Summary
“Useful Idiot” is another highly strung but expertly crafted episode of Industry, which has reached another level entirely in this third season.
Things are not going well for anyone in Episode 7 of Industry Season 3. The “Useful Idiot” of the title is Eric, though the label applies to almost everyone – the latter half of it does, anyway.
For all the chaos that’s unfolding, this episode is divided pretty neatly in half. On one side of things, you have Pierpoint. As implied in the previous episode, the tumbling stock price has heralded calamity for the board. Bankruptcy is imminent, and their only hope of salvation is either a substantial capital injection – to the tune of billions – or a straight-up buyout.
And then you have Rob and Yas, who basically decide to take the day off. But neither of them, especially Yas, is in a great frame of mind, and while the fate of Pierpoint is less relevant to them than it is to a few others, they’re nonetheless fraying at the edges due to their personal circumstances.
But we’ll start with Rishi and get him out of the way.
Rishi’s Exit Strategy Is Through Harper
It doesn’t take much effort to be reminded of Rishi’s money woes, which were detailed extensively in his own – excellent – episode earlier in the season. With Pierpoint on the brink of insolvency, he’s worried all over again about his financial future, trying to get Sweetpea and Anraj to cash out on his remaining positions while he finagles an exit strategy.
That exit strategy goes through – who else? – Harper Stern. Rishi tips her off about Pierpoint being on the cusp of a buyout, and Harper uses the information to try and compel Petra to cash out before the stock price rises again. But this, thankfully, backfires on Harper, who is acquiring this information – as she did with the news of the maturing debt that caused all this, which she overheard hiding in the company bathroom – with a very fluid sense of legality.
Petra is alarmed and goes to Otto about her concerns that Harper is essentially gambling his money. At the end of “Useful Idiot”, she’s picked up by Otto for a word, but we’ll have to wait until the next episode to discover the contents of that conversation.
Rob and Yasmin’s Road Trip
Away from Pierpoint, things are not going well for Yasmin. Hanani Publishing is willing to cover the damages of her father’s many victims, but at a price – they want Yas to be the public face of the scandal and pretend she was the beneficiary of Charles’s embezzlement. This will preserve the company’s public image, but it’ll utterly ruin Yasmin’s – as if it wasn’t tarnished enough.
While Yas mulls this over, she begins to isolate herself, which Rob notices. Since he’s on the way to Wales for a job interview, he suggests she join him for a semi-romantic road trip, which she reluctantly agrees to. But her internal conflict is exacerbated further when Maxim calls to tell her that Hanani Publishing was paying off Charles’s victims with bogus salaries for years. The books are cooked, and the entire board knows about it (hence trying to strongarm Yas to take a payout and the reputational hit.)
Photo : Copyright © Simon Ridgway 2023
Industry Season 3, Episode 7 shows the most development in Rob and Yas’s relationship yet, but it’s still fraught with dysfunction. Yas tries to do her usual thing of getting exaggeratedly flirty when she spots another woman showing him a bit of attention, but Rob calls her out on her game-playing. They eventually kiss, and it looks like the big deal made about their separate hotel rooms is going to amount to a long-awaited liaison between the two. There’s even one of those classic rom-com scenes where they look longingly at each other as they head into their respective rooms.
But this is Industry, so naturally Yas takes a handful of prescription psilocybin, trips out, cuts her hand trying to make a brew with a faulty kettle, and then tries to sleep with Rob when he rushes in to investigate the commotion. He rejects her again, but let’s just say his body betrays him, and Yas unleashes what might be the bleakest line in the show’s history: “Henry used to get hard when I cried too.” Goodness me.
Rob’s interview goes well, at least.
Eric’s Takeover
Anyway, onto the meat and potatoes. With Pierpoint floundering, the entire board works through the night and tries and drum up some funding, first turning to the U.S. Treasury Department and then to two separate, competing ideas.
Adler wants to secure a capital injection from Mitsubishi, allowing Pierpoint to retain some autonomy but get a financial boost to allow time for restructuring (and a healthier stock price.) But the rest of the board seems pretty keen on Pierpoint being bought outright, and the frontrunner is Barclays, whose CEO turns up to offer a deal (it’s his arrival that Rishi reports to Harper.)
But there’s a hitch. Thanks to hectoring Conservative backbenchers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer can’t be seen bailing out another financial institution after the whole Lumi debacle. And with Lord Norton controlling the media to swing the event into prime publicity for PM-in-waiting Aurore Adekunle, Barclays has no choice but to back out quietly. Either way, the next day’s front page will be about how Aurore took down Pierpoint.
Only it won’t, since Eric chooses this moment to turn on Adler with his lowest move yet. He gaslights Adler into believing he has made a crucial mistake with his valuation during the meeting with Mitsubishi, embarrassing and panicking him in front of the entire board. Adler is forced to reveal his brain tumor, leading to him being quietly ushered out.
Eric saw his opportunity and he took it. The rest of the board has no compunctions about laying everything at Adler’s feet as a convenient fall guy, with Eric essentially replacing him. And to establish his new authority, Eric has already facilitated an introduction with some moneymen from the Gulf. How ironic – from the brink of ruin after pursuing socially conscious green investment, it looks like Pierpoint will be saved by oil money from the most Conservative regime on Earth.
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