Most people with any sense have by now sworn off social media. But for a refresher course in the skin-crawling awfulness of internet bro culture, there’s always series four of the critically adored HBO/BBC drama Industry (BBC One, 10.40pm).
Seemingly by design, it’s one of the most caustically horrible shows on television – a damning portrait of London high finance and the global dotcom industry where everyone is morally blase and aggressively feckless, always looking for a quick score or a nasty hook-up. It makes Game of Thrones seem like Teletubbies.
Watching the first episode of the returning series, I couldn’t wait for the end credits to roll. It is supremely nasty and makes for grim viewing. There are more lizards than in a David Attenborough documentary about Komodo dragons.
That said, you can’t fault showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay for ambition – or for their willingness to take risks with a successful formula. Across its first two seasons Industry was a ground-level depiction of power-hungry London investment bankers. They snorted drugs in the loo and occasionally had sex there too. It’s been a few years, but my recollection of the show is a blur of awful people doing unspeakable things in toilet cubicles.
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With series three and, even more so, this new season four, Kay and Down broaden the canvas and darken the picture. Anti-hero American-in-London Harper (Myha’la Herrold) heads her own investment fund. She’s the public face of a horrific British toff. Early on, he summons her to the House of Lords and declares that, in this post-woke new era, it’s once again permissible to bandy ableist slurs.
The real focus, however, is Stripe/Revolut-style online payments company Tender, which wants to become a fully fledged bank. But that would mean cutting ties with its biggest client, an OnlyFans-style site called Siren.
This drives a wedge between Tender’s founders, the suave Whitney (Max Minghella), and his business partner, Jay (Kal Penn). We also briefly revisit former green energy whizz kid Henry Muck (Kit Harington), now trapped in an unhappy marriage.
With its cast of deplorable rich people, there are echoes of another HBO hit, Succession. The difference is Succession was the work of Jesse Armstrong, whose parents were teachers.
That’s in contrast with the Industry brains trust of Down and Kay, who were born into privilege. Armstrong was an outsider. These two are insiders, and their satire sometimes lapses into obnoxious japery. There’s lots of splenetic wit – but not quite enough raw rage.
Television is crying out for a knives-out takedown of high finance and internet grifting. Alas, Industry too often feels like a highlight reel of the worst people in the world letting rip, without fear or consequence.
