‘Industry’ Blends ‘Succession’ With ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

When “Industry,” a jargony drama about climbing the ladder in the investment banking industry, debuted back in 2020, it was clunky and too generic, and it often telegraphed its twists. But the show found its sea legs, and its slick second season was a ruthless, breathless treat — fast and good-mean. Each episode turned the temperature up and up and up, taking the conflict among our miserable bank bébés from a simmer to an aggressive boil.

Then it cranked things even hotter, turning steam to plasma in its last moments — a wilder, more significant phase change.

Season 3, which began on Sunday, picks up a few months into this shift. Harper (Myha’la) is licking her wounds after her ouster from the high-pressure London firm Pierpoint, but she has landed at FutureDawn, the female-led, ostensibly socially-conscious fund from Season 2. She is working as an assistant, well outside — and, in her eyes, well beneath — her biz-whiz skill set, but she has never been one to follow workplace rules. She aligns herself with an equally disgruntled senior portfolio manager, Petra (Sarah Goldberg, of “Barry” fame), and starts sharpening her knives.

“Industry” can sometimes feel like “Succession Jr.” with its icy palate, its appetite for financial lingo, its characters’ soulless scheming and lines like “I haven’t done blow since 9/11” and “the only famous salesman is Willy Loman.” The incessant shouting, lies, secrecy and debt recall “The Bear,” and its snappy critiques of faux liberalism remind me of “Hacks.” (“I never watch [porn] … unless it’s directed by women,” brags one guy, on a private jet.)

But the show it reminds me of most is still “Grey’s Anatomy”: “Industry” also begins on everyone’s first day, with our crew of newbies jockeying for top spots and hooking up with each other, enduring grueling hours and harsh — alluring — mentorship. The rookies’ ingenuity is sometimes valorized, but sometimes it is illegal, and sometimes super-duper illegal. Each character’s family of origin has some murky secret, and none of them are quite sure whether they should be ride-or-die loyal to one another or “all’s fair in work and war” competitors.