In “Industry,” queerness is capital

Before the penultimate episode of “Industry” Season 4 begins, directors Mickey Down and Konrad Kay hold for a few moments, letting the synthetic flute notes of Daft Punk’s melancholic “Veridis Quo” spill out over a black frame. It’s an unexpected move, given that the previous week’s installment turned the heat on its principal characters up to a boil. But Down and Kay, who co-created HBO’s gripping finance drama after quitting their jobs as investment bankers, understand that viewers still need a second to catch their breath, preparing for what new crises await.

Yet again, Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela), the down-and-out heiress to a disgraced media empire, finds herself embroiled in scandal. This time, her troubles have potentially massive legal ramifications, ones that stand to implicate her and her equally posh husband, Henry Muck (Kit Harington). Desperate to repair their reputations, Yasmin and Henry let themselves be wooed by the charismatic Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) on his quest to make the fictional payment processor Tender into the most powerful banking app in the world. But after months in their high-level posts at the company, some globe-trotting sleuthing by Yasmin’s sometimes-friend and former colleague, Harper Stern (Myha’la), has revealed Tender’s operation to be all smoke and mirrors. Yasmin and Henry are perched at the very top of a house of cards, and there’s a strong wind coming just over the horizon.

After 10 seconds, “Veridis Quo” fades, and the episode cuts from black to Henry and Yasmin privately assessing their next moves, analyzing how they were suckered by Whitney’s predatory charms. In the course of six episodes, the trio went from being business acquaintances to the three points of a carnivorous love triangle built on sexual deviancy, criminal blackmail and corporate espionage at the hands of Whitney’s escort-turned-assistant, Hayley (Kiernan Shipka). “Surely it was obvious that I couldn’t stand the little creep,” Yasmin tells Henry. “He was in our house, practically swallowing you.” But backtracking and regrets have no place here. It’s too late. Yasmin and Henry fell prey to Whitney and Hayley’s twisted game, compromising their judgment for physical pleasure and zigzagging across the Kinsey scale in the process.

But in “Industry,” that’s all par for the course. In the cutthroat world of finance, everything — kindness, friendship, sex — is a means to an end. The goal is capital gain, and there’s nothing and no one that can’t be quite literally massaged in the pursuit of that target. Swapping spit is as good as swapping intel, and all of the trading is done inside, if you catch my drift. If time is money, and money is power, then who these characters spend their time with directly correlates to how wealthy and financially secure they can become. Gay kisses and scenes of queer physical affection aren’t exactly titillating, or worse, made into inspiring coming-out vignettes perfectly primed for Pride season watchlists. “Industry” isn’t even particularly concerned with the now-banal sentiment that “gay characters can be flawed and bad, too!” Because it’s not that these characters are good or bad. Like the rest of us, their morality and sexuality don’t exist in a fixed state. They are as fluid as the money that controls their existence. And in a show where sex and capital are so intertwined, true intimacy has become the most precious, powerful currency.

(Simon Ridgway/HBO) Kiernan Shipka in “Industry”

When “Industry” premiered in 2020, Down and Kay were focused on young, aspiring traders, green to the game and gunning for a coveted spot on the Pierpoint trading floor. The fictional London investment bank was the epicenter of the show’s universe, the place where deals were made and trust was broken. It was the sight of plenty of sex, too. Turn on any episode from the show’s first two seasons, and you’re likely to see cocaine being boofed from someone’s bare butt in a conference room, or Yasmin encouraging her former coworker Robert (Harry Lawtey) to ejaculate onto a bathroom mirror, commanding him to lick it off. Pierpoint was where boundaries were pushed and power plays had their efficacy challenged, making “Industry” the ideal combination of “Succession” and “Gossip Girl” — the dream for anyone who enjoys when television meets at the intersection of smart and sexy.

But it was when characters stepped outside Pierpoint that things got really interesting. Suddenly, the rules weren’t so rigid. Deception had less sway on the regulated trading floor than it did in the wild, and in the seedy streets and trendy nightclubs of London, physical and financial lust blurred. In the show’s very first episode, key Pierpoint investor Nicole Craig (Sarah Parish) sexually harasses Harper in the back of her town car. When Harper recoils, Nicole sets her sights on Robert, frantic to snare a young trader in her web. It’s a despicable deed — one that will come back into the fray later in the series’ tenure — but one that succinctly reflects the show’s dynamics. Whether the viewer wants to linger on a character’s supposed sexuality is their choice. Kay and Down prefer to keep it all murky, tossing their sharp-toothed players back and forth across the sexuality spectrum with no intention of keeping them in one place for too long.

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That unpredictability isn’t for everyone. There are numerous reasons why “Industry” hasn’t exploded in the way that, say, HBO Max’s smash obsession “Heated Rivalry” has. Despite the two shows sharing a throughline of raunchy queer sex, “Heated Rivalry” is too hung up on making its queer characters likable. For all of their will-they-won’t-they indecision and steamy sexual tension, the show’s star-crossed lovers, Ilya Rosenov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), consistently play it safe.

But there’s a time and place for that, too. Viewers deserve to see happy endings and tame love stories as much as they deserve to see bodily fluids dripping down a mirror. Still, it’s surprising that both shows stream on the same platform in America, but their audiences have yet to truly overlap. In the weeks after “Heated Rivalry” wrapped its first season, evangelists of the gay hockey show toyed with the idea of switching to “Industry,” which was premiering its fourth season in early January.

(Simon Ridgway/HBO) Max Minghella and Kit Harington in “Industry”

Yet, the show’s viewership and larger cultural conversation have yet to translate. “Industry” hasn’t received the same breakthrough popularity as “Heated Rivalry,” presumably because its gay sex is not in service of storylines about love and romantic relationships. All of the fornication in “Industry” is transactional. For Kay and Down’s characters, cash is a sexuality, and it manifests in panting, lascivious physical connections that fuel their misconduct. New York Magazine features writer Emily Gould put it best when she posted, “I’ve tried to switch hyperfixations from ‘Heated Rivalry’ to ‘Industry,’ but the problem is that, whenever characters on ‘Industry’ have sex, you’re like ‘WOAH YIKES’ and not ‘yesssssss.’”

“Heated Rivalry” leaned into its gay smut, but it drew the line at correlating sex and manipulation — funny, considering that, for half of its first season, Shane and Ilya are psyching each other out on the ice with sensual mind games. Their dynamic was far more about stimulating the viewer than surprising them. And it worked. The show garnered a massive international audience, and in that respect, flirted with progress. For a blip in this post-Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” era, when queerness is once again taboo, the counterculture went mainstream.

But where’s the fun in that? Treachery can be exciting too, even progressive. In a converse way, Kay and Down’s reluctance to be so clean, so shiny and so heteronormative with their characters is just as forward-thinking as any media that conjures a conventional picture of equality. “Industry” is leaps and bounds ahead because it refuses to define anyone strictly by their sexuality. Here, progressiveness isn’t derived from depicting queer people as singularly, unceasingly good or bad. The show also doesn’t hold its characters in some opaque sexual purgatory, either. There doesn’t have to be any big discussion about queerness or coming out because it isn’t necessary; everyone knows the score, and that knowledge levels the playing field. Anyone could be an enemy or a lover — often, they’re both. The uncertainty is what makes “Industry” so exciting, and its rare moments of real intimacy so effective.

In its fourth season, “Industry” has moved almost entirely beyond Pierpoint, consequently ratcheting up the dramatic friction tenfold. Without the narrative strictness demanded by the investment bank’s setting, anything can and will happen. Yasmin and Harper are both clamoring for stability. And though their paths diverged after they respectively left Pierpoint, their soft spot for each other remains. Whether they like it or not, walking through the Hell of finance together has bonded them forever. They’re closer than friends, but not fused like enemies. Still, Harper and Yasmin’s existences are inextricably linked, gnarled together in a helix of favors and bargains. And as this season of “Industry” reaches its big finale, the two women find that the tie binding them has shortened once again.

Harper knows Yasmin’s in deep trouble. Yasmin knows Harper’s the one who sank her and Henry into this mess — the person set to blow on Tender’s house of cards. Over drinks, they reminisce about where they started and where they’re heading. They talk about all of the things that have been left unsaid, buried by their never-ending battle of wits. Yasmin wipes her tears, and Harper puts a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Do you want to go out?” Yasmin asks. Cue the synthetic flute chords of “Veridis Quo,” scoring their mutual melancholy.

(Simon Ridgway/HBO) Marisa Abela and Kiernan Shipka in “Industry”

Few things are a better calling card for queer counterculture than a Daft Punk deep cut. “Veridis Quo” begins gently, repeating its opening chords and creating an atmosphere of soft sorrow until a drum line and a synth bleed into the song, defying the instrumental’s bittersweetness. It’s the perfect accompaniment to the sight of Harper and Yasmin, dancing together at a club, relieved to have waved the white flag, at least for tonight. As the synth grows louder, the two kiss under the dance floor’s blue and yellow lights. It’s not a coming-out scene. It’s not the beginning of a romance. It’s an indescribable closeness, more potent than any dividend. Melting into one another on the ground outside the club, smoking cigarettes, Yasmin tells Harper, “We’re here forever, even if we can’t be.”

Tomorrow, everything will go back to normal. Actions will face their consequences, and Harper and Yasmin’s closeness may be but a distant memory. But it’s because their love is fleeting that it’s special. For a brief moment, neither of them wants anything more than to be close to each other. In the cold world of “Industry,” that’s love.