As heartbreaking as the Season 3 finale of “Industry” may have been for fans seeking a Yasmin and Robert romance, Marisa Abela sees her character’s ending as “inevitable.”
“The way that Myha’la as Harper makes the most cutthroat choice in terms of the industry and what she’s preparing to do, Yasmin makes the most cutthroat choice in terms of her own life,” Abela told TheWrap of her character.
After building up a will-they, won’t-they between Yasmin and Robert for three seasons, the friends finally have sex in “Infinite Largesse.” Yet minutes after their tryst in the countryside, Yasmin goes back to Lumi CEO Henry Muck (Kit Harington) and accepts his proposal. It’s a decision that ultimately comes down to two different forms of security for Yasmin. Does she go with the man she loves, or the man whose wealth and reputation will allow the publicly disgraced Yasmin to re-enter high society?
“She’s looking around at Robert, and that’s a choice that maybe feels slightly more comforting in an intimacy place. But the truth is Yasmin’s just got to do what she’s got to do,” Abela said. “It’s got to be Lady Muck. Lady Muck for the win.”
“They both have something to offer the other one in a quite transactional way,” Kit Harington told TheWrap of Yasmin and Henry’s relationship. “It’s like, in some ways, those horrible studies about when siblings meet that don’t know they’re siblings and fall in love with each other. That’s how I felt about those two. It’s a reflected mirror of something, and they gravitate towards each other.”
Harington praised Abela as “extraordinary” in Season 3, emphasizing how excited he was that his character got to meet Yasmin at this point in the story. “I get to work with her at, what I think is, one of the most interesting times for a character in the whole of the three-season arc so far,” Harington said.
“Yasmin is quite an interesting one in terms of predator or prey,” Abela said. “Throughout all three seasons, there are certain aspects of her where she feels incredibly confident and self-assured, and she’s preying on other characters in the show, namely Robert. But she also has an incredibly vulnerable side to her.”
The actor says that this season, Yasmin is trapped in a state of feeling “hunted” in the midst of the paparazzi and media scrutiny she now faces thanks to the crimes and death of her father.
Abela sees money and love as being “pretty interchangeable” to Yasmin. “She definitely grew up with more money than she did love, so it’s where she feels safest. At the end of the day, that’s what becomes most important to her,” Abela said. “If she can click her fingers and make all of the hell of this season go away, she will. She feels that Henry is that for her.”
Yasmin wasn’t the only character who ended Season 3 looking out for herself above everyone else. By the end of Episode 8, Harper’s all-shorts fund decimates Pierpoint & Co. That move led to the company being purchased by Egyptian investment firm Al-Mi’raj, as well as her old mentor Eric (Ken Leung) losing his job.
“That seems right. If anyone was going to do it, then she was going to,” Myha’la told TheWrap. “When she has an opportunity to make a short of a lifetime, it’s icing on the cake that it happens to be the place that f–ked her the first time.”
Between Harper’s cutthroat planning and execution, there is still a glimmer of this ruthless trader’s humanity, thanks to her relationship with frenemy Yasmin. “She tries to not let Yasmin get caught in the crosshairs. But when it comes down to the effectiveness of the thing, Yasmin is going to have to be collateral damage, and Harper knows that,” Myha’la said.
Myha’la also thinks that if she found the short at literally any bank, Harper would have taken the same actions. “I don’t think she necessarily sets out to destroy PierPoint alone. It is truly an additional happy accident, because she could choose to save the bank, but that’s not the best trade. What she wants, ultimately, is to do the best trade,” Myha’la said.
Though he says Eric “would never admit to this,” Leung believes his character would feel “extreme pride” when it comes to Harper’s trade, even if it cost him his job. “He probably does take credit for all of that. It just happens that he’s the victim,” Leung told TheWrap. “But the means, he kind of gave her, or he would say he gave her.”
Between a proposal and the near collapse of the central company in “Industry,” the biggest shock of Season 3’s finale actually had to do with Rishi (Sagar Radia). The foul-mouthed market maker spent most of the season on the sidelines as he hid his personal financial troubles and dodged shady criminals looking to be repaid. In “Infinite Largesse,” one of his underworld connections known as Vinay (Asim Chaudhry) comes to collect — and Rishi’s wife Diana (Brittany Ashworth) is shot in the process.
“I had to read [the script] a couple of times, because I wasn’t quite sure what I read,” Radia told TheWrap. “It’s not in time with the show, which probably gives it the biggest shock factor that it could.”
Radia praised Ashworth and Chaudhry’s performance in the tense scene, especially since Chaudhry comes from the world of comedy. “It was a huge shock. But I think it really leaves a cliffhanger for Rishi as to where he goes from here,” Radia said.
We’re all but guaranteed to see Rishi’s future, as HBO has already renewed “Industry” for a fourth season. Though Season 3 may feel like a series finale, that’s more of an overarching strategy employed by series co-creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay.
“We always write the finales of every season with the intention that they become satisfying conclusions, if they are conclusions,” Down told TheWrap. “We’ve got a really good Season 4 storyline. But I would hate for us to finish a season, not come back and to have an unsatisfying conclusion.”
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