The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Industry’ S4E5: Golightly to Ghana

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Rob, Jo, and Jodi explore celestial connections, feeling big, and what went down in Accra as they unpack Season 4, Episode 5 of ‘Industry.’ Intro (0:00)Question for Jodi (1:01)Mailbag Check-in (3:39)Harper’s Self-Belief and Survival (12:27)Is There a Best Version of Eric? (19:28)Kwabena vs. Sweetpea (22:25)Calling Out the Whiteness (36:02)Fashion Corner (39:20)Tony Day (42:45)Whitney in Ghana: Why? (48:37)Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face” (50:34)Is Tenacity Enough for Recovery?  (56:02)Harper/Sweetpea Face-Off (57:43)Sex: Empowerment and Choice (1:00:50)Margin Call (1:04:03)The Harper-Eric Exchange (1:08:45)Outro (1:12:40) Email us! [e-mail] or [e-mail] Follow us on IG and TikTok! Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob MahoneyGuest: Jodi WalkerProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms and more at Apple.com. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joita Robinson. I am Rob Mahoney. I'm Jody Walker. Today we're here to talk to you about industry, episode five. Did I, this last week, watch an entire Golan Maxwell documentary in order to try to prepare to understand Yasmin better? Yes.

Is Yasmin in this episode? No. So, it sucks to be me. I went through all of that for nothing. But hopefully it'll come back around. That's going to come in handy, Joe. I wouldn't worry about that. It's evergreen, you know what I mean?

But before we get into eyes without a face and we've got some mailback stuff to get to, I wanted to start with a question for Jody. A couple weeks ago, when you weren't here, Jody, Rob and I talked about our go-to room service order. In this episode, we find out that Quabana has racked up a huge chicken wing room service bill. So I'm curious for you.

you, Jody, like, what's your, what's your go-to room service order? So if it's non-breakfast, I will say I was sort of coveting Eric's, like, what looked to be a club sandwich and fries order. That would be my typical go-to. I feel like you can't get it wrong. You also can't really get it right. It's never very good, but it is food. In the morning, I have a great time. Room service, coffee, and just like whatever array, you can usually get like a pastry basket. And even on that note, I've recently been thinking, how do I get a hold of one of those silver thermases that they use like in a nice hotel for the coffee service?

Because those things will keep coffee hot for like four hours. You want like a silver carafe for your coffee? We can better. We can do this for you, Jody. I feel like I have to steal it. I feel like I have to steal it, but what you're telling me is no. No. Well, maybe you can expense it, in fact.

Now that it's been discussed on a podcast, it's work. Can I tell you the true true? It'll feel and taste better if you steal it. So you should probably commit that. And that is where we agree, Joanna. And if I expense it and then steal it, cut the mic. I didn't say that. All right.

So before we get into some emails that we got from folks, Rob, can you remind folks how they can reach us with their thoughts and feelings? I would love to, Joe. They can always reach us at prestige TV at Spotify.com. But especially for industry, you should email us from, I don't know, your work email, perhaps, at harpsichord strap-on at gmail.com. Harpsichordstrap-on at gmail.com, it's popping off. People have a lot of thoughts about industry, a lot of feelings about industry. And I welcome more of them, although in the vein of this week, I don't even know what we should be soliciting.

Like, what is it that comes out of episode five that we need answers to? I think Eric knows what he's soliciting. but I think we'll discover as we discuss what fun facts we might want to get some insight on from our listeners. You're saying the daddies should you mail us in? Nope. Never want to hear from the daddies ever. I'm going to go ahead and say no on that one.

We're going to let a daddy. In fact, there's going to be a daddy filter now. Filtzer out. Thank you. Putting that a curse thought out in the world. That goes for DMs as well. You're welcome. Yes.

That's a no. Absolutely no from us. Yeah, so a couple emails just really quickly. Our listener Ian wrote in to let us know that he thought the newspaper comp, we've been sort of fishing around for like what this UK publication might be. We talked about how we felt kind of good about the Daily Mail comp. Ian wrote in to say, to talk about the spectator, which is not one that I'm very familiar with, right? But he says, the spectator is known as a highbrow but right-wing publication,

which would love nothing else than to undermine any labor government of the day, the current editor is an ex-Torri MP, Michael Gove, and previous editors include a certain Boris Johnson. That probably tells you all you need to know. So the spectator has entered the chat. Doesn't sound like something I want to read, but it sounds like something that exists. So that's good to know about.

And then Jeremy, Jeremy is the one who emailed us about The Daily Mail. And he just gave some extra. extra intel about the Daily Mail, said it famously supported fascism in the 1930s, fun, and has been owned by the same family for all of that time. More recently, it has led the charge against woke, immigration, LGBT, and trans rights. It's read largely by old folks. The op-ed from the Austrian cry-wanker. This is mostly included so I could say Austrian cry-wanker.

The op-ed from the Austrian cry wanker would be pretty moderate compared to some of the other content that has appeared there over the three over the years. one headline read, hurrah for the black shirts, referencing Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. So just really tremendous stuff coming out of the UK on the journalism front. Anything you guys want to say about either of those? Just email us at Austrian crywinker at gmail.com. We're just going to snatch that one up too. Also, no. Also, don't do that.

Don't steal when you're working and don't do that from your work email. I'm struggling to find it in front of my face. now, but there was a comment, I believe, on the Ringer TV YouTube of our last episode, saying that like this, I think it's Norton Media Group is the, so it is likely that we are in fact dealing with multiple papers because it's a media group. So the best placement for each thing, the sort of more tabloid-y stuff about Yaz goes to one of the papers, the more noble, you know, finance investigative journalism goes to another. paper.

And that made a lot of sense to me. And the cry wanker op-eds. Those go directly to my inbox. Just to Jody. Just to Jody. All right, our listener Shri wrote in. To talk about sort of this idea, Shri as

gave her credentials as, quote, I'm an American of Indian descent, though became a British citizen last year, from Houston, originally married a Northern Irishman moved here in 2011. So talking about her experience as an American, And as a woman of color, who's American in the U.K.

And sort of like how she's perceived that way. She says, I'm the director of both philanthropy and alumni relations for philanthropy. Is actually a pronounced that word. I thought you were doing the British. Sympia. Philthropic. For a private school. But previously worked for different charities, both a major donor corporate giving.

I wanted to comment on how people keep trusting and giving money to Harper. I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at my job, but I'm not blind to the fact that British people, particularly aristocracy, old money, don't mind the quote vulgarity of asking for money when it comes from an American. My experience being a person of color moving in these circles, but not being of them myself, is that having an American accent automatically puts me outside the class system for better or for worse. I work for a girl school that is similar to Harrow, named drops in the last episode, and I can vouch for the fact that the people of this ilk bring up where they went to high school, the way we would bring up where we went to college well into old age,

and often before they say where they went to university. So I thought that was a really interesting comment about this idea of how the Americans in this show, your Eric's, your Harper's, etc., might operate outside. We touched on this a little bit, but might operate outside of the rigid class system that exists in the UK that is so that you give yourself a way by your accent and they know exactly where to put you. Whereas if you come from America, there is just something that puts you outside of that particular sort of immovable system that exists in the UK. Anything you guys want to say about that? I think it also speaks in this episode to how quickly Harper goes from, we need to raise more money to we need to raise more money by fraud, right? Because it's like if all these doors are close to her, given that she's giving herself away as an American, given the crassness of overtly asking for money in a desperate situation, like the forcing function is they have 48 hours to come up with something

in order to maintain their position short and tender. And clearly the side door that she has found is the one that is like clearly illegal. like clearly we'll get them in the most trouble possible beyond the millions of dollars they already have stake. And I think this gives an insight into like why that, why she in particular would jump to that sort of conclusion relative to other characters. That's interesting because I think,

I thought Shree's point was that she's better positioned to sort of like ask for money. Really? And I thought that was the, that's the wording of her email. It's just sort of like that it's not considered vulgar because it comes from an American source. That is one person's opinion. Got it.

Maybe I misunderstood. Well, and sort of like as an American, the vulgarness precedes you. Certainly. When you live outside of that class system of the UK, you lead with nothing. You know, like you don't lead with anything good or bad or pretentious or low class or anything. It's like you're just American and a blank slate can both work in your favor and work against you. And I think for the most part, Harper finds the ways to make it work in her favor. But it's interesting thinking about that point and then thinking about Harper immediately pivoting to fraud.

And Eric, who's in a somewhat similar position also as an American in London, saying, no, that's still fraud. Like, we have other options. They're not the options you want. And they're not the options that in this sort of hypothetical scenario in your head prove to your mom that you're undeniable. But they are still something that's not fraud. Jody, I wasn't ready to go there yet. Sorry, I haven't stopped thinking about it since she said it. I will be charging my therapy bill to HBO this week.

Yeah, you can fill that under undeniable things. Yeah, thanks so much. On that Harper front, we got this interesting email from Rebecca, sort of about the Mad Men comps that we've been making. Rebecca was saying she thought it was curious that we put sort of like Eric in the Don Draper role and Harper and the Peggy role. And I think I was thinking of that just mainly in their sort of relationship with each other, especially like what we see in this episode. But Rebecca was saying she's been thinking of Harper more as the Don Draper, right? She has, quote, she has nine professional lives and is always failing into a new opportunity. She's completely cut off from her emotions and trauma and uses sex as an anesthetic.

She keeps getting opportunities because everyone thinks she's a genius. But really, it's just that she's audacious. Despite the parallels I'm seeing, I think it's harder for audiences to relate to Harper than to Dawn for the obvious reasons. She's a ruthless black woman, not something we're used to seeing on. screen, but also we knew what Dawn's childhood trauma was early on in Mad Men. Harper's Pass is still a black box. This email came in before this episode. I still feel like I know nothing about her and why she is the way she is.

In any case, I really hope we get some more about her family this season, did in this episode, even though she really shuts Eric down about it, like last week. So on that front, I will just say inside of this episode, as we're tracking this concept of like story and storytelling and narrative, Harper's one who gets in line. We don't need proof. We finally have a compelling story to tell, right? I've got a pitch that I can make. And I can weave a little Don Draper-esque spell at this woman's conference that I'm going to go to.

Jody, any thoughts on that? I mean, my immediate thought is that's such a great point. And, like, I'm, it's really recalibrating my brain a little bit. And where my brain always goes is memes. And I'm thinking about the Don Draper meme, like, in front of the whiteboard, like doing his ad pitch hands. And he's about to say something that is, as, stupid as it is smart. And, like, yeah, that's Harper.

And I'm trying to think of what her meme is. Like, she, yeah, she's standing in front of a Bloomberg board just like, manically chewing gum. And she is about to do something that is both ruinous and, you know, might make everybody tons of money. I mean, in my people, we're about to see presumably next week in terms of her getting up on stage and trying to match Lord Muck word for word, basically, in terms of how he was able to win over an audience. I'm fascinated by this idea, though, of the story that Harper is telling and how much she herself believes it. Because, like, she's kind of convincing people, especially Eric,

throughout this episode, throughout this episode about, oh, we should blur these lines because these institutions are blurring these lines. Like, what are ethics even in this world where everyone is operating unethically? Like, does she believe that what they are doing is righteous? Or does she believe that she has a story and that story is that what they are doing is righteous. I think that's the story she's telling herself. And that's sort of what Eric calls her out for, right? He's like, that sounds more true than any story I've ever told myself before, I think, is like a paraphrase of what he says. But I think, you know, a movie that the careers of this show have brought up a lot as the comp for this season is Michael Clayton. And we got a comment from a

listener, not an email, but a comment on either the YouTube or the Spotify video about, you know, Jim's overdose that's not an overdose is a plotline from Michael Clayton where Tom Wilkison's character Arthur is made to appear as if he's had a drug overdose when in fact it's like the shady powers that B have killed him.

He was up to something though Joe because that was way too many baguettes for one man to be carrying at that point in time. So who's to say who really did what? You can't OD on baguettes, Rob. It's impossible. Prove it. I will not allow it. I have affection for Harper and my heart

And so I hate to say my immediate thought, which is this that, like, Harper, I think that Harper believes in nothing. She believes in what she has to to kind of get through the day. I hate to invoke, we tell ourselves story in order to live two episodes in a row. And yet here I am. But Harper tells herself stories in order to survive. And she gets to decide what survival is. Like, is survival putting food on the table and just keeping yourself alive?

or is survival, hypothetically, being undeniable to your mother who is now dead? Like, what is survival to Harper? And when they're talking about Tinder and obviously we'll get to it and, you know, Sweet P is screaming in a parking lot in a craw. And they're screaming, each lie relies on the next. I'm like, at any point, is this going to click in for Harper that this is how she's living her life and guiding her fund and doing everything? She's telling herself stories

and each story relies on the next. It doesn't matter whether they're true. It just matters whether she convinces people that they're true. I totally agree with you, Jody. And I think the reason I brought up Michael Clayton was that George Cunney's character, Michael, you know, the titular character in that film, is like an unethical crusader, right?

He's not like a, he's not led by his virtue. shoe. He's led mostly by his own financial needs. And then, you know, he has a, uh, uh, uh, you know, his morality comes through, but he's not a crusading good guy. And I think what we hit in this episode a number of times, like Sweetby saying, I need this short to work. I didn't get a job. You can imagine why, you know, um, Harper's saying, well, crucially, we're not lying to the world to profit off of it, right? That's the story she's told herself that that, like, hypocrisy that they sort of drill down on. Or our famous owner of a great dane, is that what that dog was?

A massive dog. A majestic great game. A perfect reveal. It's saying that like, you know, talking to Sweet Pea, this whole endeavor is, quote, not best led by a person who stands to be compensated. So this idea that like, what could take down something like tender or someone like the mucks or something like that? It's probably not going to be anyone led by virtue.

it's probably someone who is going to get their own payday at the end of this, that there isn't like a good guy. You know, as I said last week, I'm always rooting for Sweet Bee and I still am after this episode. But no one in this show is doing something because it's, quote, the right thing to do. They're all doing something so it can profit them personally. And in profiting personally, can I tell myself what I'm doing is better than the other people who are trying to trying to profit personally. And that's where I think we find your Harper's, your Eric's, your Sweet Peas, your Quabinas inside of this episode. Yeah, I mean, they all have their reasons to be involved in this, right? And I think it is financial gain for certain. It's also, you know, for Harper,

yet another effort to be undeniable, for Eric, an effort to have an actual human connection with a person in Harper in particular. And for Sweet Pea, like, in addition to just kind of like avoiding everything in her life that she needs to avoid, I think the thrill of discovery at whatever the cost is kind of the drive for her more than it is actually revealing something incriminating or actually like revealing something even that would make her money or give her job security. It's like she's just like an adrenaline junkie for these 48 hours in a way that I think anyone can find deeply relatable on some level. She knocked on the fucking door.

She knocked on the fucking door. She did scream in the parking lot. Like she has her kind of triumphant moment and then she gets to go home and have the breakdown. Yeah. And I think like are those things mutually exclusive is a different question for each person? Like, can the thing that serves the greater good and actually is right also be the thing that is good for you and improves your own life? And that kind of depends on motivations. I loved getting to know Sweet P more in this episode and getting that background. I felt like

it was her character building. Her, like, very slow character building has been really well done. I struggled with some of Harper's character stuff this episode because it was a lot of telling. It was a lot of like explaining emotions from a person who we've never found to be particularly good at interpreting her own emotions. However, some of that makes sense too, and it will always come back around because I think Harper is someone who lives very temporarily.

She's someone who's... It really struck me in this episode that she is someone who's waiting to live. And she's doing things in the meantime that fill the void. And she's waiting until she's proven to her, mom that she's undeniable to then start her life. But what she may not know is that she's not really building a great foundation from which to start that life at whatever magical point she feels

fulfilled. Eric has a line in this episode where, again, they're talking about, so like what if we prove this? What happens? And he says, so we prove Tinder is what it says it is. We get the surrogate joy. I was like, wow, what an industry phrase. We get the surrogate joy of saying you're identity is bullshit. You're a fake. We get to temporarily live in the illusion that we ourselves are built on firmer ground. And that's just, that is Harper. It's Eric too, but he's a little bit older, a little bit wiser to know. He's a cautionary tale. He's just sort of like, is this, is this really where you want to go? Is this the, is this how you want to model your path where you wind up where Eric is alienated from his own family, desperately trying to make connection

with you because he can't make connection with his own family and then barring that hiring a very young-looking like call girl and having her call him daddy. You know what I mean? And the way in which Eric, I will get back to what Harper says, but Eric talking about how things don't make him feel substantial and how they're both talking about how empty they feel. Making him feel big, you might say. Yeah, and then he says make me feel big. I mean, it's just absolute.

This is like... Tough. This is one of the tough. Like, this is like highest, high as lowest lows for Eric inside of this episode. And I agree with you, Jody. Like, I think this episode was a little overridden in terms of the way in which people were talking. Like industry always, like, no one ever talks like a normal person talks inside of industry. And that's fine.

I'm not looking for reality here. But the credited writer on this episode was also credited on a couple episodes last season. that I also sort of identified this tendency. So I think it's just like this writer has a tendency to write in very therapeutic language and like all the stuff like that. And when it comes out of Henry's mouth and I can tell myself what Kit Harrington told Kitty Baker, which is like you just have to imagine that Henry's in a lot of therapy. Totally.

It makes sense to me. Harper's in no therapy. So for Harper to like come through with insights felt very odd to me while at the same time I felt slapped in the face because what she was saying is like my entire life. And like, yeah, like sometimes they're bars, you know? Sometimes they mean something to me when she tells Eric that you have no idea how lucky you are, that you have people who expect your love, demand your love, but you don't feel worthy of it. So you can't give it.

Nothing between us is going to fix that. Yikes, correct. But here, like, even within those bars, like, again, I like this episode, fine. I did bump on the same, like, little writing moments here and there. And in particular, it just felt very direct and very, very. neat for an episode of industry. And it's not just that like overly therapy's delivery from characters you

wouldn't expect it from. It's things like a character will bring up exactly what they want and by the end of the episode we'll get basically that exact thing. Or someone will bring something up like Sweet Peas Nudes and then we just see Eric like scrolling through his email looking at like the exact thing that was brought up. Like the parallel

conversations that were echoed from coaked out Jim Diker last week and Quabona this week. It's like why are all these things happening other than to have like your very writerly callback moment. And I think the one that broke me was Deuce X Auntie who happens to be involved with the exact business we need to break open the investigation. I a little bit disagree with that. I agree with your larger point. It is very small apparently. But like I let's talk about Coabina. Because I think it's really interesting how they've

deployed this character. So like it's cool. It feels very clear to me that you know, they knew that they were doing a story in Ghana this season. And so they like, they cast a Nigerian actor, but like they cast someone who could like interact with a story in a different way than your, you know, very white sweet pee could on the streets here. And I, I don't know, Jody, if you agree with, I felt something so familiar in this like very charming, very nice guy, just like constantly jovially undercutting sweet peas like very. correct instincts and, and, like, work. And, like, I was just like, this is, it was so aggravating and so familiar.

And Quabana is, like, like, a very, like, charming and likable in many different ways. Character, when she calls him out for, like, his glibness and says it's not as charming as he thinks he is, but, like, her reaction when she's like, I could just not see you for the rest of the trip and that would be okay. Like, all the little roadblocks, he is, like, putting in front of her and all the little doubts that he's sprinkling along her path. And then he fucks her and then he helps her was like a real, you know, real interesting journey inside of this episode for me.

Jody, any thoughts or feelings? Yeah, that's tough. Having that reflected back through your vision. I'm now, I guess, catching a few pivot points that I did find him frustrating. I also find him very charming. So, like, you know, I was, it was kind of like, yeah, I was on the same. ride that Sweet P was like, why are you here?

What do I need here? But of course, she's, yes, you ask, like, do I find that familiar? Yes, the glibness of not having to worry about things that I have to worry about feels very familiar. And she calls it out. What he has said is kind of correct. It's like what materially changes in the world.

If we accomplish this, why are you staking your flag in it? The thing is, P knows why she's staking her flag in it. She needs this because she's been undercut by the world that doesn't change one way or another. And what she says is what I really relate to. I've given this my full attention, which is a finite resource.

That is why the outcome matters. Yes. You know, we've all found ourselves in a sunk cost fallacy and it matters to her. So get on board if you're there to help. And not just after you fuck her. Well, that would be optimal. I think that what Sweet P is after is something earnest

and is not just, I have already put so much effort into this that I now need to see it through. I think it's like the choice to care about something, the election of like, this is what matters to me, right or wrong. Like that choice matters. And that choice is different than just like following one bad bet after another. I think it's just especially juxtaposed someone like Quabana who is like so laissez-faire about the whole thing.

Like he is the epitomellible. like I'm on the work trip and I'm just gonna like freewheel my way through this thing and I'm gonna do the room service food and I'm just like here for a time whereas Sweepie is here for a mission and like that mission is because she's chosen

to make it important to herself. Well she's chosen to it but for like financial reason you know like Kwana is born to a ton of money and she hasn't been and like she put her naked body on the internet when she was 19 because she needed money and there are ways in which

she has earned money in her life And she's like, but here's another thing. I'm really fucking smart. And this is another way in which I can earn money and perhaps feels more empowering to me than like having all of, knowing that all of these men have like seen my naked body, you know, and attached it to my face, which I did not put my face out there, but someone else, maybe Rishi is her opinion, like did. So now it is like a completely different, that's not the, that's not the, you know, agreement

that she made with the world when she put her. her body on the internet when she was 19. But like she is, I really recognize in Sweet P this like conviction of I'm right, but it's not I'm right because I morally believe in right and wrong in the universe. It's like I'm right because I need people to know that I am smart and I can be right about a thing. I don't know. What do you think, Jody?

Well, I don't, gosh, weirdly, this is like reminding me of a conversation that our, you know, great friend and colleague, Sophia Binwa and I had. we were basically just saying back and forth between each other, we know when we're right. Like, I know when I'm right. And I have that gut instinct. And my history tells me when the gut instinct is right. And it was interesting.

I mean, that gut instinct is brought up several times in this episode. And at the end of the episode, when Kwavena is with Harper, he juxtaposes his sort of, you know, higher pragmatic mind and all of its complexities with the gut instinct. But I think what we see in Sweet Pee is someone who is carrying a lot of complexity in her gut instinct and why she thinks it is right for her to do this thing and pursue this thing. And it's not just money. Like it's, she can't get a job anywhere else. That's not just money. That's livelihood. It's also a reputation. And the, the, within the, um, bit where she's explaining why it matters to Kwavena,

she says, I'm going to keep moving forward. Let the distance grow between me and the event. Let time do the work. And that's, I don't know how if you're a Kwavena, you hear someone say something like that, and you're like, I might still know better. It's like, let time do the work. Yeah.

Like she's got a short-term plan, a long-term plan, and some of that is going to get messed up along the way, no matter what. But she, yeah, she really strikes me. differently than almost any other character on the show because she just strikes me as thoughtful. And there are a lot of thoughts that characters on this show are afraid to have and they simply don't have them

for that reason, for fear. And I think she really allows herself to think about the difficult things and then pursue the choices that she makes. And I think the way that she interacts with her power is really interesting inside of this episode because we know how she got information from Jonah in a way that she's like very used to wielding her power. We see her kind of try that with Tony Day, right?

We'll talk about Tony Day in a second. But like, you know, she's like, you know, you can just call me anytime if you want to talk. And it's like... Chew strategic lip bite. It just like does not land with him the way that... And even before that, she kind of strikes this like emotional thing of being like, oh, they must take good care of you out here.

If you're doing that, kind of like, well, obviously they don't. So, you know, like she is pursuing a very... different path. And then I thought it was really interesting that, you know, after she has this, like, horrible assault experience in the bathroom, like, she comes back and, and her approaching Quabana in this, like, you know, unbuttons a couple buttons on the linen blazer, like, sort of has this conversation with him that leads to sex at her instigation felt like this is, this is the fastest way she knows how to reclaim power in a situation. where she feels powerless, right?

But she's just sort of like, what do you, what's your type? What do you like? Oh, it's me. Okay. Like, what can I get here that feels powerful to me? It's not something that she's like long-term planning. It's not like I need quabina under my thumb.

It's just like I need to my interpretation was I need to feel powerful and in control in this moment. Yeah. And someone who seeks control through data collection myself, that's a lot more than the sex aspect of it, which is something that we see with Yaz a lot. It is, I mean, she literally says, I want to paint a picture of the people who have seen me. Like she, and he is one of them.

So she is collecting that data. She's getting those data points. How did you find yourself at me? And then the sex, which is definitely part of it as well. But that was such a, yeah, it was a strange scene where I was like, why is she doing it? And I don't know. I think that time will tell whether I couldn't tell,

the moment if she knew why she was doing it or if she was sort of completely propelled by Id in a really intense situation. I mean, you could hardly be in a more intense situation than she was in an absolutely high on adrenaline and a dirty martini. But, you know, you're always sort of like, in this show that has so much sex

and so many squelching noises, you're always sort of like girding your loins for who's gonna fuck and are kind of like, please no, please don't do it. And they were the two that did it. this week. Oh, yeah. They were. I mean, look, the scene where she's assaulted in the bathroom is terrifying. And I thought executed to exactly that effect for her to then walk out and not just go through this entire conversation to reclaim power and exactly the way you're talking about, Joe.

But like, it did feel revealing that her instigation of like reclaiming that power was bringing up the nudes, right? It was like channeling this one thing that's already been so painful to her to like challenge Quabina on like that point, I really don't know what to make of that other than, I mean, she's clearly still going through a lot in terms of understanding that many of the people she has worked with, will work with whatever, have basically seen her naked to this point. And that clearly it's a dividing point in a lot of her life, including with her mother. Like, of all things that she would do. Like, we know that we've seen her charm other people, as you said, Joe, and like the implication of her relationship with Jonah and other ways, of all the things she could say and do, why would she lead with, you've seen me naked? get through this thing that is intensely painful for me personally. I think it's, again, I think that's so interesting. What if the Golan Maxwell documentary I watch is, does come in handy this week? A lot of the survivors of, you know, that testified in the Epstein case, talked about, there's this very specific thing with these like shoes that they owned that Epstein had

bought for them and how they wore them and made the decision to wear them constantly to continually engage in this thing that happened to them and not sort of shove it in the back of the closet, which was like an incredibly painful sort of definitely a hot bummer thing for me to bring up on this podcast right now. But just that idea of like directly engaging with something that has happened to you that is traumatic is something that a lot of survivors do in complicated and varied ways. You know what I mean? And so it's not one to one for any singular person. But I think cutting from that scene to a character like Eric,

a character who we have seen ends the episode in a really rough way, as far as I'm concerned. But like in that conversation with Harper is like the best version of Eric, the most like genuinely paternal version of Eric that we can occasionally glimpse. And then to say even Eric is staring at Sweet Pea's tits. And not only that, but like in an email where it's like right next to her like LinkedIn quality. You know, so it's not just like it's just like juxt right next door to something. And I just like I hear what you're saying, Rob, about the neatness of this episode.

But that cut really worked for me because it was just like we're spent so much time. This is like the sweet pee episode. And we spent so much time in this episode with her thoughts, with her emotions, with her bravery, with her ingenuity, with all this sort of stuff like that. And then cut to Eric just looking at her tits. And it was just like a real, this episode slapped me several times. And that was one of those. Jody, any thoughts about that? That's a great way to describe it.

Yeah, this episode was slashing me around a little bit. Yeah, I think hearing you describe that about the survivors and the shoes, it's like, I think no matter what, we've all been in situations where something really bad has happened and the instinct is to want to forget about it. and you know in your mind that that won't work. It not only won't work, but like it's not the thing that you should do. You need to be able to think about hard things or they will slap you in the face later. But always deciding on that line between whether am I honoring this thing that happened to me by thinking about it and giving it thought or am I poking at the wound.

Always having to think about that is an assault and it's, you know, is, is further. harm and is difficult and is like a burden to bear. And I think that SweetPee is, and this is pretty fresh, is always thinking about that. Like, do I get out in front of this? Do I make it mind by talking about it? Do I remind people of it by talking about it? And always having to think about it is extremely exhausting. That's what she said, that's what they say to Tony Day, like you're the second most exhausted person as at Tinder because you're so burdened by all of this. And Sweetie is actually maybe the only exhausted person at Taus Stern because she is the only one thinking about anything. Before we move off this sweepie-Qaabana exchange, I do want to mention, because we've been talking

about sort of this idea of like proximity to white power, you know, this thing that Quabana says right before he talks to her about his like, you know, porn curated preference, he says, like, forgive me, Dr. Umar and just like for some calls. context in case people don't know. You know, this is a person who speaks out a lot about a variety of issues, but one of them, maybe perhaps most controversially, is interracial couples. And this is a quote, quote, the white woman for the black man is a white surrender flag. He holds up to the white power structure to say, quote, I am broken and I'm here for being taken.

Sharp stuff from Dr. Umar. This is, this was a subject of a lot of discussion, but like this is something that is present. for this season of television is just sort of like as we're talking about fascism and white power and all this sort of stuff like that. And having that invoked inside of this scene for these characters who are not directly part of that story, but it is present of mind for this entire season of television I thought was, hey, another fucking slap from this episode of television. I mean, absolutely so, especially in an episode that is from top to bottom filled with all of the ways in which we are programmed to do the things that we do. Of course, some of those are going to be complicated, like giant structural societal level problems, like institutional racism, for example.

And the way that kind of like channels us through, I guess, pornography, but, you know, a million other kind of like little feedback loops that we're a part of to think that we want things just because we've been essentially like structured in our lives to want them. Yeah, that line from Jim on his co-crant last week really struck, like has stuck with me about that we're given so much, you know, so many conveniences that make us want things, but not the things we want to want. And that's it's, that's the kind of thing where you see these characters in extreme situations dealing with it, but it also hit home with me. Like, am I wanting the things that I want? Am I wanting the things that I want to want? And where do those things

overlap. Am I wanting the things that I've been told by capitalism, marketing, social media, etc., etc. And by wanting them, am I preventing myself from actually wanting the things that I want to want? Like, the things that I see as good and whole and worthwhile and worthy of my, you know, finite attention. Am I not ultimately wanting the right things because of the convenience of all the things that are served to me because capitalism wants me to want them? And that level of surging and ultimately like brainwashing is what's happening is what leads someone like Eric to sit in a room with his daughters and feel unfulfilled. To feel like this should matter to me, but it doesn't because I'm out here chasing the high of, I mean, I want to be celestial. I want to tap into something celestial.

I think maybe if he just quieted that part of his mind that needs to be self-destructive and chasing things at all times, then he might be able to tap into that. But it seems a little too far gone, our guy, Eric. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help.

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That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Jody, can I take you to Fashion Corner where you are queen? As you mentioned before we started recording today, you made a reference in our group chat about linen blazers. I'm going to tell you what I thought and then I want to hear what you think. So Sweet P is wearing a very specific look in all of her outfits that she wears here. To me, it read like late 90s female empowerment suits to me, the like large gold buttons more than anything else on the button down blazer.

And so in my head when I was like going to like sort of 90s crime caper movies that, you know, the people who are making the show could be. be inspired by. I was like, oh, Pelican Brief. Like, this is Julia Roberts running around in Pelican Brief, blah, blah, blah. And then I looked up Pelican Brief and I was like, actually, she doesn't wear anything like this in Pelican Brief at all. But I was like, why am I envisioning Julia Roberts in this sort of like colorless button down sort of thing? And then I was like, that's her big mistake, huge outfit in Pretty Woman. Like, that's what that outfit is. That's her, actually, that's her call girl outfit. And also in this episode, Tony Day says, a sweepie go lightly. your name is like almost as memorable as you are.

Like this is, we haven't talked about this. We haven't talked about this season. But like this is a Holly Go Lightly breakfast at Tiffany's, who is another very famous call girl sort of reference. So that's sort of like where my mind went on Fashion Corner. But I'm curious if the linen blazer look from from Sweet Bee took you anywhere else inside of this episode. Well, it's so interesting.

Well, and especially invoking Julia Roberts. Because the fashion doesn't do it. But spiritually, her fashion and the sort of air that she's taking on, stomping around, doing the white night, literally knocking on doors is, of course, completely Aaron Brockovich. Without a doubt. Yeah. Which is, you know, said outright in the episode when she marches into Tony Day's office after they've said that they're going to snooker him and snaps those sunglasses off. I mean, I don't think we ever saw Erin Brockovich wear a linen blazer. but we did see her wear

cosplay blazers and, you know, cosplay something different than what she feels that she is. And this episode also calls on the sort of like, what is Eric say, like image of a hooker and that juxtaposition

between what we see in our minds, which is the Aaron Brockovich, like how she actually dresses in the beginning of the movie when every dress is zippered down for the cleavage. But like, are we not all, selling something even when we're in a linen blazer.

And shouldn't we all dream of being the movie version of Erin Brockovich, sort of like, you know, fighting for the little guy. I do think that Sweet P. looked more, she looked less like she was wearing a costume than Yaz sometimes does. In her blazers? Yeah. In her blazers. But she is wearing a costume.

And she's also sort of like doing safari she. when she, you know, arrives in, like, linen is breathable, but a three-piece linen suit is still a little warm for the occasion. Yes, that's a lot. I do, so I want to mention something on the casting front with Tony Day. Stephen Kimmelmoor is an actor. I think he has a perfect face for, like, an extremely pale ginger who has been in Ghana for the last 15 years.

You know, like, you can just, like, see every freckle in line, you know, that Jody, you are nodding at me as a... as a fellow gender, you know. It's like, to be on this on, no SPF high enough. But also, this is an actor who I first saw in the Stephen Fry movie Bright Young Things, which came out, I don't know, a couple decades ago. Incredible top-tier cast, like an early James McAvoy, an early Michael Sheen, like just like all the crumb to le crem of the Brits that you could possibly want.

Peter O'Toole's here, Richard E. Grant, here, Harriet Walters here. Harriet Walters here, Stephen Pry. This is based on Bright Young Things is based on the Evelyn Waugh novel Vile Bodies. But in last week's episode, and I wrote it down because I was like, oh, Whitney said, Bright Young Things attract Bright Young Things. And so, like, I don't know that they were like, get me the guy from Bright Young Things. But that story, which is about sort of the like Coke addled, champagne-fueled youth, well-to-do, youth of in the UK between the wars and how high they flew and how much they crashed is definitely

something that could be on like all of evil and wa's stuff could definitely be on the mind of the creators as they're as they're trying to like track these high flying coke snorting you know young kids through this financial world and what how who's going to fly and who's going to crash and are we all going to crash I don't know but that's like that was something that was on my mind, people might know him better from history boys, which was like sort of a bigger deal. But like, I just, I thought he was perfect casting here.

Rob, how did you enjoy this particular character? I thought he was wonderful. I mean, it's like just the right amount of slime, too, where it's like you can see how this character got into this position, but also why he would want to extricate himself from it and insulate himself from it as quickly as humanly possible. And I, in particular, like, his interactions with Sweet Pea, where he really only calls her,

I would say he's not responding to her implications in telling him to call her in the first place, but almost like he's so curious about her being such a bad liar that he's wondering why she would possibly be here. And like for that to be the grounding of their relationship, which we should say, sweet P, for all of her determination, I think at best has like a half-baked plan and a very underdeveloped backstory

as far as like explaining to people what she is doing here, but walks into it with enough purpose and he responds to it with enough desperate, that it's like we're seeing people being brought together in other circumstances when they would basically never have time for each other or never take each other seriously. But who else is he going to turn to now that Jim is dead?

And contrary to what he says in this episode, I believe he knows that Jim is dead and that his really one lifeline out of here has now been severed or coked out or fentanyled out or whatever the process of that is. Just a really fascinating character to drop into the mix, given everything that he can do for Stern-Tow, certainly,

but really just more the ways in which he tests sweet pee and then her plan kind of relies on him, but also as Harper tells it, maybe it doesn't even matter if he ultimately flips and whistle blows or not. What do you think, Jody? Oh, I think the line of the episode of an episode of many lines for me

is when he says, do you ever think that you've gotten yourself in a little bit over your station here? And she says, never in my fucking life, sir. And she's lying. She's lying through her teeth. But a great way to be over your head is to think you're in over your head. And like she says, like she's pulling a Harper.

She's just got to kind of keep pushing through and let time do the work. But I think that you're right. Like that is his interest in her is like, who is this person who is so clearly in over their head? But is not acknowledging it and is shaking some of the trees that I wish that I could shake and could we shake them together? or are they going to shake down on me ultimately? Like seeing this very sort of down-trodden, weathered man versus this bright young thing who's said,

and of course she says, never in my fucking life, sir, you fancy paying for my nose job too. I know what you did. Was, yeah, it was a great episode for, like, being away from our main characters a lot. You know, like for finding these other people. who are just as interesting. And when they walk into the sort of, I guess, the hotel in Accra, and the music, like the very

quintessential industry music from like the very first episode starts playing, oh, you know, a fear in my chest and a twinkle in my eye, like, we've got our new class here. It gave me, it gave me chills when that music you kicked in. And I think that, like, what's so fascinating about this Tony Day character, to me is that the way in which he's able to see through Sweet P, who I agree with you, Rob, is not when you're on the con. Like, it's good to have some sort of backup story

for your story or whatever. But the way he sees through, like, he's not dumb, right? He's not wildly incompetent and dumb. So I'm interested why Whitney feels like he needs to constantly be on a plane to a craw because, like, so Tony is clearly wobbly in some degree. because he's, you know, taking calls from Jim Diker. Like, there's something going on there. But he's not so stupid that he needs constant oversight from Whitney.

So what is it that Whitney feels like needs his attention constantly in Ghana, I guess is my curiosity, you know? That felt like it might be more of the handholding around the multi-level bribing that has to go on in order to perpetrate this level of fraud. And Whitney would be great at it. You know, it's like he's exactly slick. enough to pull off something like that. Whereas, like, Tony, you're right, he's, like, he's not dumb.

He's clearly aware of his situation. He opted into this, I think, probably pretty clear-eyed knowing what he was doing. But it doesn't necessarily strike me as, like, the operator that Whitney is in terms of getting people to agree to do something illegal across the board at multiple levels of, like, government and regulation and, like, all of these, like, auditors within, you know, within a cross self. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think he's going there a lot for the fraud.

And that when you, yeah, put these two men. You know, maybe the room service chicken wings. Like, I don't want to rule out any possibilities as far as why Whitney would be dropping in. Yeah, that hotel looked nice. Who knows what they might have there. I think the, yeah, well, and Whitney is someone, he is the only person at that company who knows what's going on. Jonah didn't know. None of his second or thirds know now.

And the kind of control that you have to feel in that situation is like, he might not be needing to go to Ghana. But he's doing these 24-hour trips, also certainly wearing himself ragged as the number one exhausted person at Tinder to keep the lie go. You know, the next lie brings the next lie. And you just have to keep them going. And he is spinning a lot.

He is spitting. He's keeping a lot of plates spinning. Yeah, that's exactly the image I was thinking of. Okay, I don't have a needle drop corner this week, but I do want to talk about the title of this episode, right? Eyes Without a Face, which is the, you know, this is like the Billy Idol track that Quabina sings at karaoke and then we hear it again when Sweet Bee is crashing from her adrenaline high at the end of the episode.

That song is titled that based off of a 1960s French horror film, Eyes with of face, les eyes visage. But like basically A plus Joe, I mean, come on.

No, no. Ladies and gentlemen, standing ovation, please. But that, the plot of that movie is about

a sort of really creepy dude whose daughter gets disfigured in an accident and he starts killing young women all over

Paris, I believe, stealing their faces and trying to give his daughter like a facial transplant. So, killing women who look like his daughter. So basically face swapping young women to try to restore his daughter to her previous.

So could we think of any way in which that might apply here to like our guy Eric and his various daughter figures in this episode? Be that his daughter who got expelled, be that Harper or be that the girl who calls him daddy at the end of the episode. That is like one thing that I'm thinking about. but also the like sort of Potemkin Village description that we have about what Whitney is doing in Tender, right? We're just swapping and we're swapping. We're face swapping where the money is gone just so that you can't follow it very well. And then I was also thinking about sweet pee, like eyes out of face, this idea that like Eric looking at her, just her tits and her face isn't in that like photo at all. And it's just sort of like that's, that's all he's looking at. And then also just last week's episode title, which was 1,000 Uts and 1, Maryland.

Rob and I had been, like, discussing. I was like, I was not to quote my cousin Vinnie, but I was like, what's a Ute? I was like, is a Ute, like, exactly what I think it is, as I learned from my cousin Vinny or is this something else. Rob came up with like a U.K. Urban Dictionary, like, sort of definition of sort of like, it's a youth, right? And Quabana says in this episode, 1,000 Uts and Shyssees, which is like young men in Balaqlava's basically were involved in that sexual Guinness. world record-breaking extravaganza that we talked about in last week's episode. Is it weird to have, like, heard that, that phrase in this episode be the title of last week's episode?

Rob, you were talking about that, like, weird parallelism, but, like, is there any part of you that thinks, like, part of this episode was once in that episode, or does that not really strike you as weird at all? I had that thought that maybe it was the kind of thing where either they were conceived of as, like, a call in response to episode sequence, or it had been kind of chopped up. rearranged or some of the dialogue maybe had been transposed from one episode to the other. I think I settle on no, though, just because structurally, this is such a field trip episode. And I don't even know how you would interplay this with some of the other plots.

Like it feels like such a standalone kind of thing happening. But it definitely felt odd to revisit it like so explicitly. And maybe that's something that if you're the kind of viewer who isn't looking at an episode title, you don't necessarily care about. But at minimum, different characters are talking about literally the exact. same online pornographic event in almost identical terms. That feels a little uncanny to me.

I don't know, but it's a throughline of the season. I mean, it's how we get introduced to Tinder is the ways in which they interact with the only fans like sites and so much of the conversation, which the koki stuff that Jim is saying at the end of last episode is sort of much better intellectualized

between the conversation with Sweet Pea and the sort of, you know, commodification of sex and the transactional way in which we treat a lot of relationships in human behavior now because of these convenience factors. And so I think it would have been a little heavy-handed to have both of those scenes in one episode. But I like the continuation of the thought into this episode. Jodi, is there anything in this episode that we haven't talked about yet that you want to make sure we talk about?

You know, I feel like maybe we're being kind of tough on Kwaibana. Like we're being kind of tough on him when, you know, he's not one of our worst or characters, but he is young. And when he, after all of that, when he gets back and he talks to Harper and that comparison between the way that sweep he talks to Harper, the debrief. and the debrief of how he talks to Harper. However, this isn't what I want to talk about, but they both say something along the lines of, like, have I made myself clear? Yeah, fuck you pay me.

Like, do you understand me and what I'm asking for here? Which is sort of a sign that they both are under the impression that if they make themselves clear enough, that she'll treat them like humans. And that is unlikely sweet, sweet spirits. But when he tells Harper that SweetPee was like a dog with a bone, she was tenacious. And he says, it's really admirable how she's recovered from all that shit she went through. And the idea that because someone is tenacious, because someone is resilient in the face of challenge that they have recovered is often a thing put upon women.

That because they keep going in the face of challenge, it means that actually, that challenge is okay and that treating them poorly is okay. And thinking that tenacity means recovery, it just loops in with all the Harper stuff, all the sweet piece stuff, that if we make ourselves undeniable, if we achieve so much, if we have enough tangible and obvious success,

if we make enough money, then no one can hurt us because we are undeniable. But someone can still punch, chew in the face in a bathroom. You can still fall down the stairs chasing an Amazon package. Like, no matter how much you chase being undeniable, life will still happen. How well are you taking care of yourself

in the process? Generally, the answer is not very well in this show. And I really I mean, I liked, I really liked seeing Sweet Pea get home and just fall apart. My move in that situation would have been to look at myself in the mirror if I did it. That always really helps get the, you know, cathartic tears going. Sure. But seeing her acknowledge what an awful situation, she'd just been in, she'd already been in, is important. I think it's important for her and it's important for us to, like, see her do it.

Completely. Really loved. Yeah, I love that heartburn, sweepie interaction where she's like, forthright. It's clear that she does feel bad about, like, having sex with, Quabina, but is sort of like, sort of putting a shell up of like, I didn't know if you were casual, but I just thought I thought I should tell you, no, you can't come in. We're not friends, right? Like, you know, you're my boss. Like, fuck you pay me. But like, and I liked Harper's reaction to that, bearing in mind that, like, early this season, Harper was quite forthright with Quabana, but the fact that she had sex with Whitney. So, like, and the fact that he didn't tell her, right?

he didn't have that conversation with her, but Sweet P did. All of those dynamics were really fascinating to me. Rob, anything you want to zero one on? I mean, I want to hit both of these if we can, just because I think as far as the Sweet P. Harper interaction, it felt like she came back in a different place in their relationship from this trip. And I can't quite put my finger on why,

because, I mean, we're, what, two episodes removed from them being spreadsheet detectives together. And her telling Harper, like, the only reason I'm here is because you're giving me your word personally as somebody who, I guess we care about each other, to hear where it's like, miss me with your, like, pastoral compassion. And I'm trying to, like, obviously, look, she's been through a fuck ton on this trip alone in particular. And who knows what else has happened in the meantime for her.

But I am trying to square, like, why that relationship feels so different, other than in a very tough place coming off of this, like, very strange trip. Like, maybe that is reason enough. I don't know. To me, I read it as, like, her trying to put distance, like, I didn't actually betray. a friend by like fucking this guy that she hooks up with. Like we aren't friends. You know, like I felt like she was putting some distance between them inside of that moment to, I don't think, I personally don't think she has anything to feel guilty about. But if she decided she was like,

if I decide that Harper and I are actually like friends and or spreadsheet detective buddies or whatever the case may be, then having sex with Quabana was not the move. But if I decide that that's not our relationship, then I can tell myself it wasn't that bad of a thing to do. Yeah. You know? That part definitely tracks. Also with the sort of rejection, the returning from the trip and rejecting the pastoral compassion that maybe she had kind of liked in some sort of mentor way before is circling

around these ideas that we've been dealing with with Sweetpee of control and choices. And it comes from Harper saying to her, I'm so sorry that I let this happen to you. and I have to assume that Sweetie's thought in that moment is, I let this happen to me. It was not good. It was not safe. But I chose it. And she literally says,

don't take this away from me. Yeah. I loved that. I think part of that is the choice. The choices that she's made, they are hers. I'm sure that's a lot of what she feels around the only fans leak or the siren leak. Is those were my choices.

Me, you know, feeling some regret about them now, doesn't make those choices any different. They were mine. They were that of a 19-year-old self, whatever. But also that her choices, which may have been bad, also have them in the position that they're in now. And Harper can't take that away from her either. Absolutely.

And she will. Right. No, I love all of that. And again, this Golan Maxwell documentary I watched, which is on Netflix, you can watch it, has like a very false happy ending because actually more things happens inside of the case than the documentary covered.

But it was so fascinating to hear from, like, there are so many people inside of this case who were underage. And then there's like all the women who were like 18 or 19 at the time. And all of them don't have a case that they can bring. And all of them are saying, all of them that were interviewed,

like, you know, I was 19, I was 21, whatever the case may be, is like, this was my choice, my decision. But I'm showing up to support these young women. And I just think it's such a like arbitrary, horrible line to draw that like, you know, you're 17 and 11 months and you've been violated and you're 18 and you haven't, you know. And that's just like that conversation from those women, you know, the fact that SWEP was 19 is like, you know, I made this choice. There is an empowerment in it, but there's also this like false adulthood inside of it. That is just like really painful to grapple with.

I think especially Joe, as all of these characters we're talking about, from Harper to Tony Day to Quabana in his own way, are like trying to minimize what Sweet Pea is doing, or minimize the role that she's playing, or the agency she's exercising in her own life. And it's like the absolute mind fuck of, I was adult enough to put nudes of myself on the internet

technically legally, and that's going to be held against me for the rest of my life. But God forbid, I actually want to try to prove something or God forbid I want to try to work in this other way and no one takes me seriously. God forbid I'm Aaron fucking Brockovich. I mean, seriously. And then Quabana comes back and it's like,

Jody, when you brought up like the dog and the bone comment, like there was so much like they're there pat on the head in the way that he was talking about it. And I think really the smoking gun is when Quabina, someone who from everything we've seen doesn't really care about tenacity is praising her tenacity. It's like that's not a word or a concept that means a lot to him. And so it's like it's such a hollow compliment,

the idea that he's saying like, look at how doggedly she pursued this thing that isn't really important to me, but sure was good for her. Nice job. Well, and when you look at Harper and SweetPee, we don't know a ton about Sweetie's backgrounds. She talks about her mom a little bit in this episode, but these ages that you're talking about, Joe, 18, 19, when you're still in a really vulnerable situation,

but for some people, you have been put in the situation of needing to take care of yourself financially now. And for some people, you have not been put in that situation. And the choices that we make at those ages, because we have to be able to take care of ourselves are just taken from very different worlds for some people and the structures and the systems around us. And that's, yeah, like that's when those vulnerabilities really come into play

and the choices that we have to make that don't entirely feel like our own. One last thing I want to hit is, so we get a margin call inside of this episode. Our guy, Kenny, does a margin call. There is a 2011 film margin call, and it does not have Margarabi and Abatha, but it does have Paul Bettney in a really nice suit. So, you know, there's something for everyone out here in the world. But I want to hit a couple things from, it's a great movie. J.C. Chandor, it's a, it's a great movie. Does it, will it help you understand what a margin call is? No, but I think the context is

pretty clear here. Like, you guys are over leveraged. You need to show up with more money or else, you know, we're going to dissolve. You're going to take a huge loss on your, on your short here, right? But there are a couple, Margin Call is less of like a great movie and more of like a few like absolutely knockout scenes like sort of assembled together. And I just want to highlight two of them really quickly in case someone wants to watch Margin Call on a Friday evening. Stanley Chucci's character whose name is Eric has this incredible scene where he's basically involved in this in this massive financial scandal. he's not responsible, but he is involved. And he talks to Paul Bettney about the fact that, like, in his previous life, he built a bridge. Like, he was an engineer and he built a bridge.

And he talks about the way in which this bridge saved all of these people so much commute time. And he calculates all the hours that these people in this community saved because he built this bridge. And I was thinking about that a lot when I was talking when, like, Eric and Harper were talking about feeling empty and the nothingness. The, like, this is a, this is an industry of, like, fake. accomplishments. There's money at the end of this, but you haven't built anything. You haven't made anything. You've just engaged in this like capitalistic pageantry and there's nothing that you can show for it at the end of the day unless you are the rare sort of like healthy work, life balance sort of finance bro, which industry would have you believe. I don't know. Who's that?

Anyone who fucked off to the Silicon Valley, I guess, but I would say no. No, not even that. I'm with the Suncom Valley Bros. The other one is Jeremy Irons plays this character who's modeled off the president of Lehman Brothers. This whole thing is modeled off of, like, what happened with Lehman Brothers with the 2008 mortgage crash. This is this great speech that Jeremy Irons gives

at the end of this movie. This movie also has Kevin Spacey and it just fair warning. But anyway, Jeremy Iron says, when did you start feeling so sorry for yourself? It's unbearable. What? So you think you might have put a few people out of business today.

That's all for not. But you've been doing that every day, almost 40 years, Sam. And if this is all for not, then so is everything out there. It's just money. It's made up pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than it's ever been. But just this idea of like what we're doing is so made up. And that is what this whole, you know, we're engaging in journalism and the tech world and a bunch of other industries that, you know, I would argue if you're a journalist, you do have something to show for your work.

But like inside of the world of finance, it is just this incredible shell game that can leave you feeling so empty inside because it's just you're not actually building anything at the end of the day. Yeah. And that this is why you have to create all these stories for yourself, all these like, you have to weave all these tales and all these narratives of like how important it is what you're doing, how virtuous it is or, you know, etc., etc. Or fill yourself with, you know, to invoke the episode title from two weeks ago, like all these precious things that matter to you, be it a Hitler painting, or whatever the case may be, all these things that you amass around you that shows you were here and you existed and you lived a life.

Oh, yeah, that legacy. That legacy is complete. That's for you, Jody. And the line from this episode, you know, whispered sort of wonderfully by, you know, Eric, the thing was nothing. Yeah, no shit. None of these things are things. The things are nothing.

And Eric, Harper, you know, Eric gets Harper a couple times. Harper gets him when he is just sort of opining for how his relationship with his children should be celestial and metaphysical. It's like, there's nothing celestial about finance. And she says, it's surely not lost on you that you picked a hyper-transactional career. where the transactions aggregate to zero. Exactly what you're saying, Joe. Exactly.

Anything else you want to add, Rob, to any of this? Yeah, we haven't dug into that specific exchange between Harper and Eric that much in terms of like the what it's... I think it's because I don't want to go to therapy wrong. I'm sorry, I'm dragging you back. It's part of being a podcaster. Joanna, I just got to do it on the mic. It's true.

All right. This part is complimentary. I'm sorry to say. But yeah, I think the combination of, Yes, the like wanting to prove something to your now dead mother, but also the like, what does it mean to be a good or bad boss? I learned it from watching you. And I think Harper ultimately, even before she reveals to Eric,

that her mother has died, I mean, giving him an absolute undressing, as much as you can do that to a man in a robe, for basically no reason. I mean, like he, I wouldn't say that Eric has been incredibly effective in his capacity at Stern Tao as of yet. But he did put up money. He is footing the bill for their office. Like, he is participating in a kind of way.

Paying for the chicken wings, baby. At bare minimum, paying for some very expensive chicken wings. And Harper is saying, like, you're useless to me effectively at this point. And, I mean, if we're all being honest about it, I'm sure just projecting a lot of stuff about everything she's thinking

and going through with her relationship with her mom, too. Yeah, that was just a lashout because she got a call from her estranged brother about her dead mom. That's a great point, though. Jody, anything you want to add to that? You know, she talks about that, her brother, when they were young, is the last and only time she ever felt love. And in that scenario,

it is very easy to think of people as how they are useful or not useful to you because love is, you know, the only thing that sort of doesn't have like a functional imperative. And she doesn't feel it. And she really struggles to give it. And I think like, you know, we, I miss. I miss. I actually, I didn't find myself within the episode missing, yes. When the preview came up, I was like, oh, where's Yaz? And I know that Joe and I are hoping for this romantic rekindling or not unkindling of that friendship. But for me, it's because it's the closest we see Harper get to love. I think much more so than Eric, like that relationship has always been of, you know, subordinate

and like it's, it's, the writing has always been clear in that relationship. But with Harper and Yaz, we get so close. Like, we get so close to love. And I want, I want that for Harper. Otherwise, she is going to explode her whole world. Yeah. I think she might do it one way or the other, to be honest with you. It won't.

So you're right. Like, it won't save her. It won't save her. I mean, everything with Harper and Eric is so fucked up. I did think it was interesting in this episode, though. As you mentioned, Joe, this is just a kind of a. disaster Eric episode in a lot of different respects, especially when you arc it out and where he ends up.

He is one of the only people in the episode, though, who kind of gets the thing that he's been after. The thing that he's been chasing, it's like what he wanted in establishing Sturtow in the first place was basically for Harper to treat him like a friend or a father or to disclose personal information about her life. And yet even when she does it, he can't help but make it about him and his daughter.

And it's like how quickly he just flips from the one thing he professed to want into this other thing that I guess he needs, but I don't know. Our guy is a mess. Black holes so deep inside of every single character in this show, they will never be filled. All right. Well, that has been episode five of industry. Have great weekend. That's the note I'm leaving it on.

Of course, we will be back, you know, after the next episode drops. So a little over a week, just because. of the Super Bowl influence released of industry. Yeah, do you think we'll be programmed to want anything that we don't want because of the Super Bowl? I shudder to say.

Guess what? I won't be watching. So press TTV as Spotify.com or harpscores drop-on at gmail.com. And we'll see you soon. Bye. Mother's Day has a way of sneaking up on you. But when it does,

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