Industry – Sesh

By: Jennifer Vintzileos

It is another day at Pierpoint and Eric (Ken Leung) is holding one of his usual morning meetings. But as the meeting finishes up Eric approaches Harper (Myha’la Herrold) about an issue with her Tier 2 Visa. However, when Harper goes to tell Eric she will handle it, Eric is more than happy to take care of it for her. This makes Harper nervous as we know that in earlier episodes she needed to have a fake transcript made to submit to Pierpoint. But work is the last thing on anyone’s mind as Harper is presented a donut cake with candles—it is her birthday!

That night Harper, Greg (Ben Lloyd-Hughes), Yasmin (Marisa Abela) and Robert (Harry Lawtey) have a birthday celebration at Robert’s place. Yasmin presents Harper with her own bullet journal as a gift, yet keeping her eye on Robert. While the flirtation between Yasmin and Robert remains strong, the party does start to dwindle down and Yasmin and Greg leave. Harper stays behind to continue partying with Robert. And Robert does not disappoint as he orders a bevvy of drugs for them to partake in, the two partying well into the morning. Unfortunately, Harper tries to make a move on Robert and is rebuffed for her actions. Clearly, Robert is attracted to Harper but still holds out hope for him and Yasmin to cultivate something despite Yasmin’s boyfriend being in the picture.

One awkward car ride into work later Harper greets Daria (Freya Mavor), who advises her she cannot meet with the college prospects reeking of wine. Instead, Harper convinces Yasmin to take her place at the event. But Harper has a bigger problem than just her appearance: a higher-up named Duncan (Chris Reilly) has caught a discrepancy with her numbers from the Allerton account and needs to speak with her urgently.

A hungover Harper meets with Duncan and the issue is larger than she realizes. The numbers for the account should be $50 million, yet Harper input quid (sterling) instead of American dollars. While she insists she can talk to the client Aubrey (Pip Carter), this goes sour and now Harper works with Duncan to find out what the monetary shortfall will be with this mistake. Unfortunately, the hit will be substantial but Harper is determined that sterling will make a comeback and she will wait to sell until the numbers go from the red into the black. After getting some drugs from Greg to pull together, Harper cleans up and gets to work.

At the college event Yasmin and Robert are there to represent Pierpoint and encourage future college graduates to apply to the program. While Yasmin tried to persuade the female candidates to apply as it would change the dynamic within the company, a disgruntled young protestor throws a red paint bomb at Yasmin and Robert and then the fire alarm is pulled. Everyone evacuates, even Harper who is nervously approaching a 1:30 deadline that Duncan gave her to make the sale or he allow management to get involved. Once she gets back to her desk Harper sees that her hunch about sterling was right but she makes the sale too late and now must come up with the $140,000 deficit.

Before she will have to tell Eric of her issue, Harper makes a Hail Mary and calls up Nicole Craig (Sarah Parish) to meet and discuss an option that would potentially recoup the $140,000. Nicole agrees to meet with her at her niece’s Shakespeare play, but is aware that Harper is trying to sell her a “vanilla” option. Nicole encourages Harper to tell her boss about the problem and to not put a price on her dignity. Harper leaves and decides to come clean to Eric, who then tells her that Nicole took the option and brought the Profit for the day up to $200,000 instead of the $140,000 loss. Furthermore, Eric also knows that Harper is not who she says she is as he called her school regarding the Visa. Surprisingly, Eric sees the same fight in Harper that he had when he made his way to the top. He keeps the visa issue quiet and the two come to a mutual understanding after the conversation.

Later that day Robert decides to try and catch Yasmin at the bar for a drink but realizes that her boyfriend Seb (Jonathan Barnwell) is with her. Seb offers for him to join them but instead Robert declines. When Seb gets up to get another drink, Robert tries to flirt with Yasmin in their twisted game and appears to fall short, but Yasmin offers a better idea: she is going to put her panties in his pocket and make him take a picture of himself with the panties on his face. She goes into the bathroom to execute her plan.

When she drops them in Robert’s pocket he is with Gus (David Jonsson), who continues to have troubles with his boss Clement (Derek Riddell) and his secret lover Theo (Will Tudor). Gus has yet to gain his footing in his new position but gets a laugh out of Robert’s predicament, who sticks his hand in his pocket while looking over at Yasmin staring at him while she makes out with Seb.