The following contains spoilers for the first five episodes of Industry Season 2, now streaming on HBO Max.
Given the nature of its narrative, it is no surprise that Industry's major comparison has been to fellow HBO original series, Succession. The latter focused on the Roys and their Emmy-award winning story of a media empire navigating American politics, corporate takeovers and a ton of family drama. But at the core of it all was business and making big bucks. Industry followed suit, weaving the lives of financial graduates around Pierpoint, a prestigious British investment bank that saw them fight tooth and nail to land permanent positions.
Luckily, most of them did, which is why Season 2 is now leaning into how they assert themselves. In the process, fans are seeing them champing at the bit to gain promotions, bonuses and social clout in their field. However, the show is slowly revealing that it is no longer a take on Succession with young adults grinding; it's more of a spiritual sibling to another hit HBO series: Euphoria.
Now, it is quite a shift because Industry Season 1 did seem to draw on how the Roys battled to integrate the rapidly advancing digital realm with traditional media. Granted, the Roys had their vices, but they still never lost sight of the prize: Waystar-Royco and its shareholders. This is why it was quite engaging to see Industry's financial majors trying to shake up the company and show the seniors the new way of doing business, much like Kendall, Shiv and Roman tried to do for Logan's older heads. But Season 2 has changed complexion drastically, with Industry throwing caution to the wind.
Harper (Myha'la Herrold, who recently starred in Bodies Bodies Bodies), for example, is no longer just the bright mind on the job -- she's sleeping with her new boss, Danny; doing a lot more drugs and trying to repair things with her junkie brother in Berlin. It has the dynamic of Euphoria's Rue, who has so much potential to succeed but quickly got bogged down by drugs and family problems. Rob is experiencing a similar dilemma, with his broken home haunting him, while becoming toxic to new prospects at Pierpoint and corrupting their innocence.
The way Rob quickly forgot about Cowan, the mentor who tried to help him, nodded to how Rue lashed out at her sponsor, Ali, and then kept trying to keep Elliot immersed in a self-destructive path. These are the typical stories of folks who want others to wallow in their misery. As for Yasmin, she's uncovering a ton of secrets, finding herself wondering about illicit relationships and predators after she realized her rich dad is going broke by having to pay out for a ton of #MeToo cases against him. Her arc has connections to Jules, who endured something similar with Cal, with both young ladies now wondering how to approach their own sexuality moving forward.
What all these examples illustrate is Industry is getting a lot more personal and in-depth, giving these workers more personality than before. Due to all these combined pressures, they're showing they're still young and restless at heart, ignoring now how they are endangering the careers they worked so hard (and in Hari's case, died) for. And make no mistake, it's evident in the way how sex-obsessed Season 2 of Industry has gotten, with a lot more partying and moments that push the limits -- something Euphoria's has been critiqued for in the past.
Industry's crowning moment came with Danny ejaculating on Harper in a scene in "There Are Some Women..." that reaffirmed the series is now less about the office and more about how the young adults brazenly try to embrace the moment, living freely as if there is no tomorrow. And this direction, ultimately, has the same roots as Euphoria, which made clear that its teens didn't care about consequences. Admittedly, Euphoria's only now starting to address that problem after two seasons of the YOLO mentality, but as Industry kicks on, it is picking up that slack by showcasing Millennials who work hard, but want to party a lot harder, as if they were still in high school.
Industry airs Mondays at 9:00 p.m. on HBO and streams on HBO Max.