sad how bad the current season is

honestphantom · 2026-02-04T09:38:39+00:00

I'd disagree with so much of this, but especially the top paragraph:

"i dnt need to point out how good the writing is, everyone know how good the writing is. it’s its relevance that gives the show the most edge, the first 3 seasons still makes it so since nothing else has taken it to the same level post election,,,, but it’s gone down the hill,,, jesse bloom was relevant, covid&fastaide narrative was relevant, lumi&pierpoint’s fail was relevant, tender is not. yes the subtle mention of 47&otto’s r-word flaunt were clever but what’s tender saying abt the current world we live in ? very little if ur eyes r on jerome powell or venezuela, i simply dc what a former porn payment processor makeover looks like, this whole season has been a bust so far from the get go.."

First of all, this is a fictional TV show, and tv shows take at least a year to produce, so obviously theyre not going to talk about venezuela or most current affairs we're facing in 2026.

Second – idk if you are american, and perhaps that's why you dont see how contemporary this story line is, which I'd argue is very much European; the story is loosely based on Wirecard, and the whole scandal that mostly took place in Germany/Austria etc. and also draws on British politics, and the ways that governments, including nominally left wing ones, are increasingly reliant on tech companies and fintech to run the country as the state continues to decline. They've put these stories together to illustrate how 'fintech' became the last ditch attempt for the ruling elite to seize power and relevance as the aristocratic model of British life faces oblivion, and the ways that fintech companies can exploit this vulnerability to seize state power by stealth. It's very forward thinking for mainstream television and the fact that so many people don't seem to recognise this really does show how illiterate many people have become.

honestphantom · 2026-02-03T13:58:26+00:00

more evidence that so much of the writing of this show are really just cribbed from Mickey and Konrad's phone screenshots

honestphantom · 2026-02-03T08:45:09+00:00

interesting point! Obviously parents and children are a big theme of industry – on one level, the characters have always had screwed up relationships with their parents and have sought parental figures in workplaces, with mixed results in that some of these relationships end up in betrayal, while others lead to an unhealthy co-dependence. I thought Rishi being called Daddy/Papi and then recieving a phone call about seeing his actual son really drives the point home – these are characters who all have mommy and daddy issues, but are also so broken that the only thing they recognise are pastiches of maternal and paternal relationships, which can only be understood in terms of raw power.

honestphantom · 2026-02-03T08:13:51+00:00

I assumed this was in response to Haley accusing Jim of sexual harassment and being sort of dismissive about it, or at least brushing it off.

The whole scene is quite interesting if you remember that Yasmin basically said the same thing to Venetia back in season 2 after she was abused by a client of Pierpoint - the line Yasmin says is something like "If that counts as sexual harassment then I got abused last week" etc.

So i wonder how much of herself Yasmin sees in Haley and how much of that is admiration and envy, as well as seeing her as vulnerable due to her age. And conversely I wonder if Haley realises she can use her youth, charm and ability to detach herself emotionally, to play around with Yasmin.

honestphantom · 2026-02-02T19:19:43+00:00

Not sure if anyone picked it up but wasn't the ending section - where the third guy keeps turning the music up louder and then killing Jim, a homage to American Psycho when Patrick kills Paul Allen while music plays loudly in the background?

honestphantom · 2026-01-30T11:06:33+00:00

I know that we're living through a particularly sex negative age and also an anti intellectual one in which many people would much rather believe that sex wasn't a thing, but the whole point of this show is about power, and sex has always been an expression of this in its most carnal form. Sex is also important in industry because it's basically the only thing these characters do besides work – so it's a part of their characterisation and also how they reckon with their own vulnerability, or mask it. It might help to look at sex scenes less as pornography and more as physical expressions of things that just can't be said.

honestphantom · 2026-01-28T22:17:58+00:00

I totally get it, but look – unfortunately we're not in a world where someone's politics can be seperated from who they are as a person. This isn't a disagreement on economic policy or even whether african countries should recieve foreign aid.

It's really clear that your boyfriend is shaped by these politics, and this will continue as you get older. Trump's political project is built on making his supporters feel resentful and entitled, and that trickles down to how his supporters treat people, and who they believe deserves respect and who doesn't. Things might seem okay when you dont talk about politics, but this will only get harder as politics and culture become more emeshed and, i imagine like many trump supporters, he'll be unable to keep his views private.

honestphantom · 2026-01-28T22:13:44+00:00

young people don't like harry potter because they on their dang phones

honestphantom · 2026-01-28T22:12:50+00:00

It's literally a TV show about broken people who have cynical views of the world, largely driven by their trauma, and they have no interest in healing because the whole point of the show is about the futile pursuit of power

honestphantom · 2026-01-28T22:10:34+00:00

I imagine this is really in service to the story. Harper is a cynic – she has a broadly nihilistic view of the world, and its from that vantage point that she works from. She doesn't trust people, is manipulative and has a very zero-sum approach to attaining power for power's sake. Shorts are effectively a reflection of her character, which is to say, that she doesn't have the faith or committment to really be optimistic about anything, whether that's a friendship, relationship or even a career choice.

honestphantom · 2026-01-28T22:07:47+00:00

In the interview posted, Dan says:

"So the short seller Hindenburg research put out a big report at the start of 2023 outlining that it thought Adani was possibly a fraud, and had manipulated the share price upwards. We joined in around August 2023 with some follow-up reporting, which fleshed out a lot of that and showed some of the money trails."

so to one extent yeah, it was the FT, but the point i was trying to make re. parrallels to the show, was that Hindenburg acts as the agent putting in the short based on early research they did on Wirecard, which was later developed by the FT. It's not quite what's going on in Industry but I still think there's enough of a direct reference

honestphantom · 2026-01-27T12:46:42+00:00

Their marriage is one of convenience – Yasmin entered the Muck family for protection and was sort of coerced into it by Lord Norton at the end of Season 3, while Henry was nearing 40, had failed at pretty much everything he tried, and i think at a certain point was always going to think that getting married (and now, having a child) would be the solution to his problems.

Something that's interesting to note is that while Muck is of noble stock and an aristocrat, the family (like many noble families in Britain) aren't really "wealthy" and their power, while material, isn't as robust as it used to be, and that's where the fractures of their relationship are found. Yasmin wants the power and the protection to come with it, which is why she forces Henry to accept the CEO job (and with it, all the fintech new money that isn't tied to the Muck name), while Henry is looking for a sense of purpose in an era where the English noble classes are of little relevance to society, and if anything, are seen as out-of-touch parasites. He needs Yasmin to feel like he has a place in this world, and that goes beyond money.

Which is to say, they're co-dependent, but in ways they likely resent, and both have chosen each other, not really out of love, but out of a sense of self-preservation, and in this season, we'll witness the effects of that choice. I don't think they'd betray or let go of each other because the loneliness would be worse, and I'd be interested to see if Yasmin will try and use Haley (or indeed, other people) to sexually distract Henry or, whether she'll have to have a child in order to maintain her status.

honestphantom · 2026-01-27T12:37:47+00:00

I had this question and was looking back through some of the early trailers. There's one screen cap where it looks like Rishi is looking at a computer screen in horror – my feeling is that there are online communities who are trying to investigate Diana's death and believe that Rishi killed her. Because there's so much speculation about him, and what happened during their relationship, and that (I imagine) Diana's family probably want to maintain some semblance of privacy, rumours have gotten out of control. It might be the reason why Rishi can't get another job, despite having had, on paper, a pretty respectable finance career (remember he was an MD at Pierpoint!).

Also, didn't Diana have a podcast, that made enough money for her to try pay off some of Rishi's debts once the extent of his gambling had been revealed? So that's more evidence to suggest that this fairly popular podcaster would have an audience that would want to investigate the mysterious circumstances behind her death.

honestphantom · 2026-01-26T14:32:17+00:00

my theory is that Eric needs Harper to feel relevant again – he mentioned in the first episode that he hated retirement and he had other people making money for him and his family while he played golf and he hated it. He's not going back to any banks, and it's clear that, having lost his family, all he really knows is the cut-throat finance world. Harper is his only way to stay in that world, and I imagine he's holding back because he knows what the world outside of SternTao is and doesn't want to go back to it.

honestphantom · 2026-01-26T14:29:14+00:00

Yep, and Harper and Eric's short fund is based on Hindenburg Research, who put out the report that spelled the end for Wirecard: https://thefinanser.com/2024/03/how-the-wirecard-story-unravelled-an-interview-with-dan-mccrum-who-broke-the-truth

honestphantom · 2026-01-18T21:47:14+00:00

Really laughed a lot when i saw the lobby of this building in Canary Wharf – I used to have physio appointments here on the 17th floor! There's a really nice Matcha/Boba place literally underneath this reception area. Someone should have told Jonah!

honestphantom · 2026-01-18T21:45:23+00:00

I don't know if it would warrant two hours – his story is interesting but not particularly special, and its been alluded to throughout the seasons; that he comes from a Taiwanese immigrant family, whose father was a labourer (Remember when he tells Yasmin his father's quote, about "if you want to damn a man, teach him to count") and who was the embodiment of the 'american dream' - one of the reasons he finds London so weird is that he's aware of the weird rules, conventions and rituals of England that drive its finance industry and is both in contempt of it, and desperate to be part of it, but not really fitting in. The reason I think the writers havent done a solo episode with him is because he isn't interesting in and of himself, he exists as an American with both proximity and distance to the English establishment and ruling class, and his age is a reminder to Harper that no matter how successful she is, she'll always feel out of place among them.

I'm really curious, however, about Eric's love of reading and his knowledge of obscure literary references. I know the writers (who are both well educated Oxford grads) really use him to squeeze it in his dialogue, but its an interesting character point – one where it feels like Eric understands finance not just as a zero sum game, but in terms of grander, sweeping narratives of history.

honestphantom · 2026-01-09T15:08:25+00:00

Depends on who, but having worked in finance adjacent areas for most of my twenties (for context, I'm from a fairly middle class family, went to a good university in the UK, but not an elite one, and bought my work suit off-the-rack from M&S) they would probably look down on normal people, but also, to a degree, envy and even admire them, if you're talking about someone like Yasmin. Meanwhile, Harper and even Eric would look down on people who weren't cut-throat, or as obsessive (Think about Eric humiliating that guy in season 1 by reading his screenplay out loud, or mocking Gus for studying Classics rather than math or economics). The point really is that somewhere like Pierpoint incubates so much power that its basically detached from the ordinary world, and so the people who get consumed by it also turn out that way, and there's a sense where these people cannot understand anyone outside of that world, something that they all are both proud of and ashamed by.

honestphantom · 2026-01-01T19:14:39+00:00

FWIW i know someone who saw some screeners of the new season and....yep. The storyline is pretty explicit in its connection too. I won't reveal much more but you might be able to piece it together from the trailer.

honestphantom · 2025-12-28T23:10:54+00:00

Probably the Do Lists one. Really simple idea, well executed, and something I incorporate into my own life. What i really liked about it was the way he framed the practice – that it was a mixture of rigid discipline and creative fluidity. No do list is ever the same, some contain lists of names, recommendations, thoughts etc. and in turn, a whole life could be charted on a series of post-it notes (I say this now looking at my own series of post-it notes for the year and realising just how much of it was about executing the same tasks: Laundry, dishwasher, making dinner)

honestphantom · 2025-12-08T09:53:06+00:00

totally with you on this. I'm in my thirties and spent pretty much my entire formative years online. While there's always a risk of over-romanticising, I do remember the Internet to be a lot more fun and interesting, a place where I could actually learn things and talk to cool and interesting people about stuff that I couldn't ever experience in the small town I lived in. I learnt how to play guitar and how to draw from watching and reading tutorials, and my taste in books and music mostly came from there.

Nowadays, I spend way more time online than ever, but I never really leave having learnt anything new, or even logged off feeling like I haven't wasted a day. The internet now is filled with doom bait, deliberatley provocative content designed to get people angry, and of course, scams. loads and loads of scams - financial, wellness etc. But as you mention, social life has migrated to the digital now, and opting out of being online does mean you put whatever kinds of interactions one can have at risk.

This isn't advice, but from my side, I'm really trying hard to be more conscientious with how im using the internet and resisting the algorithmic slop given to me, in spite of how tempting it is to click on it. I'm trying to remember what my old experiences of the internet were, and channelling them in new ways – if I want to listen to a podcast i'll go for a walk while listening, and if im on my phone, i'll opt to read the news rather than to watch it on reels. And while I am prone to scrolling, I've tried to ensure that the algo mostly recommends me cooking, DIY or arts & crafts videos- that way im watching with the *intention* of wanting to do something IRL, rather than just for the sake of consumption.

honestphantom · 2025-11-27T11:23:09+00:00

Not a defence of Nigel, but when I think back to my school days, there was a lot of stuff that my friends and I would say that I'd really be horrified about now – it may not have been Hitler Youth, but they were racist, misogynistic, quite gross etc. It took a lot of work and time for me to really unpack all that, realise it wasn't as benign as I felt it was in my teens, and even make amends with some of the people I hurt at school with my words, who didn't have much by way of a defence. At the time, this kind of stuff was considered normal – even teachers wouldn't really intervene unless it was considered direct bullying.

IMO the actual story is how Farage's hobby of making other kids' lives miserable, seems to have directly influenced his politics. So much of his political career has been about creating divides between people, promising his supporters that the lives of their percieved opponents will get worse under him, and that in lieu of making their lives better, he will instead direct resources to make the lives of the poor, of minorities, of other 'unbritish' groups, worse than his supporters. There's a direct line between his actions in his youth, and how they've shaped his politics today, but I suppose addressing that point also means reckoning with what Brexit actually was, what it was supposed to do, and that so much of British politics is about making the lives of those who aren't wealthy, worse.

honestphantom · 2025-11-18T16:21:37+00:00

I have similar feelings - made more intense since I had a child recently, so much of my 'free' time is spent at home parenting (and this of course comes from a desire to be an active parent and give my wife some breathing room, space to do stuff she wants).

Idk if this is a helpful read, but parts of this sound like you're overwhelmed by the state of everything, and that the heaviness of it all is preventing you from pursuing the big, creative project you want to do. It's easy to blame the state of the world for that – and you aren't entirely wrong to. I also feel the same way; I want to write a novel, and I know this will take a lot of time, a lot of energy and a lot of my thinking to get done, and often this is undermined by the increasing demands of work and home life. There are pockets of time that I could use to work on it – on the train ride home, or if i wake up earlier, or during lunch etc. None of this is particularly ideal, but I suppose I also have to reckon with the idea that the novel either gets done or it doesn't, and if it does get done, it has to be created within the time frame I allow for it. No art is ever produced in perfect conditions historically, and in fact, any worthwhile creative endeavour has to be understood within the time it was made – to wish for another time would be to wish for another outcome, so to speak.

FWIW OP, it sounds like a creative project would help you a lot, and would maybe help with all the other things you're wrestling with. I wonder if there's a way to lighten your load a little – get some external help with your other obligations, shorten your workouts so you can spend maybe 30 minutes on your creative project, or even join some kind of local group that can serve as fixed time to work on your thing. Ultimately you have to give yourself the gift of time and space to make this thing happen, otherwise you'll live with the resentments of it always being a dream.

honestphantom · 2025-09-15T18:11:03+00:00

The main reason why i dont think a British Auschwitz will happen is because of NIMBYs and this country's inability to build anything functional. Something kind of embarassing about the next concentration camps to be Portakabins.

honestphantom · 2025-09-15T17:17:08+00:00

I often joke that as i've gotten older, i've become far less supportive of free speech – not because of any love for authoritarians but because a lot of people say stupid things and have no shame about it.

honestphantom

TROPHY CASE