SPOILER ALERT: This story incorporates plot details for “Nikki Beach, or: So Many Ways to Lose,” Season 3, Episode 6 of HBO’s “Industry,” now streaming on Max.
Last week, “Industry” ended on a rare cliffhanger: with Yasmin (Marisa Abela), the publishing heiress turned finance associate turned tabloid goal, seemingly confessing to the murder of her disgraced, missing father Charles (Adam Levy). This week, the HBO drama finally shows its audience what happened on that fateful yacht ride in Mallorca. In an prolonged flashback, we learn that Yasmin didn’t technically kill Charles — she simply didn’t alert anyone when Charles jumped into the water, a futile try and emotionally manipulate his daughter within the midst of an explosive fight.
Written by Joseph Charlton, directed by Isabella Eklöf, and overseen by co-creators and showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, the episode puts a highlight on a personality who’s grow to be the de facto protagonist of the series’ rapturously acclaimed breakout season. With American antihero Harper Stern (Myha’la) fired from their once-shared workplace on the bank Pierpoint & Co., Yasmin has struck out on her own, dating a wealthy client with a fetish for golden showers (played by “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington) and collaborating closely with Harper’s former mentor, an adrift Eric Tao (Ken Leung).
The opening flashback is dramatic, however it’s only the start of what seems to be a grueling hour for our poor little wealthy girl. In the current, Charles’ body is finally recovered, and Yasmin insists on seeing his decayed corpse. Shell-shocked, she has lunch with Eric, then loudly and publicly calls him out for crossing a boundary and clumsily flirting together with her. (She isn’t imagining things; Eric immediately rubs one out in a toilet stall as a part of his ongoing midlife crisis.) Finally, Harper manipulates Yasmin into giving her information on Pierpoint’s overexposure to fashionable ethical investments, a breach that affords an already ego-bruised Eric the excuse to chop Yasmin loose, firing her over the phone.
All of this culminates in a blowout argument between Yasmin and Harper of their kitchen. (The codependent friends are also roommates.) Harper showed up for her peer in Mallorca, helping her clean up and keeping her secret; back in London, she throws Yasmin under the bus, then refuses to apologize. In actual fact, Harper goes right for the jugular, branding Yasmin a “sex object” and “victim,” labels that hit right on the ambivalent nepo baby’s insecurities around how her father’s creepy leers have poisoned her relationships with men. No wonder Yasmin responds with a slap, which Harper returns.
“It’s an incredibly intense relationship,” Abela tells Variety. “They see the opposite yet another vividly than they see anyone else.” In a wide-ranging interview, Abela broke down the slaps, her character’s fateful decision — and why Yasmin working an office job is “like seeing a fish on a motorcycle.”
This episode is essentially the most explicit the show’s ever been concerning the Yasmin-Charles relationship having an inappropriately sexual undertone. Was that all the time a part of the way you understood that dynamic?
I remember having a conversation with Mickey and Konrad after we first met Charles, which was in Season 2. In Season 1, the absence of him was enough to grasp Yasmin’s relationship to men, slightly than necessarily Yasmin’s relationship together with her father. That felt like a good-enough place for me to work from in Season 1. After which as soon as I knew that Season 2 was going to involve him, I desired to be more specific about how she related to him, and not only men and the male gaze due to him.
I remember saying something about how I believe Yasmin became aware of herself sexually through her father’s eyes. And I believe that as her body began changing, her relationship to him began changing. I knew that she had an advanced relationship with herself, physically and sexually, due to her father. Those decisions fed into a rather more explicit, as you say, nature in Season 3. Then it was really about deciding exactly what form that took for me as an actor.
I believe what’s good concerning the series — which is why I don’t necessarily need to say what I believe happened — is it’s open to interpretation from the audience. When it comes to what exactly that looked like, how exactly they related to at least one one other, how he related to her physically and emotionally. That’s necessary, because I believe that loads of women will have the option to read into this relationship, and I value that. I value the power for people to reply in whatever way feels necessary to them. Whatever it’s that a person audience member will take away from it is sort of more necessary than my idea of what exactly happened.
Courtesy of HBO
When it comes to actually filming that final argument scene, it looks like physically filming on a ship was quite difficult. What was it like through that scene on the water?
It was wild. It felt type of like guerilla filmmaking. The boat was rocking intensely. Sometimes I’d literally be thrown up and placed back down on the boat while I used to be screaming at him. But it surely felt form of like all the pieces was reflecting her emotions in these moments. I don’t know that Yasmin would have let it rip in the identical way in the event that they were in a restaurant. I doubt very much that she would have done so. All of those things added to what got here through within the scene. They’ve also probably been partying on this boat for 3 days, and it’s messy and it’s intense, and it feels epic. That setting allows them to make the alternatives that they make.
When it comes to decisions, the large one is Yasmin deciding to not alert anyone that Charles has jumped within the water. Do you may have your personal read on what’s going through Yasmin’s head in that immediate aftermath?
On the day, my feeling was that in that argument, and right as much as the very end, when she’s like, “I wish you’ll die. It might be essentially the most meaningful thing you’ve ever done” — she signifies that, 100%. He has ruined her life, her capability for relationships, her capability to feel completely satisfied. This is strictly how she feels. And if he didn’t exist, if he’d never existed, her life would have been higher. So when she’s walking away, she signifies that fully. Then when he jumps, that’s within the immediate aftermath of those feelings.
In the warmth of the moment, you say things and you are feeling them, and so they’re real to you, and I don’t think she has enough time to chill down before that call has been finalized by him. To begin with, he’s a narcissist, so he’s pushing her and testing her to save lots of him on this moment, and she or he has no capability to. She doesn’t push him. She wouldn’t push him. He jumps. So what she would must do is save him in that moment, make an entire emotional 180. She’s not gonna save his life in that moment. Would she have pushed him off the boat if she had a gun in her hand? Would she have shot him? No, but she will be able to’t save him. It’s too far gone.
This episode also sees the unfortunately literal climax of the Eric-Yasmin tensions which have been constructing all season. What did you make of that relationship that’s struck up in Harper’s absence?
In my experience of the show, that relationship was essentially the most alive, bubbling thing that we’d worked with up to now, within the sense that it really took on a lifetime of its own. I had no concept that was where it was going to go, and to be honest — they could be annoyed with me saying this — I’m undecided that Mickey and Konrad did either. I believe they watched the rushes on daily basis of our scenes together, and so they were like, “What is that this relationship like? What is going on between them?” And I believe Yasmin and Eric are only as confused.
So when it reaches that time in Episode 6, there’s been hints from Episode 4 onwards that perhaps Yasmin thinks that is slightly bit inappropriate, but I don’t think she desires to go there. It’s rather more comfortable if she doesn’t go there. He’s her boss! At the top of the day, she needs him. So when that happens, I believe it’s the final word betrayal for Yasmin that what might have been an expert male mentor figure also sees her as an object of desire.
Are you able to tell me a bit about attending to work more with Ken Leung?
I used to be so excited. Mickey and Konrad asked me at the top of Season 2, “What’s it that you simply’d wish to do a bit more with Yasmin?” And I used to be like, “Truthfully, I trust you guys. But in addition, I’d like to have a minimum of a scene with Ken.” I used to be like, I’ve never worked with him, and it’s so weird.
I like working with Ken. He’s such a gift actor. And I wish to think that that’s the place that I a minimum of aspire to work from, is real presence in a scene. A part of the explanation that the connection is the way in which it’s, is that our techniques are similar in that we watch and observe and respond. We’re very observant actors. I believe that comes through within the scenes that we’ve together. I believe that our relationship on screen reflected, in all the perfect ways, our relationship off screen in that I even have loads of admiration for Ken as an actor, and I would like him to think I’m good at my job, similar to Yasmin does. In order that was useful.
Courtesy of HBO
Speaking of job performance, people on this episode, including Eric, are really hard on Yasmin and her abilities as a salesman. Do you think that she really is that poorly suited to working in finance?
100%. Only within the episodes to come back did I realize how badly Yasmin was suited to that environment. Because, outside of it, she’s so different. Yasmin within the office is like seeing a fish on a motorcycle. It’s like, Why is she here? And every time she’s out of the office, I believe what Yasmin is best at is making people do what she wants them to do. That’s her talent. If she had been capable of find a task in finance that suited that, she’d have been significantly better, but working on a trading floor and an investment bank was not what she was born to do.
The whole lot culminates in that incredible confrontation scene between Yasmin and Harper. The episode really spans the highs and the lows of that relationship. Do you think that there’s a world where those two could have formed a functional friendship, or was it doomed from the beginning?
There may be a world, and what’s incredibly difficult is, after they actually need each other to be there for them, they’ll do this. Harper proved that throughout all of the flashbacks on the boat. After they need a friend within the moment, to make the opposite one laugh or feel loved or feel supported, they’ll do this — if it has nothing to do with the opposite person. But the opposite person could be collateral. They’re willing to go there, because they’re each very ambitious women. If Yasmin asked Harper to do the identical thing Petra has asked Harper to do, she would have done it as well. Yasmin was in the way in which of something that Harper needed, so she was all the time going to be collateral damage. But when there’s no stakes for the opposite one, they’ll all the time have the option to assist. So I believe that in a world where they don’t work in the identical field, and so they won’t necessarily be collateral damage to at least one one other, they might be friends, but they’re just too ruthless after they’re working to have the option to make the connection work.
It’s an incredibly intense relationship. They probably know more about each other than anyone else of their lives at this moment, or a minimum of they see the opposite yet another vividly than they see anyone else. They usually feel very seen by the opposite person. I believe that with Harper and Yasmin, after they don’t like themselves, after they don’t need to be seen, that’s when things go really badly mistaken for them. After they feel vulnerable, that’s after they’re good, or after they are completely satisfied and so they’re loving themselves, that’s also after they’re good. Sometimes there are relationships in people’s lives that feel dangerous due to how honest the connection has grow to be that it starts to feel out of their control. They’ll’t control the narrative of their lives anymore, because this person sees them too clearly. And that could be a really comforting thing at certain parts of the season for the 2 of them, after which a really, very uncomfortable feeling as well.
Myha’la mentioned that Harper reciprocating the slap was her idea. How did you two work on that scene together?
We work together here and there when it comes to little scenes, but every time we get an enormous moment together, it’s so exciting for us. A Yasmin-Harper scene is incredibly enjoyable for us. So after we got this one and it felt very necessary, we spoke about it and workshopped it. Why are they so upset? What are the trigger points? We got here to the conclusion that they were each form of heartbroken by the opposite one, for various reasons.
Yasmin sitting there waiting for Harper — I desired to lean into that feeling. It’s the form of conversation that you would be able to imagine Yasmin had been having in her head all day, seething over and stewing over for therefore long. I used to be completely satisfied to try this as an actor too, really just wait and see what Myha’la was going to bring. Yasmin is hoping that Harper apologizes. As an actor, I do know that that’s not coming, but I’m really holding out that apology. And the second I see that’s not going to occur, it’s gonna derail the entire thing.
When Yasmin makes that physical decision to slap Harper, which is a large violation of a friendship or any relationship, Harper’s not going to take a seat back and just let that occur. She’s already gone in together with her words so hard that after that slap, there’s nothing else that Harper could say to Yasmin. So it’s form of her only option, unless she walked away. And the stakes are too high in that moment to simply fully walk away.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
