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But I do think I recognize a Harper, Yasmin, Eric and/or Gus in my life. Even if I didn't, I find the focus on a squad of unestablished strivers always fun, especially when the Brits do it: the dweeby early-00s teen in me gets reminded of the first couple seasons of Skins watching this show. A charming blend of ensemble chemistry, individual character work and unique worldview.
Part of what I find so intriguing about this show is seeing character archetypes I completely recognize from the post-9/11, post-2008 striver culture be so naturally portrayed within a construct that's so absolutely foreign and almost toxic to me...as a somewhat satisfied bartender guy drifting about, it's oddly refreshing for me to watch these imaginary practitioners of Money English speak in a sort of anarcho-capitalist code language steeped in persona paralysis and Tony Sees Some Ducks paranoia/existentialism. Even if it's not addressed, these characters carry that sense that their impulses are as important as their reverberations, because any random event might end those impulses, whether via drugs or promotion or unaddressed mental illness or simply being a piece of a shit property of nepotism and/or old cash.
BUT, and I expect if this thread goes anywhere I'll wind up using "but" a lot, I also get that I'm finding an unapproachable analog to Mad Men in this show as well. Unapproachable in that those characters were ultimately mostly failing to pay mortgages if not plain rent other than the partners; these characters are finding those same debts in the people they claim to care about. In their world, capitalism and economics have made fool's gold of actual friendly gestures or interactions. It's a neat trick.
It's not important for me that I like these characters, so much as I like watching them act while they pontificate and bloviate about actions, relationships and the potential for human achievement that are as fictional as they are real, and false, and true, and dumb and most of all an absolute north star for a privileged life. Yet that's never the conversation, instead it's almost re-imagining Sisyphus building a boulder out of pebbles rather than landing with a thud behind the boulder immediately. Even beyond that, most of these people are already talking about and/or receiving unimaginable sums of money. "But" what do we see them do about it? Beg for more. Even if it's an obvious poem, I enjoy humming along.
In other words, TL;DR: after almost 20 years of shows featuring, highlighting, spotlighting or starring unlikable people...I think it's critically honest to admit not liking a cast or the characters they portray, or to be tired of being asked to do the following...but bad characters making great TV has been the norm for most of our lives posting or otherwise, from the cops on NYPD Blue to the lovable losers of New Girl. Of all the things Industry is doing, I'd argue this levee between character and viewer is the least unique aspect of the show if not a lot of the point - Harper in season one is such a demographic tease, as Black American woman trying to make her way in the apparently cut throat and drug laden world of British finance with apparently questionable credentials yet an insane acumen for how that world operates...but her character often makes choices that teases the viewer for caring about her. As unquestionably as she is well suited to the world she's trying to invade, it's agonizing to know that when she gets called out on a mistake there's no pretense there. Unlike a lot of anti-hero TV characters, it's as easy to root against her as for her, because it's so obvious why and when she suits either role in a story.
She's honestly a super, wildly cool character to wrap a show around IMO.
YES, she's a fish out of water Black gal, but she can still be an ass, and the people that call her out for it can be right for doing so. Maybe that's the thesis I've been working towards, because again I think this show is there but not quite THERE there: like a lot of HBO's very best, Industry isn't afraid to embarrass its heroes, nor is it eager to indulge antiheroism by merely weaponizing "past trauma" as an excuse for current behavior.
It's hilarious to me that I'm gonna press send on this post because I'm not oblivious to what's silly about the show, or why it falls on blind eyes, or what conceptually makes it less accessible than equally gate-worthy shows like, again, Mad Men or Succession. It's definitely missing that enveloping thing, whether it's worthwhile narrative or consistent character development or time and place world building or whatever else.
BUT FORGETTING ALL THAT, BEING HONEST, IF THERE ARE LESS SEASONS OF INDUSTRY THAN THERE WERE OF GIRLS I WILL GO TO CODING SCHOOL WITH A MASTERS IN DIGITAL ESPIONAGE, MINOR IN ARTIFICIAL CHAT INTELLIGENCE, AND I WILL TRAIN A REDDIT/TWITTER/ICQ BOT TO BOOST SHARES OF INDUSTRY BY 0.125% END OVER END QUARTER AFTER QUARTER UNTIL...
.......
"I agree about the music."
It's really so stupid good, right?
~~~~~~~~~ "This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517 Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz
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