It Will Only Take You One Hour to Fall in Love with ‘Industry’

All you need is one hour. 

Less than an hour, actually. 51 minutes: That’s how long it will take you to watch the first episode of Industry, HBO/Max’s buzzy series about sex, drugs, friendship, money, life, and death among the young sharks of London’s financial industry. And that’s all you’ll need to decide whether Industry, one of the smartest and sexiest on television right now, is for you. 

I know, I know, the show is currently in the middle of its third season, and that kind of time commitment can be intimidating. But this isn’t one of those “it starts getting good in Season 2” kind of shows, where you have to sink in several full work days to make it worth watching. Far from it. Everything that makes the show great is present right there in the pilot, and the show only gets better from there. 

So it’s simple. If you like the pilot, you’ll like Industry; if you don’t, you won’t. It’s the lowest bar to entry of any prestige TV drama currently on the air — and as far as prestige TV dramas go, Industry is as good as it gets. And don’t worry: We won’t spoil any major twists or surprises as we explain why.

Written by co-creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay and directed with surgical precision by Lena Dunham — yes, that Lena Dunham — Industry’s first episode is a pitch-perfect pilot, up there with The Sopranos, Twin Peaks, Mad Men, you name it. With its emphasis on the hard-partying, serially woman-and-man-izing ways of its beautiful and wealthy employees while they navigate the perils of office politics in a major world financial capital, it may remind you of Mad Men in particular. If that sounds like a high compliment, that’s because it is.

Industry’s first episode (“Induction”) follows five young, hungry young men and women, freshly hired by the storied investment bank Pierpoint & Co. as ground-level graduates. 

Harper Stern (Myha’la) is an ambitious alumna not of Oxbridge or an Ivy, but SUNY Binghamton, who got to her position through hard work…and, perhaps, a few cut corners. 

Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) is the glamorous but habitually underestimated and overlooked heiress to her father’s publishing fortune. 

Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey) is a working-class kid who made it through Oxford but seems more interested in extracurricular activities than earning his spot. 

Robert’s friend and flatmate Gus Lackey (David Jonsson) is Black and gay, but he’s also an old-money Eton and Oxford guy with the self-regard to match. 

This contrasts him with Hari Dhar (Nabhaan Rizwan), a state-school grad desperate to prove he belongs on the team.

“This isn’t one of those ‘it starts getting good in Season 2’ kind of shows, where you have to sink in several full work days to make it worth watching … Everything that makes the show great is present right there in the pilot, and the show only gets better from there.” 

Early in the episode, we learn from Eric Tao (Ken Leung), Harper’s boss, that the grads have six months until Reduction In Force, or RIF, reduces their number by half. In order not to get fired when RIF day comes, you must, in the words of Pierpoint London President Sara Dhadwal (Priyanga Burford), “make yourself indispensable.” 

Titled “Induction,” the pilot follows the five young employees’ differing attempts to do exactly that. Robert seizes on the nightlife aspects of the job. Yasmin serves as a gofer for the rest of her team on the trading floor. Harper hustles to be the first to bring home big money. Gus simply does his job, confident his abilities will prove themselves. And Hari puts in Batman-like hours to stay ahead of the competition. Study that list closely, because not all of them will be Pierpoint employees when the closing credits roll on the Season 1 finale.

But Industry is more than just a financial thriller, or a workplace drama. When it comes to sex, which in Industry’s case happens an average of twice every episode, this is both the most explicit and most intelligent show I’ve ever watched. Whether you’re a Gen X’er with fond memories of Skinemax or a Gen Z’er who’s still hot and bothered over Euphoria, Industry is hot enough to leave it all in the dust.

And that, too, is on display right from episode one. Robert has a drugged-up liaison in a nightclub bathroom — hands down pants, faces between legs, coke and K in every available orifice. Sex is a drug, sometimes when you do it right and sometimes when you don’t, and Industry gets that. 

Harper, meanwhile, needs a favor from an ex-boyfriend back home, and helps persuade him by masturbating with him over Facetime. The quickness with which the two fall into this arrangement, the directness with which he tells Harper how to pose for his pleasure, and the cold abruptness with which he ends the call when, presumably, he’s finished — all of this is really raw and really realistic. There’s no sense Harper is doing this against her will, but the problem is that your body doesn’t always want what’s good for your psyche, even if you think they want one and the same thing. Another nuanced point about sexuality that Industry has the insight to note and the talent to depict with heat and heart. 

Riveting acting will keep your attention as well. In this episode it’s worth singling out Myha’la’s portrayal of Harper as she grapples with a pair of major ethical decisions, and Rizwan’s as Hari, Harper’s kindred spirit who’s under even more self-applied pressure than she is. But it could be anyone, in any given episode, from across the rock-solid core cast and beyond to an entire galaxy of supporting players. Fans of Ken Leung in particular — I’ve counted myself as one since he attacked Junior Soprano in the home for the criminally insane toward the end of The Sopranos — have a lot to look forward to, as the mercurial trader Eric Tao is, for Leung, the role of a lifetime.

Did I mention it looks great too? Dunham and director of photography Daniel Stafford-Clark establish a crisp grey-blue world of glass and steel, rendering Pierpoint’s offices and London in general as a giant human aquarium — even as the rapturous electronic score by Nathan Micay makes it seem like a wonderland of infinite possibilities. 

That’s indicative of the show’s overall approach. Don’t let age of the protagonists fool you: Industry is as much of an antihero drama as Breaking Bad. It’s just that youth, beauty, and that shimmering score hide the show’s true Heisenberg until it’s too late for you to escape being invested in them. It’s a brilliant ploy.

It’s a brilliant show. It’s a brilliant pilot. And with a running time that’s, like, two episodes of Friends back to back, it’s the perfect opportunity to try something new. Judging from Industry’s slowly rising spot on Max’s Top 10, a lot of people have the same idea. So what are you waiting for? Pierpoint is waiting, and you can put your drinks on the company card. 

One hour for one of the best shows of the decade. That’s a can’t-miss investment opportunity.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.