Industry – Learned Behaviour

By: Jennifer Vintzileos

As the episode opens Yasmin (Marisa Abela) is trying some sexy poses in the mirror and her phone. The flirtation with Robert has continued strong, even as her domesticity with Seb (Jonathan Barnwell) seems to come with complications and arguments over nourishing a dead plant. Yasmin promises to do better with the plant, yet it rattles her enough to talk to Harper (Myha’la Herrold) on their way to work. Harper asks about what’s going on with Robert and Yasmin immediately puts up a wall to that discussion. As Yasmin asks Harper about her ex Todd (Branden Cook) who has been trying to get in contact with her, Harper does the same.

Meanwhile, the interns at Pierpoint are alerted by Sara (Priyanga Burford) about an expose that has been written about the company, which places them in a bad light. To mitigate through the line of questioning that employees may get, they are advised to say “no comment” and nothing else. As the meeting begins to wrap up Harper is called out to the hallway by Eric (Eric Leung) who asks her for a favor while he is out of the office: find a way to get in front of Felim Bichan (Andrew Buchan) and bring him back to Pierpoint.

Harper wonders how she will be able to do that, but Eric doesn’t care in the how just as long as she succeeds. As Harper manages to find out the contact information of Felim’s assistant Luke (Tom Glenister) she is rebuffed immediately. Pierpoint is considered unwelcome to Felim, which makes Harper get creative in how she manages to snag a meeting: by persuading Luke at the bar to help her out. She succeeds in getting her meeting, but not without lying and saying that Daria (Freya Mavor) will be there to run it.

But Daria is onto her lie and while Harper does manage to get in front of Felim for a meeting, he appreciates the tip about being shorted from the people he works with now but has no intentions of coming back to Pierpoint. Daria walks into the meeting realizing what Harper has done and gives her some tough love on the way back to the office. It is then Harper begins to wonder whether or not Eric is truly on her side, especially when he chews her out upon his return for not sealing the deal with Felim and in private gaslights her until she is reduced to tears.

As to her love life, Harper also faces seeing her ex Todd while she is trying work a business deal and it leads to a discussion about the end of their relationship. Back at Yasmin and Harper’s place, we learn that Todd cheated on Harper. We also learn the real issue behind Harper’s education: at one of her finals she had a panic attack over her brother and walked out. While Harper and Todd resolve their issues through sex rather than communication, they finally end things after Harper realizes that Todd is no good. As she calls him out on it after thinking he had changed, she knows he hasn’t and kicks him out.

Yasmin manages to grab coffee with her childhood friend Maxim (Nicholas Bishop) and she pitches Pierpoint to him. Maxim is interested and the next step is having Kenny (Conor MacNeill) meet with Maxim. When the meeting is set up; however, Yasmin quickly sees that Kenny is eager to set everything up rather than let Yasmin take the reins. As Yasmin heads to dinner with Kenny and Maxim, she gets an apology from Kenny but quickly realizes that he needs to drink heavily in order to work out a business deal. Kenny does everything to undermine Yasmin when the night doesn’t quite go in his favor, as Maxim and his associate are only interested in speaking with Yasmin for a real meeting. In a further humiliating moment at the bar they go to after dinner Kenny pays for a girl to give Yasmin a lap dance, which makes her further uncomfortable.

Robert (Harry Lawtey) wakes up in the bathtub of a hotel room. He has joined Clement (Derek Riddell) on a business trip with his biggest client Kasper Zenden (Kåre Conradi) and entertained Usman (Amir El-Masry) while Clement and Kasper hung out and talked business. Realizing that they are due down for breakfast, Robert quickly gets ready as he ogles the pictures that Yasmin has sent him and leaves Usman asleep on the couch. When Kasper asks where Usman is Robert quickly covers by claiming food poisoning has kept Usman back up in the room. After breakfast Clement and Robert return to Pierpoint.

When Robert enters the break room he runs into Yasmin and Harper. It’s obvious that the sexual tension is there between Robert and Yasmin with Harper asking when they plan on sleeping together and getting it over with. Later that night in the bath Yasmin starts to pleasure herself to a video of Robert pleasuring himself. Unfortunately, she is not alone as when Seb goes to turn on the Bluetooth for music, he hears Yasmin through the speaker. As an act of revenge Seb decides to cam with another girl for Yasmin to discover him, their relationship taking an ugly turn.