[Editor’s note: Episode five of Industry‘s current season arrived today on HBO Max.]
It is fitting that no one from the London Tender office appears in an episode in which Harper’s (Myha’la) hunch, kick-started by the now deceased Jim Dyker (Charlie Heaton), finally proves true. Tender is too much of a good thing. All roads lead to Accra, the Ghanaian capital that Whitney (Max Minghella) has visited often. While we are still left waiting for the inevitable Harper and Yasmin (Maria Abela) showdown as the scales begin to tip, the corporate-thriller plotting is a significant and exhilarating part of this season. As intoxicating as that investigation is, Industry makes other crucial strides in “Eyes Without A Face.”
Toward the end of the revelatory outing, Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh) points out that the SternTao office situation, which doubles as Eric’s (Ken Leung) home, needs to be reconsidered. Boundaries blur on the HBO drama from Konrad Kay and Mickey Down, where there is no such thing as a work-life balance. The opening scene in an episode directed by Industry first-timer Luke Snellin seamlessly transitions from Eric’s ex-wife pleading with him about what their daughters require to the dire situation at work. His wallet is always open to his kids. But money is no substitute for love and guidance, and his attention is always elsewhere. One of Eric’s daughters faces expulsion from school. However, when push comes to shove, Eric prioritizes the SternTao crisis—and his own libido.
Giving a 72-hour time limit to turn this ship around adds palpable all-or-nothing tension to an already fraught situation. Throw in an unexpected death, and the pressure cooker is ready to explode. No, I’m not talking about Jim, though his untimely demise doesn’t go unmentioned. Harper receives a bombshell phone call during Eric, Kwabena, and Sweetpea’s (Miriam Petche) gossipy speculation about Rishi’s (Sagar Radia) involvement in Jim’s overdose. Overlapping dialogue is part of the Industry fabric, meaning scenes that cut between two points of view benefit from watching twice. We don’t know the specifics of Harper’s call, but her sharp change in mood doesn’t go unnoticed by Eric. Sometimes he does pay attention.
“Eyes Without A Face” isn’t playing coy with the mystery of why Harper cancels her plans to go to Accra with Sweetpea (she tells Kwabena to go instead), and she later tells Eric that her mother died. Joseph Charton’s script is also forthcoming about Rishi, confirming a few details from the previous anxiety-spiking episode, such as being charged with manslaughter and showcasing how outlandish rumors spread. Kwabena’s comment that Jim’s death is a “spooky coincidence like in a straight-to-video kind of way” speaks to the conspiracy theories regarding Whitney’s involvement. Eric, who goes back years with the disgraced trader, is surprised by Rishi’s sloppy actions, which include procuring fentanyl-laced cocaine from the dark web. Again, this is not the entire truth, as that specific powder was from the random guy they met at the pub. Given Sweetpea’s reaction when she last saw Rishi, it is not surprising that she thinks he ended up right where he is supposed to be, since she believes he is behind the Siren video leak.
Like other women who have experienced this kind of public shaming for X-rated content, Sweetpea has a permanent mark on her reputation. Her dogged enthusiasm during the trip to Sunderland is matched in Accra because her options are limited. No one else will hire her. Eric casually scrolls through explicit images of Sweetpea, pointing to how prevalent these images are and that, despite her referring to this as trauma, he still hasn’t deleted them. Kwabena told Harper in the premiere that he hadn’t seen the video and that Sweetpea is not his type. When pushed, he gives Sweetpea the opposite response. If nothing else, Kwabena is telling the truth when Sweetpea asks what porn he is into: “Now that is a question nobody gets an honest answer to.” Most Industry sex scenes are rarely without bravado or a projected image, with Sweetpea and Kwabana’s porn conversation prelude tipping into this territory.
More painful than the entire London finance community knowing what Sweetpea looks like naked is how her relationship with her mother has dramatically changed since this public shaming. Parental disappointments rack up this week, from Sweetpea’s mother pretending the leak never happened to Eric bailing on his sleeping ex-wife and daughter for a blowjob in another room at the hotel. While Sweetpea says “Fuck Freud,” the Austrian psychiatrist would have a field day hearing the young woman call Eric “Daddy” while he watches himself in the mirror. This moment is a smidge (okay, a lot) on the symbolic nose.
Still, wants and needs are the driving factors, and Eric’s confession to Harper about his failure as a father is enlightening. We rarely hear such honest dialogue in this department, as fears about fatherhood are often framed around becoming a father rather than parenting adolescent children. It is another terrific two-hander between Leung and Myha’la, who portray rare, extreme vulnerability from the SternTao partners after a spiky back-and-forthearlier. “What have you done for me today?” is how Eric describes his reaction to his twins, who don’t hold his attention (“I don’t want to be there.”).
Eric struggles with his own kids, but his paternal instincts kick in opposite Harper, who previously refused to open up in exchange for Eric’s $10 million stake. Circumstances offer an opening when Harper talks about her mother’s unexpected passing. There is gallows humor in Charlton’s script (her mother fell down the stairs while running for an Amazon delivery), followed by raw, unvarnished emotion. Harper is “very fucking annoyed” that the work catastrophe is denying her grief because she never got to live out a scenario where her mother had to admit that her daughter is undeniable. Still, those tears come. Scenes showing this rare, intimate understanding draw comparisons to Mad Men, suggesting that Harper and Eric are akin to Peggy and Don. But this isn’t a mere imitation of an all-time great platonic TV pairing. Myha’la and Leung have carved out their own space of playing multifaceted, flawed, and driven individuals and partners.
When news comes from Accra that Sweetpea and Kwabena have cracked the Tender problem, the excitement is infectious. Harper previously worried about feeling empty, but absence is the key to breaking Whitney’s entire kingdom: “The thing is nothing.” It is all smoke and mirrors (Kwabena opts for “Potemkin village” and “Ouroboros” as descriptors of this fraud) fueled by one lie after another.
Everything is gearing up for the inevitable Harper and Yasmin confrontation, but for now, we will have to make do with the stage getting set for all-out war. While Industry doesn’t often spin its wheels, if it takes much longer for the two women to face each other, Kay and Down risk losing momentum. However, the Harper and Sweetpea developments offer an interesting alternative for now. Sweetpea barely blinks in Accra, even after a shocking violent assault.
Moments before, Sweetpea stands on the beach that Tender Africa CFO Tony Day (Stephen Campbell Moore) has warned (via a thinly veiled threat) can get dangerous. Snellin’s wide shot of Sweetpea looking out to the ocean is both a sign of defiance and a way of making her look incredibly small. She projects a fierce image, but isn’t impervious to the snickers of men who have seen her naked or aggression. Still, Sweetpea barely blinks after getting punched, shoving toilet paper up her bleeding nose and walking back out to the bar with blood on her chin. Back in London, she brushes off Harper’s offer to stay, and it is only when she is alone that Sweetpea breaks down. Petche and Myha’la each depict moments of catharsis here. Progress is made in personal and professional arenas, and those who want to bring down Tender are undeniable.
Stray observations
- • No one does poorly timed jokes quite like Kwabena. Previously, his flippant riffs angered Harper. Now, he is getting called “charmless” by Sweetpea. But it is his joke about nominative determinism to the lawyer (whose parents called him Lawyer), that truly bombs: “By example, I was christened, ‘Dog-Fucker’ Bannerman.”
- • Kwabena’s easygoing vibe is at odds with many of his highly strung, control-freak co-workers. However, he finds a valuable entry point into Whitney’s schemes by using his connections. He also succinctly sums up the appeal of Ghana to a man like Whitney: “In the room, the Africans exchange the bribes while the white men talk.”
- • Lily wearing her dad’s Pierpoint hoodie to sleep in is a fantastic use of this old merch. It is an interesting choice to only see his daughter asleep in this episode. However, Eric’s description of the diabolical catfishing scheme that got her expelled is more powerful without her input.
- • “There was a whistleblower directive, but we’re not covered by that anymore because doombrain mugs falsely incentivized other doombrain mugs to vote us out of Europe.” A call to FinDigest EIC Edward Burgess (David Wilmot) offers a telling comment on the lack of protection they can provide to Tony Day due to Brexit. Maybe Edward’s giant dog can keep watch instead.
- • Eric’s phone’s call log shows that he has Harper stored as “Harpischord,” which warms my heart—especially since there are no other nicknames on his recents list.
- • Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face” plays over Sweetpea’s sobs and also gives this episode its name. The singer took the title from a 1960 French horror movie (Les Yeux Sans Visage) that follows a surgeon trying to give his daughter a face transplant after she is disfigured in a car accident. While Eric thinks he is a failure as a father, at least he hasn’t turned into a serial killer in a bid to give his daughter a new face.
Emma Fraser is a contributor to The A.V. Club.