by one foot reluctantly planted in the place they came from, in the traumas that carved them, and a second foot trying to put down roots in the place where they hope to belong, in the next traumas they believe they will be able to absorb.

And as they stand in this strange punctuation, they try to figure out who they really are and find themselves lonely, lost and compassionate.

It is incredibly beautiful.

• culture

• TV

• TV review

Tags

• The industry - series

• TV review