‘Industry’ S4E5: Golightly to Ghana

13:42Jodi:Or does she believe that she has a story and that story is that what they are doing is righteous?

13:47Rob:I think that's the story she's telling herself. And that's sort of what Eric calls her out for, right? He's like, that sounds more true than any story I've ever told myself before, I think, is like a paraphrase of what he says. But I think, you know, a movie that the creators of this show have brought up a lot as a comp for this season is Michael Clayton. And we got a comment from a listener, not an email, but a comment on either the YouTube or the Spotify video about, you know, Jim's overdose that's not an overdose is a plot line from Michael Clayton where Tom Wilkerson's character, Arthur, is made to appear as if he's had a drug overdose.

14:28Rob:And in fact, it's like the shady powers that be have killed him.

14:31Jodi:He was up to something though, Joe, because that was way too many baguettes for one man to be carrying at that point in time. So who's to say who really did what?

14:39Rob:You can't OD on baguettes, Rob. It's impossible.

14:42Jo:I will not allow it. I have affection for Harper in my heart. And so I hate to say my immediate thought, which is this, that like Harper, I think that Harper believes in nothing. She believes in what she has to, to kind of get through the day. I hate to invoke, we tell ourselves story in order to live two episodes in a row. And yet here I am, but Harper tells herself stories in order to survive. And she gets to decide what survival is like, is, is survival putting food on the table and just keeping yourself alive? Or is survival hypothetically being undeniable to your mother who is now dead? Like what is survival to Harper?

15:19Jo:And when they're talking about Tinder and obviously we'll get to it. And, you know, Sweet Pea is screaming in a parking lot in a craw and they're screaming, each lie relies on the next. I'm like, at any point, is this going to click in for Harper that this is how she's living her life and guiding her fund and doing everything. She's telling herself stories and each story relies on the next. It doesn't matter whether they're true. It just matters whether she convinces people that they're true.

15:52Rob:I totally, I totally agree with you, Jodi. And I think the reason I brought up Michael Clayton was that George Clooney's character, Michael, you know, the titular character in that film is like an unethical crusader, right? He's not led by his virtue. He's led mostly by his own financial needs. And then he has, his morality comes through, but he's not a crusading good guy. And I think what we hit in this episode a number of times, like Sweepy saying, I need this short to work. I didn't get a job. You can imagine why. Harper saying, well, crucially, we're not lying to the world to profit off of it, right?

16:35Rob:That's the story she's told herself, that like hypocrisy that they sort of drilled down on. Or our famous owner of a Great Dane, is that what that dog was, that massive dog? A majestic Great Dane. A perfect reveal. It's saying that like, you know, talking to Sweet Pea, this whole endeavor is, quote, not best led by a person who stands to be compensated. So this idea that like, what could take down something like Tender or someone like the Mucks or something like that, it's probably not going to be anyone led by virtue. It's probably someone who is going to get their own payday at the end of this, that there isn't like a good guy.

17:14Rob:You know, as I said last week, I'm always rooting for Sweet Pea, and I still am after this episode. But no one in this show is doing something because it's, quote, the right thing to do. They're all doing something so it can profit them personally. and in profiting personally, can I tell myself what I'm doing is better than the other people who are trying to profit personally? And that's where I think we find your Harpers, your Eric's, your Sweet Peas, your Quabinus inside of this episode.

17:43Jodi:Yeah, I mean, they all have their reasons to be involved in this, right? And I think it is financial gain for certain. It's also, you know, for Harper, yet another effort to be undeniable, for Eric, an effort to have an actual human connection with a person in Harper in particular. and for Sweet Pea, like in addition to just kind of like avoiding everything in her life that she needs to avoid, I think the thrill of discovery at whatever the cost is kind of the drive for her more than it is actually revealing something incriminating or actually like revealing something even that would make her money or give her job security.

18:14Jodi:It's like she's just like an adrenaline junkie for these 48 hours in a way that I think anyone can find deeply relatable on some level.

18:21Jo:She knocked on the fucking door, bitch.

18:22Jodi:She knocked on the fucking door. She did scream in the parking lot. It's like she has her kind of triumphant moment and then she gets to go home and have the breakdown.

18:30Jo:Yeah. And I think like, are those things mutually exclusive is a different question for each person. Like, can the thing that serves the greater good and actually is right also be the thing that is good for you and improves your own life? And that kind of depends on motivations. I loved getting to know Sweet Pea more in this episode and getting that background. I felt like it was her character building. Her like very slow character building has been really well done. I struggled with some of Harper's character stuff this episode because it was a lot of telling. It was a lot of like explaining emotions from a person who we've never found to be particularly good at interpreting her own emotions.

19:13Jo:However, some of that makes sense too and it will always come back around because I think Harper is someone who lives very temporarily. She's someone who's, it really struck me in this episode that she is someone who's waiting to live. And she's doing things in the meantime that fill the void. And she's waiting until she's proven to her mom that she's undeniable to then start her life. But what she may not know is that she's not really building a great foundation from which to start that life at whatever magical point she feels fulfilled. Eric has a line in this episode where, again, they're talking about, so like, what if we prove this?

19:51Jo:What happens? and he says, so we prove Tinder is what it says it is. We get the surrogate joy. I was like, wow, what an industry phrase. We get the surrogate joy of saying your identity is bullshit. You're a fake. We get to temporarily live in the illusion that we ourselves are built on firmer ground. And that's just, that is Harper. It's Eric too, but he's a little bit older, a little bit wiser to know.

20:18Rob:He's a cautionary tale. He's just sort of like, is this is this really where you want to go? Is this the is this how you want to model your path where you wind up where Eric is alienated from his own family, desperately trying to make connection with you because he can't make connection with his own family? And then barring that, hiring a very young looking like call girl and having her call him daddy. You know what I mean? And this the way in which Eric, I will get back to. The what Harper says, but Eric talking about how things don't make him feel substantial and how they're both talking about how empty they feel and making him feel big, you might say.

21:00Rob:Yeah. And then he says, make me feel big. I mean, it's just absolute. this is like tough this is one of the toughest like this is like highest highs lowest lows for eric inside of this episode and i agree with you jody like i think this episode was a little overwritten in terms of the way in which people were talking like industry always like it's no one ever talks like a normal person talks inside of industry and that's fine i'm not looking for reality here but um the credited writer on this episode was also credited on um a couple episodes last season that I also sort of identified this tendency.

21:33Rob:So I think it's just like this writer has a tendency to write in very therapeutic language and like all this sort of stuff like that. And when it comes out of Henry's mouth and I can tell myself what Kit Harington told Kitty Baker, which is like, you just have to imagine that Henry's in a lot of therapy. It makes sense to me. Harper's in no therapy. So for Harper to like come through with insights felt very odd to me while at the same time I felt slapped in the face because what she was saying is like, my entire life. So I don't like, yeah,

22:02Jo:like sometimes they're bars, you know, sometimes they mean something to me when she tells Eric that you have no idea how lucky you are, that you have people who expect your love, demand your love, but you don't feel worthy of it. So you can't give it. Nothing between us is going to fix that. Like, yes, correct.

22:20Jodi:But here, like even within those bars, like, again, I like this episode. Fine. I did bump on the same, like little writing moments here and there. And in particular, it just felt very direct and very neat for an episode of industry. And it's not just that like overly therapized delivery from characters you wouldn't expect it from. It's things like a character will bring up exactly what they want. And by the end of the episode, we'll get basically that exact thing. Or someone will bring something up like Sweet Peas Nudes. And then we just see Eric like scrolling through his email, looking at like the exact thing that was brought up, like the parallel conversations that were echoed from coked out Jim Diker last week and Quabana this week.

22:59Jodi:It's like, why are all these things happening other than to have like your very writerly callback moment? And I think the one that broke me was Deus Ex-Auntie, who happens to be involved with the exact business we need to break open the investigation.

23:14Rob:I a little bit disagree with that. I agree with your larger point, but like, let's talk about Quabana, because I think it's really interesting how they've deployed this character. So, like, it feels very clear to me that, you know, they knew that they were doing a story in Ghana this season. And so they, like, they cast a Nigerian actor, but, like, they cast someone who could, like, interact with the story in a different way than your, you know, very white sweet pea could on the streets here. And I don't know, Jodi, if you agree with me. I felt something so familiar in this very charming, very nice guy, just constantly, jovially undercutting Sweet Peas, very correct instincts and work.

24:04Rob:And like I was just like this is it was so aggravating and so familiar. And Kwabana is like a very like charming and likable in many different ways character. When when she calls him out for like his glibness and says it's not as charming as he thinks he is. But like I her reaction when she's like I could just not see you for the rest of the trip and that would be OK. Like all the little roadblocks he is like putting in front of her and all the little doubts that he's sprinkling along her path. and then he fucks her and then he helps her was like a real, you know, real interesting journey inside of this episode for me.

24:41Rob:Jodi, any thoughts or feelings?

24:42Jo:Yeah, that's tough having that reflected back through your vision. I'm now, I guess, catching a few pivot points that I did find him frustrating. I also find him very charming. So like, you know, I was, it was kind of like, yeah, I was on the same ride that Sweet Pea was, like, why are you here? What do I need here? But of course, she's she's. Yes. You ask, like, do I find that familiar? Yes. The glibness of not having to worry about things that I have to worry about feels very familiar. And she calls it out. What he has said is kind of correct. That's like what materially changes in the world if we accomplish this.

25:25Jo:Why are you staking your flag in it. The thing is, Sweet Peen knows why she's staking her flag in it. She needs this because she's been undercut by the world that doesn't change one way or another. And what she says is what I really relate to. I've given this my full attention, which is a finite resource. That is why the outcome matters. Yes. You know, we've all found ourselves in a sunk cost fallacy and it matters to her. So get on board if you're there to help. and not just after you fuck her.

25:57Jodi:Well, yeah, that would be optimal. I think that what Sweet Pea is after is something earnest and is not just, I have already put so much effort into this that I now need to see it through. I think it's like the choice to care about something, the election of like, this is what matters to me, right or wrong. Like that choice matters. And that choice is different than just like following one bad bet after another. I think it's just, especially juxtapose someone like Kwabana, who is like so laissez-faire about the whole thing. Like he is the epitome of like, I'm on the work trip and I'm just gonna like freewheel my way through this thing and I'm gonna do the room service food.

26:32Jodi:And I'm just like here for a time. Whereas Sweepy is here for a mission. And like that mission is because she's chosen to make it important to herself.

26:40Rob:Well, she's chosen to, but for like financial reasons, you know, like Kwabana is born to a ton of money and she hasn't been. And like she put her like naked body on the internet when she was 19. Totally. Because she needed money. And there are ways in which she has earned money in her life. And she's like, but here's another thing. I'm really fucking smart. And this is another way in which I can earn money and perhaps feels more empowering to me than like having all of knowing that all of these men have like seen my naked body, you know, and attached it to my face, which I did not put my face out there, but someone else, maybe Rishi is her opinion, like did.

27:18Rob:So now it is like a completely different. That's not the that's not the, you know, agreement that she made with the world when she put her body on the Internet when she was 19. But like she is I really recognize in Sweet Pea this like conviction of I'm right. But it's not I'm right because I morally believe in right and wrong in the universe. It's like I'm right because I need people to know that I am smart and I can be right about a thing. I don't know. What do you think, Jodi?

27:47Jo:Well, I don't. Gosh, weirdly, this is like reminding me of a conversation that our, you know, great friend and colleague Sophia Benoit and I had where we were basically just saying back and forth between each other. We know when we're right. Like, I know when I'm right. And I have that gut instinct. And my history tells me when the gut instinct is right. and it was interesting I mean that gut instinct is brought up several times in this episode and at the end of the episode when Quabana is with Harper he juxtaposes his sort of you know higher pragmatic mind and all of its complexities with the gut instinct but I think what we see in Sweet Pea is someone who is carrying a lot of complexity in her gut instinct and why she thinks it is right for her to do this thing and pursue this thing And it's not just money.

28:40Jo:Like it's, she can't get a job anywhere else. That's not just money. That's livelihood. It's also reputation. And within the bit where she's explaining why it matters to Kwabana, she says, I'm going to keep moving forward. Let the distance grow between me and the event. Let time do the work. And that's, I don't know how, if you're a Kwabana, you hear someone say something like that and you're like, I might still know better. It's like, let time do the work. Yeah. Like she's got a short-term plan, a long-term plan. And some of that is going to get messed up along the way, no matter what. But she, yeah, she really strikes me differently than almost any other character on the show because she just strikes me as thoughtful.

29:31Jo:And there are a lot of thoughts that characters on this show are afraid to have. and they simply don't have them for that reason, for fear. And I think she really allows herself to think about the difficult things and then pursue the choices that she makes.

29:46Rob:And I think the way that she interacts with her power is really interesting inside of this episode because we know how she got information from Jonah in a way that she's, like, very used to wielding her power. We see her kind of try that with Tony Day, right? We'll talk about Tony Day in a second. But like, you know, she's like, you know, you can just call me anytime if you want to talk.

30:08Jodi:And it's a strategic lip bite.

30:10Jo:It just like does not land with him the way that even before that she kind of strikes this like emotional thing of being like, oh, they must take good care of you out here if you're doing that kind of like, well, obviously they don't. So, you know, like she is pursuing a very different path.

30:26Rob:And then I thought it was really interesting that, you know, after she has this like horrible assault experience in the bathroom, like she comes back and her approaching Kwabana in this like, you know, unbuttons a couple buttons on the linen blazer, like sort of has this conversation with him that leads to sex at her instigation. felt like this is the fastest way she knows how to reclaim power in a situation where she feels powerless, right? That she's just sort of like, what's your type? What do you like? Oh, it's me. Okay. Like, what can I get here that feels powerful to me? It's not something that she's like long-term planning.

31:08Rob:It's not like I need Quabin under my thumb. It's just like, I need, to my interpretation was I need to feel powerful and in control in this moment. Yeah.

31:18Jo:As someone who seeks control through data collection myself, that's a lot more than the sex aspect of it, which is something that we see with Yaz a lot. I mean, she literally says, I want to paint a picture of the people who have seen me. like she and and he is one of them so she is collecting that data she's getting those data points how did you find yourself at me and then the sex which is definitely part of it as well but that was such a yeah it was a strange scene where I was like why is she doing it and I don't know I think that um time will tell whether I couldn't tell in the moment if she knew why she was doing it or if she was sort of completely propelled by id in a really intense situation i mean you could hardly be in a more intense situation than she was in an absolutely high on adrenaline and a dirty martini um but you know you're always sort of like in this show that has so much sex and so many squelching noises you're always sort of like girding your loins for who's gonna fuck and are kind of like please no please don't um and they were the two that did it this week.

32:25Jo:Oh, yeah. They were.

32:26Jodi:I mean, look, the scene where she's assaulted in the bathroom is terrifying. And I thought executed to exactly that effect for her to then walk out and not just go through this entire conversation to reclaim power and exactly the way you're talking about, Joe. But like it did feel revealing that her instigation of like reclaiming that power was bringing up the newts, right? Was like channeling this one thing that's already been so painful to her to like challenge Kwabana on like that point specifically. I really don't know what to make of that other than, I mean, she's clearly still going through a lot in terms of understanding that many of the people she has worked with, will work with whatever have basically seen her naked to this point and that clearly it's a dividing point in a lot of her life including with her mother.

33:12Jodi:Like of all things that she would do, like we know that we've seen her charm other people as you said Joe and like the implication of her relationship with Jonah in other ways. of all the things she could say and do, why would she lead with, you've seen me naked through this thing that is intensely painful for me personally?

33:27Rob:I think it's, again, I think that's so interesting. What if the Glenn Maxwell documentary I watched does come in handy this week? A lot of the survivors of, you know, that testified in the Epstein case talked about, there's this very specific thing with these like shoes that they owned that Epstein had bought for them and how they wore them and made the decision to wear them constantly to continually engage in this thing that happened to them and not sort of shove it in the back of the closet, which was like an incredibly painful sort of definitely a hot bummer thing for me to bring up on this podcast right now.

34:07Rob:But just that idea of like directly engaging with something that has happened to you that is traumatic is something that a lot of survivors do in complicated and varied ways. You know what I mean? And so it's not one to one for any singular person. but I think cutting from that scene to a character like Eric a character who we have seen ends the episode in a really rough way as far as I'm concerned but like in that conversation with Harper is like the best version of Eric the most like genuinely paternal version of Eric that we can occasionally glimpse and then to say even Eric is staring at Sweet Peas tits and not only that but like in an email where it's like right next to her, like LinkedIn quality.

34:58Rob:You know, so it's not just like, it's just like Jux right next door to something. And I just like, I hear what you're saying, Rob, about the neatness of this episode, but that cut really worked for me because it was just like, we're spent so much time. This is like the Sweet Pea episode. And we spent so much time in this episode with her thoughts, with her emotions, with her bravery, with her ingenuity, with all this sort of stuff like that. And then cut to Eric just looking at her tits. And it was just like a real, this episode slapped me several times and that was one of those. Jodi, any thoughts on that?

35:30Jo:That's a great way to describe it. Yeah, this episode was slapping me around a little bit. Yeah, I think hearing you describe that about the survivors and the shoes, it's like I think no matter what, we've all been in situations where something really bad has happened and the instinct is to want to forget about it. And you know in your mind that that... won't work. It not only won't work, but like, it's not the thing that you should do. You need to be able to think about hard things or they will slap you in the face later. But always deciding on that line between whether am I honoring this thing that happened to me by thinking about it and giving it thought, or am I poking at the wound?

36:14Jo:Always having to think about that is an assault and it's, you know, is, is further harm and is difficult and is like a burden to bear. And I think that Sweet Pea is, and this is pretty fresh, is always thinking about that. Like, do I get out in front of this? Do I make it mine by talking about it? Do I remind people of it by talking about it? And always having to think about it is extremely exhausting. That's what she said. That's what they say to Tony Day. Like you're the second most exhausted person as at Tinder, because you're so burdened by all of this. And Sweepy is actually maybe the only exhausted person at Taustern because she is the only one thinking about anything.

36:55Rob:Before we move off this Sweepy-Quabana exchange, I do want to mention, because we've been talking about sort of this idea of like proximity to white power, you know, this thing that Quabana says right before he talks to her about his like, you know, porn curated preference, he says, like, forgive me, Dr. Umar. And just like for some context, in case people don't know, you know, this is a person who who speaks out a lot about a variety of issues, but one of them maybe perhaps most controversially is interracial couples. And this is a quote, quote, the white woman for the black man is a white surrender flag.

37:34Rob:He holds up to the white power structure to say, quote, I am broken and I'm here for being taken. Sharp stuff from Dr. Umar, this was a subject of a lot of discussion, but like this is something that is present for this season of television. It's just sort of like, as we're talking about fascism and white power and all this sort of stuff like that, and having that invoked inside of this scene for these characters who are not directly part of that story, but it is present of mind for this entire season of television, I thought was, hey, another fucking slap from this episode of television.

38:08Jodi:I mean, absolutely. So especially in an episode that is from top to bottom filled with all of the ways in which we are programmed to do the things that we do. Of course, some of those are going to be complicated, like giant structural societal level problems, like institutional racism, for example, or in the way that kind of like channels us through, I guess, pornography, but you know, a million other kind of like little feedback loops that we're a part of to think that we want things just because we've been essentially like structured in our lives to want them.

38:40Jo:Yeah, that line from Jim on his co-grant last week really struck, like has stuck with me about that we're given so much, you know, so many conveniences that make us want things, but not the things we want to want. And that's the kind of thing where you see these characters in extreme situations dealing with it, but it also hit home with me. Like, am I wanting the things that I want? Am I wanting the things that I want to want? And where do those things overlap?

39:15Rob:Yeah. Am I wanting the things that I've been told by capitalism, marketing, social media, et cetera, et cetera?

39:22Jo:And by wanting them, am I preventing myself from actually wanting the things that I want to want? Like the things that I see as good and whole and worthwhile and worthy of my, you know, finite attention am I not ultimately wanting the right things because of the convenience of all the things that are served to me because capitalism wants me to want them.

39:44Jodi:And that level of surging and ultimately like brainwashing is what's happening is what leads someone like Eric to sit in a room with his daughters and feel unfulfilled to feel like this should matter to me, but it doesn't because I'm out here chasing the high of, I mean, I want to be celestial. I want to tap into something celestial. I think maybe if he just quieted that part of his mind that needs to be self-destructive and chasing things at all times, then he might be able to tap into that. But it seems a little too far gone, our guy, Eric. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

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41:50Rob:Jody, can I take you to fashion corner where you are queen? Of course. As you mentioned before we started recording today, You made a reference in our group chat about linen blazers. I'm going to tell you what I thought and then I want to hear what you think. So Sweet Pea is wearing a very specific look in all of her outfits that she wears here. To me, it read like late 90s female empowerment suits to me. The like large gold buttons more than anything else on the button down blazer. and so in my head when I was like going to like sort of 90s uh crime caper movies that that you know the people who who are making this show could be inspired by I was like oh pelican brief like this is Julia Roberts running around in pelican brief blah blah and then I looked up pelican brief I was like actually she doesn't wear anything like this in pelican brief at all but I was like why am I envisioning Julia Roberts in this sort of like colorless button down sort of thing.

42:54Rob:And then I was like, that's her big mistake, huge outfit in Pretty Woman. Like that's what that outfit is. That's her actually, that's her call girl outfit. And also in this episode, Tony Day says, uh, sweepy go lightly. Your name is as like almost as memorable as you are. And like, this is, we haven't talked about this. Uh, we haven't talked about this this season, but like, this is a Holly go lightly breakfast at Tiffany's who is another very famous call girl sort of reference. So that's sort of like where my mind went on fashion corner, but I'm curious if the linen blazer look from Sweet Pea took you anywhere else inside of this episode.

43:27Jo:Well, it's so interesting. Well, and especially invoking Julia Roberts because the fashion doesn't do it, but spiritually her fashion and the sort of air that she's taking on, stomping around, doing the white knight, literally knocking on doors is of course completely Erin Brockovich. Without a doubt. Yeah. Which is, you know, said outright in the episode when she marches into Tony Day's office after they've said that they're going to snooker him and snaps those sunglasses off. I mean, I don't think we ever saw Erin Brockovich wear a linen blazer, but we did see her wear cosplay blazers and, you know, cosplay something different than what she feels that she is.

44:14Jo:in this episode also calls on the sort of like, what does Eric say, like image of a hooker? And that juxtaposition between what we see in our minds, which is the Erin Brockovich, like how she actually dresses in the beginning of the movie when every dress is zippered down for the cleavage. But like, are we not all selling something even when we're in a linen blazer? And shouldn't we all dream of being the movie version of Erin Brockovich sort of like, you know, fighting for the little guy. I do think that Sweet Pea looked more, she looked less like she was wearing a costume than Yaz sometimes does.

44:58Jo:In her blazers. In her blazers. But she is wearing a costume and she's also sort of like doing safari chic when she, you know, arrives in like, linen is breathable, but a three-piece linen suit is still a little warm for the occasion. Yeah, that's a lot.

45:15Rob:I do, so I want to mention something on the casting front with Tony Day. Stephen Campbell Moore is an actor. I think he has a perfect face for like an extremely pale ginger who has been in Ghana for the last 15 years. You know, like you can just like see every freckle in line, you know, that Jodi, you were nodding at me as a fellow ginger. You know, it's like, TV on the Sun, no SPF high enough. But also, this is an actor who I first saw in the Stephen Fry movie, Bright Young Things, which came out, I don't know, a couple decades ago. Incredible top tier cast, like an early James McAvoy, an early Michael Sheen, like just like all the creme de la creme of the Brits that you could possibly want.

46:03Rob:Peter O'Toole's here, Richard E. Grant's here, Harriet Walters here, Stephen Fry. this is based on bright young things is based on the evelyn wa novel vile bodies but in in last week's episode and i wrote it down because i was like oh whitney said bright young things attract bright young things and so like i don't know that they were like get me the guy from right but i that story which is about um sort of the like coke addled champagne fueled uh youth uh well-to-do youth of uh in the uk between the wars and how high they flew and how much they crashed um is definitely something that could be on like all of evelyn wa's stuff could definitely be on the mind of the creators as they're as they're trying to like track these high-flying coke snorting uh you know young kids through this financial world and what how who's gonna fly and who's to crash and are we all going to crash?

47:02Rob:I don't know. But that's like, that was something that was on my mind. People might know him better from History Boys, which was like sort of a bigger deal. But like, I just, um, I thought it was perfect casting here. Rob, Rob, how did you enjoy this, this particular character?

47:17Jodi:I thought he was wonderful. I mean, it's like just the right amount of slime too, where it's like, you can see how this character got into this position, but also why he would want to extricate himself from it and insulate himself from it as quickly as humanly possible. And in particular, like his interactions with Sweet Pea, where he really only calls her, I would say he's not responding to her implications in telling him to call her in the first place, but almost like he's so curious about her being such a bad liar that he's like wondering why she would possibly be here. And like for that to be the grounding of their relationship, which we should say Sweet Pea, for all of her determination, I think at best has like a half-baked plan and a very underdeveloped backstory as far as like explaining to people what she is doing here, but walks into it with enough purpose and he responds to it with enough desperation that it's like we're seeing people being brought together in other circumstances when they would basically never have time for each other or never take each other seriously.

48:12Jodi:But who else is he going to turn to now that Jim is dead? And contrary to what he says in this episode, I believe he knows that Jim is dead and that his really one lifeline out of here has now been severed or coked out or fentanyled out or whatever the process of that is. Just a really fascinating character to drop into the mix, given everything that he can do for Stern Tau, certainly, but really just more the ways in which he tests Sweet Pea and then her plan kind of relies on him, but also as Harper tells it, maybe it doesn't even matter if he ultimately flips and whistle blows or not.

48:45Jo:What do you think, Jodi? Oh, I think the line of the episode, of an episode of many lines for me is when he says, do you ever think that you've gotten yourself in a little bit over your station here? And she says, never in my fucking life, sir. And she's lying. She's lying through her teeth. But a great way to be over your head is to think you're in over your head. And like she says, like she's pulling a heartburn. She's just got to kind of keep pushing through and let time do the work. But I think that you're right. Like that is his interest in her is like, who is this person who is so clearly in over their head, but is not acknowledging it?

49:25Jo:and is shaking some of the trees that I wish that I could shake. And could we shake them together? Or are they going to shake down on me ultimately? Like seeing this very sort of downtrodden, weathered man versus this bright young thing who's said, and of course she says, never in my fucking life, sir. You fancy paying for my nose job too? I know what you did. was, yeah, it was a great episode for like being away from our main characters a lot, you know, like for finding these other people who are just as interesting. And when they walk into the sort of, I guess the hotel in Accra and the music, like the very quintessential industry music from like the very first episode starts playing.

50:18Jo:Oh, you know, a fear in my chest and a twinkle in my eye. Like, we've got our new class here. Finally, they're spending.

50:25Rob:It gave me chills when that music cue kicked in. And I think that, like, what's so fascinating about this Tony Day character to me is that the way in which he's able to see through Sweet Pea, who I agree with you, Rob, is not when you're on the con. Like, it's good to have some sort of backup story for your story or whatever. But the way he sees through, like, he's not dumb, right? He's not wildly incompetent and dumb. So I'm interested why Whitney feels like he needs to constantly be on a plane to Accra. Because, like, so Tony is clearly wobbly in some degree because he's, you know, taking calls from Jim Dyker.

51:05Rob:Like, there's something going on there. But he's not so stupid that he needs constant oversight from Whitney. So what is it that Whitney feels like needs his attention constantly in Ghana, I guess, is my curiosity, you know?

51:18Jodi:That felt like it might be more of the handholding around the multi-level bribing that has to go on in order to perpetrate this level of fraud. And Whitney would be great at it. It's like he's exactly slick enough to pull off something like that. Whereas, like, Tony, you're right. He's not dumb. He's clearly aware of his situation. He opted into this, I think, probably pretty clear-eyed knowing what he was doing. but doesn't necessarily strike my strike me as like the operator that Whitney is in terms of getting people to agree to do something illegal across the board at multiple levels of like government and regulation and like all of these like auditors within, you know, within a cross self.

51:58Jo:Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think he's he's going there a lot for the fraud. And that when you put these two men, you know, maybe the room service chicken wings, like I don't want

52:09Jodi:to rule out any possibilities as far as why Whitney would be dropping in.

52:12Jo:Yeah, that hotel looks nice. Um, who knows what they might have there. Um, I think the, yeah, well, and Whitney is someone, he is the only person at that company who knows what's going on. Jonah didn't know none of his second or thirds know now. And the kind of control that you have to feel in that situation is like he might not be needing to go to Ghana, but he's doing these 24 hour trips, also certainly wearing himself ragged as the number one exhausted person at Tinder to keep the lie go. You know, the next lie brings the next lie and you just have to keep them going. And he is spinning a lot.

52:57Jo:He is he is keeping a lot of plates spinning. I was.

53:00Rob:Yeah, that's exactly the image I was thinking of. OK, I don't have a needle drop corner this week, but I do want to talk about the title of this episode, right? Eyes Without a Face, which is the, you know, this is like the Billy Idol track that Quabana sings at karaoke and then we hear it again when Sweet Pea is crashing from her adrenaline high at the end of the episode. That song is titled that based off of a 1960s French horror film, Eyes Without a Face, Les yeux sans visage. But like, basically A plus, Joe. I mean, Come on. No, no. Ladies and gentlemen, standing ovation, please. But the plot of that movie is about a sort of really creepy dude whose daughter gets disfigured in an accident.

53:47Rob:And he starts killing young women all over Paris, I believe, stealing their faces and trying to give his daughter like a facial transplant. So killing women who look like his daughter. So basically face swapping young women to try to restore his daughter to her previous. So could we think of any way in which that might apply here to like our guy Eric and his various daughter figures in this episode? Be that his daughter who got expelled, be that Harper or be that the the girl who calls him daddy at the end of the episode. That is like one thing that I'm thinking about. But also the like sort of Potemkin village description that we have about what Whitney is doing in tender.

54:32Rob:Right. We're just swapping and we're swapping as we're face swapping where the money's gone just so that you can't follow it very well. And then I was also thinking about Sweet Pea, like eyes without a face, this idea that like Eric looking at her, just her tits and her face isn't in that like photo at all. And it's just sort of like that's that's all he's looking at. And then also just last week's episode title, which was 1 ,000 Utes and 1 Maryland, Rob and I had been like discussing. I was like, not to quote my cousin Vinny, but I was like, what's a Ute? I was like, is a Ute like exactly what I think it is as I learned from my cousin Vinny or is it something else?

55:09Rob:Rob came up with like a UK Urban Dictionary like sort of definition of sort of like it's a Ute, right? And Kwabana says in this episode, 1 ,000 youths and shiseys, which is like young men in balaclavas, basically were involved in that sexual Guinness World Record breaking extravaganza that we talked about in last week's episode. Is it weird to have like heard that that phrase in this episode be the title of last week's episode? Rob, you were talking about like weird parallelism. But like, is there any part of you that thinks like part of this episode was once in that episode? Or does that not really strike you as weird at all?

55:47Jodi:I had that thought that maybe it was the kind of thing where either they were conceived of as like a call and response to episode sequence. Or it had been kind of chopped up and rearranged. Or some of the dialogue maybe had been transposed from one episode to the other. I think I settle on no, though, just because structurally, this is such a field trip episode. And I don't even know how you would interplay this with some of the other plots. Like it feels like such a standalone kind of thing happening. But it definitely felt odd to revisit like so explicitly. And maybe that's something that if you're the kind of viewer who isn't looking at an episode title, you don't necessarily care about.

56:22Jodi:but at minimum different characters are talking about literally the exact same online pornographic event in almost identical terms that feels a little uncanny to me

56:32Jo:i don't know but it is it's a through line of the season i mean it's how we get introduced to tinder is the ways in which they interact with the only fans like sites and so much of the conversation which the cokey stuff that jim is saying at the end of last episode is sort of much better intellectualized between the conversation with Sweet Pea and the sort of, you know, commodification of sex and the transactional way in which we treat a lot of relationships and human behavior now because of these convenience factors. And so I think it would have been a little heavy handed to have both of those scenes in one episode.

57:20Jo:But I like the continuation of the thought into this episode. Jodi, is there anything in this episode

57:27Rob:that we haven't talked about yet that you want to make sure we talk about?

57:30Jo:You know, I feel like maybe we're being kind of tough on Quabana. Like we're being kind of tough on him when, you know, he's not one of our worst characters, but he is young. And when he, after all of that, when he gets back and he talks to Harper And that comparison between the way that Sweet Pea talks to Harper, the debrief, and the debrief of how he talks to Harper. However, this isn't what I want to talk about, but they both say something along the lines of like, have I made myself clear? Yeah, fuck you, pay me. Like, do you understand me and what I'm asking for here? Which is sort of a sign that they both are under the impression that if they make themselves clear enough, that she'll treat them like humans.

58:20Jo:And that is unlikely. Sweet, sweet spirits. But when he tells Harper that Sweet Pea was like a dog with a bone, she was tenacious. And he says, it's really admirable how she's recovered from all that shit she went through. And the idea that because someone is tenacious, because someone is resilient in the face of challenge that they have recovered is often a thing put upon women that because they keep going in the face of challenge, it means that actually that challenge is okay and that treating them poorly is okay. And thinking that tenacity means recovery, it just loops in with all the Harper stuff, all the Sweet Pea stuff, that if we make ourselves undeniable, if we achieve so much, if we have enough tangible and obvious success, if we make enough money, then no one can hurt us because we are undeniable.

59:21Jo:But someone can still punch you in the face in a bathroom. You can still fall down the stairs chasing an Amazon package. Like no matter how much you chase being undeniable, life will still happen. How well are you taking care of yourself in the process? Generally, the answer is not very well in this show. And I really, I mean, I liked, I really liked seeing Sweet Pea get home and just fall apart. My move in that situation would have been to look at myself in the mirror if I did it. That always really helps get the, you know, cathartic tears going. Sure. But seeing her acknowledge what an awful situation she'd just been in, she'd already been in, is important.

1:00:08Jo:I think it's important for her and it's important for us to like see her do it.

1:00:12Rob:Completely. really loved. Yeah, I love that Harper and Sweepy interaction where she's like, forthright. It's clear that she does feel bad about like having sex with Kwabana, but is sort of like sort of putting a shell up of like, I didn't know if you were casual, but I just thought I thought I should tell you, no, you can't come in. We're not friends. Right. Like, you know, you're my boss. Like, fuck you, pay me. But like and I I liked Harper's reaction to that, bearing in mind that like early this season, Harper was quite forthright with Quabana, but the fact that she had sex with Whitney. So like, and the fact that he didn't tell her, right?

1:00:52Rob:He didn't have that conversation with her, but Sweet Pea did. All of those dynamics were really fascinating to me. Rob, anything you want to zero one on?

1:00:59Jodi:I mean, I want to hit both of these if we can, just because I think as far as the Sweet Pea-Harper interaction, it felt like she came back in a different place in their relationship from this trip. And I can't quite put my finger on why, because I mean, we're what, two episodes removed from them being spreadsheet detectives together. And her telling Harper like, the only reason I'm here is because you're giving me your word personally as somebody who I guess we care about each other to here where it's like, miss me with your like pastoral compassion. And I'm trying to like, obviously, look, she's been through a fuck ton on this trip alone in particular.

1:01:33Jodi:And who knows what else has happened in the meantime for her. But I am trying to square like why that relationship feels so different other than in a very tough place coming off of this like very strange trip. Like maybe that is reason enough. I don't know.

1:01:46Rob:To me, I read it as like her trying to put distance. Like I didn't actually betray a friend by like fucking this guy that she hooks up with. Like we aren't friends, you know? Like I felt like she was putting some distance between them inside of that moment to, I don't think, I personally don't think she has anything to feel guilty about. But if she decided she was like, if I decide that Harper and I are actually like, friends and or spreadsheet detective buddies or whatever the case may be, then having sex with Kwabana was not the move. But if I decide that that's not our relationship, then I can tell myself it wasn't that bad of a thing to do.

1:02:24Jodi:Yeah. That part definitely tracks.

1:02:26Jo:Also with the sort of rejection, the returning from the trip and rejecting the pastoral compassion that maybe she had kind of liked in some sort of mentor way before is circling around these ideas that we've been dealing with with Sweet Pea of control and choices. And it comes from Harper saying to her, I'm so sorry that I let this happen to you. And I have to assume that Sweet Pea's thought in that moment is, I let this happen to me. It was not good. It was not safe, but I chose it. And she literally says, don't take this away from me. Yeah, I loved that. I think part of that is the choice, the choices that she's made.

1:03:04Jo:They are hers. I'm sure that's a lot of what she feels around the OnlyFans leak or the siren leak is those were my choices. Me, you know, feeling some regret about them now doesn't make those choices any different. They were mine. They were that of a 19 year old self, whatever. But also that her choices, which may have been bad, also have them in the position that they're in now. and Harper can't take that away from her either. Absolutely, absolutely. And she will.

1:03:35Rob:Right, no, I love all of that. And again, this Glenn Maxwell documentary I watched, which is on Netflix, you can watch it, has like a very false happy ending because actually more things happens inside of the case than the documentary covered. But it was so fascinating to hear from, like there are so many people inside of this case who were underage and then there's like all the women who were like, 18 or 19 at the time. And all of them don't have a case that they can bring. And all of them are saying, all of them that were interviewed, like, you know, I was 19, I was 21, whatever the case may be, is like, this was my choice, my decision, but I'm showing up to support these young women.

1:04:17Rob:And I just think it's such a, like, arbitrary, horrible line to draw that, like, you know, you're 17 and 11 months and you've been violated and you're 18 and you haven't, you know? And And that's just like that conversation from those women, you know, the fact that Sweet Pea was 19 is like, you know, I made this choice. There is an empowerment in it, but there's also this like false adulthood inside of it that is just like really painful to to grapple with.

1:04:45Jodi:I think especially Joe as all of these characters we're talking about from Harper to Tony Day to Quabana in his own way are like trying to minimize what Sweet Pea is doing or minimize the role that she's playing or the agency she's exercising in her own life and it's like the absolute mind fuck of I was adult enough to put nudes of myself on the internet technically legally and I'm gonna be that's gonna be held against me for the rest of my life but God forbid I actually wanna try to prove something or God forbid I want to try to work in this other way. And no one takes me seriously.

1:05:18Rob:God forbid I'm Aaron fucking Brockovich. I mean, seriously.

1:05:20Jodi:And then, and then Kwabana comes back and it's like, Jodi, when you brought up like the dog and the bone comment, like there was so much like there, there pat on the head in the way that he was talking about it. And I think really the smoking gun is when Kwabana, someone who, from everything we've seen, doesn't really care about tenacity, is praising her tenacity. It's like, that's not a word or a concept that means a lot to him. And so it's like, it's such a hollow compliment. The idea that he's saying like, look at how doggedly she pursued this thing that isn't really important to me, but sure was good for her.

1:05:49Jodi:Nice job.

1:05:50Jo:Well, and when you look at Harper and Sweet Pea, we don't know a ton about Sweet Pea's background. She talks about her mom a little bit in this episode, but these ages that you're talking about, Joe, 18, 19, when you're still in a really vulnerable situation, but for some people, you have been put in the situation of needing to take care of yourself financially now. And for some people, you have not been put in that situation. And the choices that we make at those ages, because we have to be able to take care of ourselves, are just taken from very different worlds for some people and the structures and the systems around us.

1:06:25Jo:And that's, yeah, like that's when those vulnerabilities really come into play and the choices that we have to make that don't entirely feel like our own. One last thing I want to hit is, so we get a margin call inside of this episode.

1:06:38Rob:Our guy, Kenny, does a margin call. there is a 2011 film Margin Call and it does not have Margot Robbie in a bath but it does have Paul Bettany in a really nice suit so you know there's something for everyone out here in the world but I want to hit a couple things from it's a great movie J.C. Chandor it's a great movie will it help you understand what a margin call is? no but I think the context is pretty clear here like you guys are over leveraged you need to show up with more money or else you know we're going to dissolve you're going to take a huge loss on your short here Right. But there are a couple Margin Call is less of like a great movie and more of like a few like absolutely knockout scenes like sort of assembled together.

1:07:19Rob:And I just want to highlight two of them really quickly in case anyone wants to watch Margin Call on a on a Friday evening. um stanley chuchi's character uh whose name is eric um has this incredible scene where he's basically involved in this in this massive financial scandal he's not responsible but he is involved and he talks to paul bettany about the fact that like in his previous life he built a bridge like he was an engineer and he built a bridge and he talks about the way in which this bridge saved all of these people so much commute time and he calculates all the hours that these people in this community saved because he built this bridge.

1:07:57Rob:And I was thinking about that a lot when I was talking, when like Eric and Harper were talking about feeling empty and the nothingness, the like, this is a, this is an industry of like fake accomplishments. There's money at the end of this, but there's, you haven't built anything. You haven't made anything. You've just engaged in this like capitalistic pageantry and there's nothing that you can show for it at the end of the day, unless you are the rare sort of like healthy work-life balance sort of finance bro, which industry would have you believe. I don't know. Who's that? Anyone who fucked off in the Silicon Valley, I guess.

1:08:35Rob:But I would say no. No, not even that. Having spent a lot of time with the Silicon Valley bros. The other one is Jeremy Irons plays this character who's modeled off the president of Lehman Brothers. His whole thing is modeled off of like what happened with Lehman Brothers with the 2008 mortgage crash. This is his great speech that Jeremy Irons gives at the end of this movie. This movie also has Kevin Spacey in it, just fair warning. But anyway, Jeremy Irons says, When did you start feeling so sorry for yourself? It's unbearable. What, so you think you might have put a few people out of business today?

1:09:05Rob:That's all for naught. But you've been doing that every day almost 40 years, Sam. And if this is all for naught, then so is everything out there. It's just money. It's made up pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than it's ever been. But just this idea of like what we're doing is so made up. And that is what this whole, you know, we're engaging in journalism and the tech world and a bunch of other industries that, you know, I would argue if you're a journalist, you do have something to show for your work.

1:09:38Rob:But like inside of the world of finance, it is just this incredible shell game that can leave you feeling so empty inside because it's just you're not actually building anything at the end of the day. Yeah. And that this is why you have to create all these stories for yourself. You have to weave all these tales and all these narratives of how important it is what you're doing, how virtuous it is, etc., etc. Or fill yourself with, to invoke the episode title from two weeks ago, all these precious things that matter to you. be it a Hitler painting or whatever the case may be. All these things that you amass around you that shows you that you were here and you existed and you lived a life.

1:10:27Rob:Oh, yeah, that legacy. That legacy is complete. That's for you, Jodi.

1:10:30Jo:And the line from this episode, you know, whispered sort of wonderfully by Eric, the thing was nothing. Yeah, no shit. None of these things are things. The things are nothing. And Eric, Harper, you know, Eric gets Harper a couple of times. Harper gets him when he is just sort of opining for how his relationship with his children should be celestial and metaphysical. It's like there's nothing celestial about finance. And she says, it's surely not lost on you that you picked a hyper transactional career where the transactions aggregate to zero. Zero. Yeah. Exactly what you're saying, Joe. Exactly.

1:11:12Jo:Anything else you want to add, Rob?

1:11:13Rob:to any of this. Yeah.

1:11:15Jodi:We haven't dug into that specific exchange between Harper and Eric that much in terms of like the what it's because I don't want to go to therapy. Well, I'm sorry. I'm dragging you back.

1:11:26Jo:It's part of being a podcaster. Joanne, I just got to do it on the mic.

1:11:30Jodi:It's true. All right. This part is complimentary. I'm sorry to say. But yeah, I think the combination of yes, the like wanting to prove something to your now dead mother, but also the like, what does it mean to be a good or bad boss? I learned it from watching you. And I think Harper ultimately, even before she reveals to Eric that her mother has died, I mean, giving him an absolute undressing as much as you can do that to a man in a robe for basically no reason. I mean, I wouldn't say that Eric has been incredibly effective in his capacity at Stern Tao as of yet, but he did put up money. He is footing the bill for their office.

1:12:06Jodi:Like he is participating in a kind of way. And for the chicken wings, baby, at bare minimum, paying for some very expensive chicken wings. And Harper is saying, like, you're useless to me effectively at this point. And I mean, if we're all being honest about it, I'm sure just projecting a lot of stuff about everything she's thinking and going through with her relationship with her mom, too.

1:12:25Rob:Yeah, that was just a lash out because she got a call from her estranged brother about her dead mom. That's a great point, though. Jodi, anything you want to add to that?

1:12:33Jo:You know, she talks about that her brother, when they were young, is the last and only time she ever felt love. And in that scenario, it is very easy to think of people as how they are useful or not useful to you because love is, you know, the only thing that sort of doesn't have like a functional imperative. And she doesn't feel it. And she really struggles to give it. And I think like, you know, we, I miss, I actually, I didn't find myself within the episode missing Yaz when the preview came up. I was like, oh, where's Yaz? And I know that Joe and I are hoping for this romantic rekindling or not unkindling of that friendship.

1:13:19Jo:But for me, it's because it's the closest we see Harper get to love. Yeah. I think much more so than Eric. Like, that relationship has always been of, you know, subordinate. And, like, it's—the writing has always been clear in that relationship. But with Harper and Yaz, we get so close. Like, we get so close to love. And I want that for Harper. Otherwise, she is going to explode her whole world.

1:13:51Jodi:Yeah. I think she might do it one way or the other, to be honest with you. It won't.

1:13:54Jo:So you're right. Like, it won't save her. It won't save her.

1:13:57Jodi:I mean, everything with Harper and Eric is so fucked up. I did think it was interesting in this episode, though. As you mentioned, Joe, this is just kind of a disaster Eric episode in a lot of different respects, especially when you arc it out and where he ends up. He is one of the only people in the episode, though, who kind of gets the thing that he's been after, the thing that he's been chasing. It's like what he wanted in establishing Stern Tau in the first place was basically for Harper to treat him like a friend or a father or like to disclose personal information about her life. And yet even when she does it, he can't help but make it about him and his daughter.

1:14:31Jodi:And it's like how quickly he just flips from the one thing he professed to want into this other thing that I guess he needs. But I don't know. Our guy is a mess.

1:14:40Rob:Black holes so deep inside of every single character in this show, they will never be filled. Yeah. All right. Well, that has been episode five of Industry. Have a great weekend. That's the note I'm leaving it on. Of course, we will be back, you know, after the next episode drops. So a little in a little over a week just because of the Super Bowl influence released of industry.

1:15:09Jodi:Do you think we'll be programmed to want anything that we don't want because of the Super Bowl? I shudder to say.

1:15:14Rob:Guess what? I won't be watching. So PrestiTV is Spotify.com or HarpsCoreStrapOn at gmail.com. and we will see you soon. Bye.

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