The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Industry’ Season 4, Episode 3: Watching the Sausage Get Made

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Jo and Rob team up to take on that threesome, Don Draper parallels, room service orders, and more during this week’s recap of Episode 3 of ‘Industry’ Season 4. Intro (0:00)Homage to Jodi (0:43)‘Habseligkeiten’: What We Carry With Us (1:35)Mailbag Check-in (3:31)Girlboss Yasmin (13:24)Muck Cuck (17:26)Let’s Talk About Fascism (24:42)Needle Drop Corner (30:39)‘Mad Men’ Energy (35:35)Shifting Team Dynamics (43:13)Shady Journalism Hour (46:04)Kenny’s back! (Unfortunately/Fortunately?) (53:09)Eric’s $10 Million Problem (55:12)Room Service Orders (56:53)Eric and Harper Go Head-to-Head (57:48)The Rishi/Sweet Pea Confrontation (1:03:37)Outro (1:05:40) Email us! [e-mail] or [e-mail] Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob MahoneyProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Justin Sayles and Ashleigh Smith Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! 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, me and I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. Jody Walker is not with us, alas. Tragic. Especially given the subject matter this week. I feel like Jody would have had a field day with this episode. And we will get her take on this episode.

She is on vacation. She will be back next week. Yeah. I heard she's in Vienna. Is that what you heard? You know, just seeing the sights. Let's not slander her. Okay, quick homage to Jody.

Can we start with an homage to Jody and say, I don't know if you know this, but, all that men care about is legacy, right? Indeed. When Kenny asks Eric, our guy Kenny comes back, my guy Kenny, asks Eric at the end of the episode how it feels to be in a position of power, and Eric says, a constant nerve-jangling desire to enshrine it.

Is that not a line written for Jody Walker? Speaking right to her soul, to her philosophy. It's going right into her instructional materials. All right. With Jody not here, though, I do have a quick question for you. Okay. We're seeing the launch of Stern Tao. Would this prestige podcast team be called Robinson Mahoney or Mahoney Robinson?

Who gets to go first? That's obviously Robinson Mahoney. One of us is a New York Times bestseller. We're leading with prestige on prestige. Season four, episode three of industry, Habzilik Keitin is how we've decided we've pronounced that. Habzilik Haydn. Habsilikkaiden. All right.

That's all we're going to do of that. Written by Joseph Charlton and directed by Michelle Seville. And Princess Joanna, Joanna, no relation to me, asks, yeah, as if she knows this word, right? Literally translated, she says it means possessions closest to your soul. Yeah. How does this, you know, we love to look at a title of an episode and see how it goes across all threads of an episode. Do you see anything beyond the, we really love. love this Adolf Hitler painting, so we've put it in this prized room.

Yeah. Definition of this particular title. I think there's many. And I think it depends on how broadly you want to define what you possess and what you own. I mean, for example, I think the now very complicated sexual politics between Yaz and Henry and Haley ends in some ways with Yas exerting that she owns a certain thing that Henry has deposited and owns him in a lot of senses. I think there's an area by which Eric, in appealing to Harper, is trying to give her the things, the precious things, that he can't give his daughters because he doesn't actually know who they are.

And in that case, it's like the power and the authority to run this fund on her own terms. And so it's like it is an appeal to find these precious things for each other in ways that are good or very selfish. But it's kind of all over this episode, I feel like. I really think it's important that we're talking about possessions and a show that is, of course, so fixated on money and capitalism. And we'll talk about all of that, obviously. But when Yaz or Harper, you know, we're always wondering what they're chasing.

And I'm always hoping for them that it's relationships and it never is that. It's never human connection. It's always things and security and legacy, as Jody would like to say. Mailbag. We're going to run through a few of these really quickly. First of all, our listener, and wait, where can people email us, Rob Mahoney? Always at Prestige TV at Spotify.com, especially for this show at Harpsichord strap-on at gmail.com. And no, that will not put you on a list somewhere.

I really hope people are enjoying typing that into their emails as they send us these various insights. One of life's great delights, I can assure you. Our listener Travis wrote it to say, I usually find the closed captioning very helpful, but during the Haley-Muck Cuck scene, I felt the, quote, fluid squelching description was unnecessary. Yeah, I could not disagree more. Okay, tell me. We like to spotlight great artists and crafts people on this show. Yeah.

I think whatever Foley artist came up with that exact squelching sound, which we should say occurs after Yaz has requested the dismount. And there's just like this very subtle, very low in the mix. I mean, real sludge in the sewer kind of sound to this thing. Tremendous. I wouldn't know, it wouldn't even begin to know how to replicate it. Do you think it has anything to do with the fluid squelching? sound we heard on the pit that related to brain matter in last week's episode. I certainly hoped not. Wow, you made the exact same scratch face. That's incredible. I mean, I am who I am,

but this is what I'm getting at. There are different kinds of squelches. And the real artists among us understand what separates one from the other. You and I can only dream of being so talented. I love an inventive closed caption. Mallory and I talk about this all the time on House of R, especially as it pertains to stranger things. They love the word squelch on Stranger Things closed captioning. So I love to see it here. Our listener Alex wrote in to say another episode, another piled high plate of sausages. What a show. Talked about the sausages at the muck house mold. Here at the Moritz sloths. I have to imagine it's vice forest. It's not like British. Sure. You know, bangers. Not your stuffy British sausages. No. No. They prefer their sausage.

This is the genuine article. Right. Yeah. But really, look, it's the demonstration of excess. It has become the new symbol, right? If you are rich, you get your pile of sausages on this show. Something to aspire. Possession to dearly cherish. Okay. John, especially as it pertains to this episode when we're talking about anti-Semitism, John wrote one small note about episode two is that the guy at the pub says North London, not Northern. Think the setting for the movie Disobedience with Rachel Weiss and Rachel McAdams. So it wasn't about her accent, but he assumed she was Jewish instead of half Lebanese. And, like, you know, he uses a slur in regards to he as an episode two.

but this will come back around in this episode, but I thought that was an interesting, important distinctive distinction. One listener who goes by just EAP did not decline to put their name, seemed to have created their own email because they did not want to go on a list, having sent something to Harpsichordstrap on at Gmail.com, so they made their own special email to communicate with us. Let us know that it won't be cinematic, that quote that yes says to Henry about suicide. is according to this listener,

word forward line from the Sopranos when a mobster threatens Tony's Gumar. What is, sorry, what show was that? Have you heard of it, the Sopranos? Maybe, I don't, maybe in the wind somewhere. I couldn't place it. It won't be cinematic, a Sopranos reference

that we missed, who knew, that we might miss a Sopranes reference. Our listener, Sam wrote in to let us know that Lord and Lady Muck is an older British expression for people who put on airs and act above their station. This might suggest that since Lord Muck is nothing, if not an authentic member of English nobility,

that in the view of the show, no one is actually an authentic noble. They're all just lords and ladies muck. Well, no one is an authentic noble. Like, it's just shit we made up. It's true. We didn't make it up. Well, yeah, but we collectively, as a species, made it up. True.

Last not least on the mail ad corner, do you want to talk about this email we got from a listener who goes by the name Mickey? What do we have? Okay. Someone claiming to be Mickey down, perhaps. Yeah. wrote in to say, will not hear any Meet Joe Black negativity. Here's what happened. We got an email from an email

address that looks like it could be one of the co-creators of this show. In fact. Did I reply? No. Because I don't want to know if this is fake because I choose to believe that one of the co-creators of the show typed harpsichordstrap on at Gmail.com into his email

to column and send us an email defending Meet Joe Black. How do you feel about that? Well, first of all, if you are involved in the making of this show, That's not the first time you've typed harpsichord strap-on at e-mail, at least harpsichord strap-on into a dock somewhere. So that part makes sense. I simply don't even have it in me to have the full-throated Me, Joe Black, debate at this point. I don't even fully understand the debate. So, again, I would love to hear the merits from somebody as to why this is a good movie.

And we did get a couple emailers attempt to do that. And you don't want to engage. I am not moved. Okay. I should say, if you are Mickey Down and you email this about Me, Joe Black, we appreciate the spirit of your endeavor. I don't want to know if this is a fake email actually. I asked CR. I was like, what do you think?

And he was like, Mickey, because they're like pals with Mickey and Conrad. And CR was like, he's more of a DM guy. I was like, don't destroy my illusion. I choose to believe that this is a real email. But regardless. Where's the line for that? Like, if we start getting Kit Harrington burner emails. Do you want to know or do you want to know?

I want to know. Let's live in delusion. Why not? Also, just this isn't an email that we got, but I just want to say elsewhere in Prestige TV land. Patty Reddenkeeve got a message in this episode. And Patty Raddenkief is the author of Say Nothing, which is a book that a great show that we covered was based on.

So I loved that reference. Fabulous show. And Chloe Puri plays Lisa Dern, the business secretary. And we spent a lot of time with her in Department Q, another show we covered. So I just was really feeling the Prestige TV podcast vibes in this episode. The Mill You for sure. I mean, and she's great on Department Q. If you're not up on that show, I think.

It's definitely worth your time. She's fantastic on the show. And she showed up last season to sort of grill our guy, Robert, you know, when he was in front of a grand jury or whatever the British equivalent of that is. And she's back here again, getting a little undercut by Ricky Martin with OI and Jenny Bevin. I think it was a great episode, too, for people who believe they are in control, who are not in control. And she is, you know, unfortunately for her, one of those figures. I would be interested. Thanks so much to all the listeners who write in with, you know,

little aspects of British culture that might go over our American heads. Definitely. And I think especially, I was looking for more information on the Ricky Martin character. First of all, like incredible character name, obviously, but also just is there a comp for this in British politics that I'm missing? This guy who walks in and these two women are like, oh, God. This guy's here. Well, here's the thing. Was it him specifically or was it more like, oh, who called in the representative?

for the PM into this meeting. Yeah, but like, both. Like, why is the PM elbowing into this meeting? And also this guy, really? And then he slaps down this, like, very ostentatious headline about Jenny Bevin as the future of the labor party, right? Which certainly put Lisa on the back foot inside of this meeting. She didn't love it. No.

Do you think, so last week's episode we saw Jenny, you know, go toe to toe with Henry's uncle about the, you know, use of the press and how can they come to terms. Do you feel like she placed this article in, because we see a lot of placing of articles in the media. Do we think she placed that article or was that done without her knowing or was that done because they thought it would be a good idea to support her? Like, what do you think? I didn't interpret it her it is her placing it specifically, but her benefiting from the

relationships that she's fostering in that way. Like she is playing as is every, like everything in this episode is a transaction. as it basically is an industry all the time. And she has been playing that particular game with the media in ways that her boss is at least playing differently, if playing at all. Right. And this felt like the fruits of that kind of transactional labor for her. Yeah. Her reaction said to me, she didn't know that article had been written.

She felt this is not a move she would have made to sort of assert herself over her own boss, Lisa. But it feels like a little obvious as a play for her. Right. But as somebody who, you know, as she is curing face. and gathering these relationships and working with media figures in particular, the more powerful she is, the more they stand a benefit. And so it's like, it's one of those things where everyone can sort of end up propping each other up a little bit. I'm going to come back to the journalism angle because we have a lot to say about the legal department and redacting articles and stuff like

that. Did it, did it, uh, how much of you in the sports media had to grapple with the legal department in your journalism? Honestly, not that much legal department. Okay. It was trauma for me. For me, it was more when Jennifer Bevin does come to visit the tender offices. And Yaz is sort of hovering as the communications consultant. That was very familiar to me. I'm trying to have this conversation with somebody that's pretty direct or pretty blunt or pretty close.

And here's this person just kind of tagging along waiting to provide helpful context. Yeah. To be clear, I love the legal department because they, I haven't had to deal with them with the rigor, but when I worked at Vanity Fair, the legal department are very, very important, right? They keep you honest as a journalist.

You know, you can only say what you can prove that's good journalism, right? Absolutely true. And they are there to make sure that Kandane Nas doesn't get sued and all these other things. But the frustrating back and forth, the waiting for them to come back is just a lot of, it was to use a term that Eric likes triggering for me inside of this episode. You seem triggered, Joe. I am triggered.

All right. Let's talk about Girl Boss Yaz and also Galane Maxwell and also Lady Macbeth and also Elizabeth Holmes. Sorry, what was that second one? Galeen Maxwell. We're going to get there. How do you reconcile how Yaz is treating Henry in this episode with what Marissa said about the end of episode two? So to recap in case people didn't listen to the podcast, Marissa Bella, who plays, Yaz said that that scene at the end of episode two when Henry's like, baby? And she's like, ugh, that she said she would never be safe around him again, that she doesn't trust him.

Yeah. So how does that translate to the way in which she's handling him in this episode? I mean, this whole episode is a showcase of the ways in which Yaz is a player in this space and has been for a long time. Like, this is a woman who, for worse, was raised by a manipulative abusive father, or at least he was in the picture, and really raised by a series of nannies that she had to quickly ingratiate herself to and went over in order to get the thing she wanted. And like, that bears out in her behavior and her ability to work people, right, to work the angles, to find out where it is she can exert her influence. and Henry is maybe the most crucial of all of those pieces, right? Like I think there is a real genuine affection between them, clearly. Like these are two people who are attracted to each other,

who married each other because it's practical, but also because there's some heat and feeling there. And on the edges of it, she can massage everything else to get exactly what she wants, to get into any room that she feels like being in. And to the increasing annoyance of it seems like most people at Tender who are like, who is this woman? What is your role exactly?

What exactly is your capacity here, which her capacity is whatever the fuck she wants it to be? So far. Yeah. She shows up in a high ponytail and a black turtleneck, which is like Elizabeth Holmes drag. Like, girl boss tech drags me. And then this is what Bloomberg's Harry Wilson wrote about sort of her interjecting and the board being like, excuse me, what are you doing here? Quote, long time investors in Britain's Metro Bank holdings might nod along in knowing solace at their fictional counterparts, having seen the company's co-founder and former. chairman employ his wife at considerable expense to oversee the design of the startup's branches.

So I'm not opposed to Yaz being in this room. There's a lot that she has to say that I think is useful. Why didn't they just hire Yaz in this position? To be CEO? Yeah. Well, they need the name. But she has the same name. She does, but it's like, I think the Mary, I mean, look, I'm not going to speak to the ends and outs of the British political and like social systems. But I would imagine and coming from the name means something different than marrying it into the name. You sound like you're entrenched in the British class system, and that's great. People do often say that about me. But no, I mean, I agree with you.

I just think, like, I don't want her not in the room, and I'm not like, what is this wife doing here? But it's also like, give her an official job. Sure. You know, let her officially be there. I also, I got really nervous when Haley, not the second part of Haley's story in this episode, but when Haley first comes up to her and tells her about what Jim did. Yeah. I got really nervous.

This is actually my only succession reference in this podcast, I promise you. But Shiv Roy betraying women who had come to her in a vulnerable space. And we've seen Yas herself do it. But I got just like real Shivroy vibe of like, don't give Yaz this information. Yeah. Like this is not a good idea. How did you feel? I mean, obviously at the same.

It's just an incredibly vulnerable place to put yourself with somebody who, as we're alluding to, like, is incredibly opportunistic. and who understands how to leverage exactly these sorts of confidences against people, or really not even against people, but for whatever it is that she wants, ultimately. And I think this exchange and this scene, and specifically the way it ends, which is Yaz's trying to give Haley the night off in Vienna. She's like, you're not my boss, actually. Yeah, I can't do that. I need the sign off from Henry or Whitney.

To me, sets up everything that happens between them from here on now. That is a like, oh, you don't think I have the power to give you. give you the night off, let me show you what I have the power to do. Yeah, I agree. So, like, when we get to the, um, Yaz directing her husband and Haley, uh, in their assignation, did you get strong- That is a word for it? Did you get strong American Psycho? Sabrina don't just stare at it, eat it vibes from Yas in the same because I did. You know what? I didn't connect those dots, but you're absolutely right. Okay. And, and we should say, not the first American Psycho reference that we've seen in this show, if that is indeed the case.

Some listeners also connected the dots that the early club scene with Haley invokes the exact same new order song that plays an American Psycho when Patrick Bateman is in the club. Unfortunately not the part in the club where he tells a woman that he's into murders and executions mostly, but the other one. Another American Psycho reference. And American Psycho, what a great source for industry to pull from. Marcus Halberstrom, which is, you know, the character in American Psycho, who Patrick Bateman, much to his consternation, gets confused. for. Halberstrom is Whitney's last name. So they gave him the same last name.

And I was like, oh, I wonder if that was on purpose. And then I Googled it. And Max Mingela's Instagram, he has forever grateful to Mickey and Conrad for the gift of Whitney Halberstrom, a true American psycho. Wow. And then in the carousel, he has like a screen grab from American Psycho. So this is like clearly. Yeah, this clearly something that they're doing here.

I like this idea of, I mean, this whole sequence was great. Deeply diabolical that's Sally Draper. We're going to talk about madmen a good deal more in this episode. But on the heels of Lady Cordelia talking about men fucking their fears into women. Yes. This idea that Yaz is like going to make her husband fuck his fears and do someone else. And then... Well, that's what life is all about.

Outsourcing the emotional labor. There you go. And then consuming the aftermath so that there's no chance of children. Henry's like, let's have... a kid and she's like, not only am I not going to have your kid. I'm going to make it so that nobody has your kid. First of all, I'm not quite sure that's how science works. I wouldn't call it a full-proof birth control.

Now, if you told me Yaz believes that, maybe she does. Maybe that is exactly what she was after. And we have to say, while we're honoring crafts people on this show, the smash cut from that into the oyster slurp. Faster stroke, diabolical, just incredible shit. All right, as I mentioned earlier, I was going to talk about Galeem Maxwell. And you're like, great.

Love to talk about Gilein Maxwell on a podcast. Yeah. Speaking of legal, let's just get... Well, the way in which... So I saw this comp come up a lot. The way in which she manipulates Haley or forces Haley into this scenario. And thinking about Galea Maxwell,

who was Epstein's right-hand woman. Yeah. Okay. You're going to shrug your shoulders, but I have something to read you. I'm not shrugging my shoulders. As you say the word force, like, I understand this is a manipulative situation.

There's no question, yes, is being manipulated. There's a massive power imbalance in the scenario. Unquestionably true. So something that Kiernan and Shipka has said about Haley in that scenario is that Haley is like calculating what power can she glean from this. Yes. So yeah, you know, she's not like a completely unwilling participant. She's playing a game, but it's clearly not the same game at the same level.

I just would like to, and I'm sorry to do this to you, but I would, I asked you off pod and I told you not to Google it. Do you know how Gleine Maxwell's father died? I do, in fact, not know. So this is from The Guardian, a paper of repute. The title of the article is The Murky Life and Death of Robert Maxwell and how it shaped his daughter Galane. Quote, it is almost 30 years since her father, the press baron, Robert Maxwell,

fell to his death from his 15 million-pound yacht, Lady Galane, off the Canary Islands, age 68. Even now there is talk of suicide or murder, perhaps by Mossad in the Israeli intelligence service. So this is... Well, holy shit. precisely how Yaz's father died last season. The boat was called the Lady Yasmin.

Yeah. Yasmin. So, like, they were intentionally invoking Galane Maxwell with Yasmin last season, and now they've put her in this particular scenario in this season. So how do you feel about that? I mean, look, this is tremendous detective work from you, Joe.

You know, you're really doing... I don't think I'm the first person to have pointed this out. But I think it's a sharp connection, clearly at a point of influence, where they want to take that, as I think the interesting thing for the show. Because industry has been the kind of series so far, as we've talked about with the American Psycho references and all these other things, there's stuff that's like in the

ether. And then there's what are we pulling from for plot? Right. And that's all kind of mashed up and thrown in the blunder and we see how it comes out. But that is a hell of a through line. Anytime that I'm like drilling for real life influence or cultural illusion, it's not a nag on the show. I think it's interesting to draw from, you know, the real life or the art that you're interested in and put it inside. And there are shows and films that feel like they're just imitating something. And then there are shows and films that are saying, hey, we're people who have seen a ton of films or watch a ton of television. And we want to sort of draw on those inspirations. That's art. That's how art works. And the deft hand on industry specifically to me comes from, like, that's the thing that I

clearly did not know. I would assume a lot of the viewers of the show did not know. And yet, because it is obviously true, like there is a, there's a part of that kind of story. and that kind of detail that's just evocative of the sort of person Yasmin's dad would be and what he echoes. And whether you know those dots to connect or not, there is a connectivity there that you can feel, if that makes sense.

I also want to, I mean, as you know, I'm always on Shakespeare Watch. The way in which Yasmin has moved into this sort of Lady Macbeth role inside of her relationship here, I thought it was really interesting that she's voicing and encouraging things that the commander was sort of his, Henry's father,

quote unquote was saying so like the devil on his shoulder right you can fuck that girl she's your underling it won't matter it'll feel great to do it you're great you're wonderful you're powerful you can accomplish anything um and henry even calls her out for this for like the enabler sort of behavior exactly um one of our listeners wrote in and thought that i thought that uh the commander was a real ghost and i just want to clarify that that's not the case it is definitely like a psychological projected just in case that was not clear to ever Not an actual, I mean, he's dead, but it's not an actual ghost. Ghost dad, but no, not an actual ghost. Ghost dad is a big, a big tent.

Yeah. There are within that, the actual ghost dads. Sure. There's the spear, like vision quest dads. Yeah. There's the acid trip dads, which this also seemed like it could be of that variety as well. In addition to some kind of psychological break, there are many kinds of ghost dad. Daddy issues run about.

They really do. A monk in this episode. On Ghost Watch, and I'm not talking about the, like, he's still wearing the Rolex. So he's still wearing his dead dad's watch. He's still wearing his dad's ghost watch. Yeah. Ghost watch is on him. But Ghost Watch in general, how do you feel about this quote?

I'd be dead without you. So just so you know that. It's whatever girl wants to hear. Great. Henry Muck Death Watch, 2026. It's in effect. Okay. I'm going to take us from Galane Maxwell to fascism.

Does that sound like a fun place to go? I would love to hear you connect it. How do you want to manage that show? Well, okay. We've already talked about Gilean Maxwell. another comp that I was thinking about, do you know about the Mitford sisters? No, who are the Midford sisters?

Okay, the Midford sisters. Joe, what corner of the internet slash library are you in? No, no, the Midford sisters I've known about for a long time. I just am learning things about Galane Maxwell. Okay. But the Midford sisters are, it was like seven women born to landed gentry family that fell on hard times in the 1930s. And the daughters went in different directions.

Some of them became novelists and great writers. And one of them married Oswald Mosley, who was the leader of the British Union of fascists. And one of them is rumored to have a love child with Hitler. So, like, they went in a couple different directions. Okay. But the idea of the Mitford sisters and this idea of, like, the way in which British, like, how susceptible Britain was to fascism, there was like a real fascist movement in the UK. that coincided with the rise of Nazism. Frankly, was and it is.

As in many places. No, no, as in many places. But this idea of fascism as a place to allow yourself when you feel like you deserve to be on the top of the world and you are somehow on the back foot in one way or another. So the Mithford sisters who were born, you know, with a name and huge estate and fell on hard times. and how do we take our whiteness and our good breeding and ensure that we are back on the top of the pile. So way in which Yasmin, who was born rich, but her father blew their entire fortune, so she had no money and disgrace and scandal around her and has married a name and is now seemingly comfortable, not happy about it necessarily, but comfortable, cozing up to literal Nazis. if it helps her feel like she's back on top of the pile. For what it's worth, I mean, yeah, not entirely comfortable, clearly.

No. But understands the compromise that she's making. Like, it's going into it pretty clear-eyed. Right. In the vein that she did with her marriage to Henry in the first place, right? Of, like, is this the decision I would make under any circumstances? Clearly not. But under these, she's acting in a way that is, like, quote, unquote, pragmatic for the situation

to help expedite this merger or this acquisition. But, like, ultimately, it's obvious. obviously morally bankrupt. She knows is wrong. Even before she has to do like the Paul Red style like double take on the Adolf Hitler signature on the painting. She knows this is fucked up. But she goes into it anyway because she wants what she wants. And ultimately she wants to like back up and support Henry and build his power base so that it builds her power base.

Proximity to power. For sure. For sure. If not power itself. And I think, you know, something that Harper called out in a previous season, I think it was season three, was she was, she was. talking about Yaz's white passing privilege, right? And so we'll talk a bit about the team that Harper and Eric are building over there. But when you think about Whitney, Halberstrom, who, you know, gets hit with a very insidious anti-Semitic comment of, it's always money, Halberstrom, you know,

like from Moritz here. But he has white passing privilege. Yaz has white passing privilege. Their whole, you know, board is now just a... a bunch of white dudes. And in a way that someone like Jonah, who's been booted from the company, Cal Penn, definitely doesn't have. So, like, they can move in this world with these fucking Nazis

in a way that Harper's team cannot. And I think that's interesting. I think the Whitney-Jona contrasts is so sharp in this episode, too, because in Jonah's absence, it almost feels like Whitney's becoming more and more like Jonah, right? Like, without that personality in the room, he's being a little more swaggering.

Just with the way he's talking like this line, my sense is this guy is an alpine fuckboy with an outsized sense of his own relevance and recourse. You could plug that line into Jonah's mouth in the first episode and it would feel right at home. And yet he can get away with it because, in a lot of ways, because of the way he passes

and the rooms he can occupy and because there is a little bit more fluidity to his kind of general social and racial situation than there might be to Jonas. On the Austria finance front, I'm going to quote the Bloomberg recap, Harry Wilson. I did not know anything about Austria banking. This is what he says.

Austria may be known for many things, but a clean as a whistle banking sector is not among them. If you think this is unfair, look up my bank, I'm not sure how to pronounce that, and rejoice in the majesty of perhaps one of the most corrupt organizations to ever breathe corporate error. So an Austrian banking license isn't exactly the financial equivalent of papal indulgence. So that is what they're after. they are cozing up to European power, but like dicey reputationally European power. And the power they can cozy up to, right?

It's kind of like, what is the power base that is already compromised enough that they would want to do business with us a bunch of like porn payment middlemen effectively? Right, yeah, yeah. And I thought you're spot on, Joe, in terms of like the kinds of people for whom fascism would appeal.

I think are those sorts of like down on their luck noble families or classes. There's also a degree of like just wealthy enough to be exempt from the actual problems of real life, but just low enough on the totem pole to feel slighted. And it's like there really is a sweet spot for whom this sort of consolidated power really appeals. And, you know, clearly their substacks are just like the subscriptions are flying off.

And feeling like you'll be inoculated from the consequences of a fascist. You get to reap all the benefits of the supposed efficiency without any of the damage to literally everybody else. Right. 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.

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This is where I want to do Needle Drop Corner. And it does not have to do with the literal Nazi anthem that we hear play inside of this episode. Which I guess has been like banned, which is great. You're not allowed to play that song that they play in this episode. You're not allowed to play it in Germany. Great. Seems like a good idea. We should ban more music.

Not all music, but some. Please tell me that this Needle Drop Corner is about Orioco. flow. Do you want to talk about Anya? I'm going to make room for you to talk about Anya if you want to. I just thought it was lovely. That was a perfect detail. If you're going to show us and play a song for us on loop while somebody's on hold, this is the sort of pure mood that I'm after, you know. Capital P, capital M. Love that. This is about Sukkiaki, which we're going to talk about in a second. This plays when Harper's waiting in the sushi restaurant. Yes. And this is this is a section I'm calling the Mad Men piece. This is a larger madman piece. This is a larger madman piece. This is a

an owe to our friend Kai Grady who loves Mad Men. But just thinking about the way in which the DNA for that show, this is the third episode in a row now that has had a needle drop from Mad Men in it this season. Now, to be clear, Mad Men used most of the great music for the 1960s. So like, you know, like, it's not necessarily every time a direct Mad Men illusion. But we got this, the listener who wrote in just under the name Eap wrote in to say the Cordelia auto sex scene from last week's episode walking in mimics the framing of

Sally Draper walking in on Megan's mom going down on Roger in Mad Men season 5 episode 7 which traumatized Sally who of course was played by Kieran and Shipko and the episode 2 needle drop is that all there is also plays in Mad Men beginning Dawn's final bender in the back half of the last season so that again that's three

episodes in a row yeah we've had a Mad Men needle drop I do want to talk about Sukkiaki in a second which is one like I actually have a playlist that's just titled Sukkiaki and it is all the versions of that song

because I love that song and always have. So what is your reaction when Harper walks into the restaurant and you hear it banging? Like, are you fist pumping on your couch? Are you Leo pointing at the screen? 100%.

Did I leap up? And I know that that's used in Mad Men. So I was like another Mad Men, but also I just rewound it. And then I played it, I think I played it like nine times driving into the office today. And she's complaining

that he's 15 minutes When she gets to listen to Sukkiaki, are you kidding me? Sukkiaki, by the way, is the American name of the song, which is a really dumb name for this song because it just means like beef soup, which is not anything that the song has to do with. I'll get back to that a second, but I want to talk about, let's talk about the Eric and Harper relationship and how it maps onto the Dawn and Peggy relationship. Is that something you've thought about? Is that something that makes any kind of sense to you? Well, walk me through it. What are you thinking?

This idea that it's paternal but also not. This is his protege. They have a fraught relationship. Sometimes they're on opposite sides of something. Sometimes they're together. An attempt to connect with like your work daughter because you can't connect with your real life daughter. That checks out for sure. Like Sally Draper is here inside of this show, but we meet Eric's very like sullen probably for a reason daughter.

And like, I don't know, just the way that he's robe gobblinging around the suite seems very. like inappropriate boundaries Don Draper style. What do you think? No doubt. But it's like that's always a boundary that like that's kind of the one boundary Don didn't cross in some ways. Yeah. No. I mean like he he like gallantly kissed Peggy's hand, but he never tried it with Peggy.

Right. And Eric, I think, crossed that line with Yaz. He has not crossed that line with Harper and I would like him not to. He hasn't, but he's also sleeping with women who like don't not look like Harper, who don't not fit her profile in a lot of ways. it's like that is kind of the fundamental difference to me. Is there something happening within the Eric Harper relationship that is just blatantly psychosexual in ways that Don and Peggy never really had?

There's a lot of complicated dynamics that work between them and that makes Mad Men so great. But this is something twisted and weirder and different. And so, yeah, there's like an echo there, but it's the dark shadow of that relationship. I like that. I think it makes a lot of sense to me that Mad Men is something that they would, you and I were talking before, we recorded about a Mad Men's kind of having a moment with its placement on HBO streaming. Kai was telling us that when he's done with an episode of industry, HBO's like, do you want to watch Mad Men? You know, like, it's, HBO knows what it's doing in that regard.

Feels a little weird to be like, hey, did you just watch Kyrton and Shipka act out a threesome? Here's young Sally Draper. But this is life. Exfixating and a dry cleaning bag. We're on a flat timeline. But the idea of capitalism and its connection to storytelling is. so keenly explored in Mad Men and also this show, right? This idea of identifying a need and then exploiting it.

So I'm just going to hit you with some Don Draper quotes. And I'm going to ask you if you feel like it could belong inside of this show. Let's do it. Advertising is based on one thing happiness. Investing is based on one thing, happiness. Yeah, I mean, it sounds a lot like the happiness is a full stomach in this episode a little bit. If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation. Yeah, that's almost word for word from this season.

People want to be told what to do so badly that they'll listen to anyone. Yaz believes it. You are the product. You feeling something. That's what sells. Not to them, not sex. If you told me that was part of the Yaz pep talk to Henry in his office, I would in fact believe you. Okay.

And here's just some storytelling lines from this episode of industry, right? The story ends where we say it ends, right? How good a storyteller are you and how long can you sustain the story? So we can prove it? And then can we be loud enough? Short only work is ugly. hard investigative. It's anti-status quo, anti-establishment, anti-power. And then, last not least, this is, I think, the most Don Draper core thing that Eric says, tell mom you enjoyed

yourself. Tell mom you had a good time here. Is that not? I can see the words coming out of John Hamm's mouth, unfortunately. Go tell mom you enjoyed yourself. As you hand her money. That's the crucial part. But again, like, this is not at all a knock on industry. I just think this is, This is, we've been, we were already talking about the way storytelling crops up again and again and again inside of this show. And so like, what is the story? How can you change your own story? What story can you paint to these investors? Now, Harvard is a, I think, shit job. And to be clear, Eric doesn't even shit our job in that meeting that they put together in their, in the suite that is also their office. Like, that's like, that is simply not where I would have had that meeting. Yeah.

To expose that we are living here and working here is not what I've. would have done. No. But they're usually quite, this is, this is a thing that Harper is gifted at. You know, we saw her do it especially a lot in season two of just sort of selling a narrative to someone and convincing them to go the way that she wants them to go inside of the market. And so this is their task is to help Jim on the journalism side, and we'll talk about that in a second, put together the story of tender is weak, actually.

Yes. needs to be shorted. Not just weak, but ultimately flawed, legally and morally. Right. Anything else you want to say about that before I get back to Sukiaki? One of my favorite songs of all times. Well, I would say just as far as the Harper piece of that, like, she really succeeds only in planting, like, the barest seed of intrigue.

And it's really just off of not even, like, half-baked would be putting it kindly, right? Just like the implication based off a whiff of air that something is going on with tender. and like there is just enough curiosity to get like one investor on the phone basically with absolutely ridiculous terms that Eric agrees to. I think in a large part because of this weird relationship he has with Harper, right? It's like at this point he's not really after the money. Men are obsessed with legacy, but he's got a nice nest egg. He could have just gulfed his way into oblivion if that's what he really wanted to do. He's trying to find work life balance. I mean, him being the proponent of work life balance is incredible.

Yeah. stuff. But like, that's what he wants out of this in a way, right? It is a job. They, like, sure, make some money, whatever. But he wants this relationship with Harper. And the fact that by the end, he's like, I will, like, foot this $10 million risk. And all I ask in exchange is that you tell me a little bit about your life. And the speed, Joe, with which she shuts that shit down, is incredible and heartbreaking. And, like, just like a really sad turn for this character who doesn't have a lot else. Like, if we're going to talk about, like, the legacy of Eric, like, his children barely

know him. He barely knows them. He has made all of these, like, tradeoffs in his life to make money that he doesn't even really care to spend at this point. And so when you talk about, like, the ways in which a show like this and Mad Men echo each other, those echoes are just, like, humanity, right? Like, those are just, like, the natural modern tradeoffs and concessions that we make and what we're willing to give up for what we think we want.

Not every person, but a certain personality. And certainly a certain kind of person at a level of affluence. And a certain kind of, from my perspective, American personality, you know. We do it better than anybody else. I do think it's interesting that, like, for Harper, Harper is really trying to make nothing personal. Even though the fact that she just hired, like, her boyfriend, her... At least friends with Ben like this. Yeah.

Right? That's messy. But she's just like, let's, like, nothing personal. Let's keep it clean. For Yaz, everything is personal, right? Everything is messy. Like, the way in which she, I'm not saying her, like, true emotions are involved, but, like, she's at work with her husband.

Oh, yeah. She's involved. She's ensnared Haley inside of this, like, sexual dynamic. When she's talking about how to deal with Princess Johanna, Johanna, no relation, once again, and her terrible Nazi son, she says, testy family members respond well to a bit of FaceTime and ego massage, right? So this is like what she learned from Celeste, et cetera, of like, this is how you manage people. You make it feel like a personal relationship.

And Harper's like business, business, business. Do you know what I mean? I would say Harper is until she isn't. And like she wants to keep everyone at arm's length. Yeah. But also her appeal to Sweet P is basically like, I would never lie to you. I promise you. I would never leave this without giving you a heads up.

Yeah. Trusting Harper at her word, I think is just. probably a terrible idea. And anyone who's been around her for any period of time would know that. And I'm sure Sweet Pete does on some level too. But it's like Harper isn't above the personal play when that is what suits her.

Yeah, right. And she definitely would like use that on Eric or, you know, when she needed to and stuff like that. But you're right that for yes, it's like the default. Right. Right. It's like I think she understands maybe better than anyone else on the show. I'm not saying this picks her a good person, but like how all knotted up all of this shit is.

The way that power, like the fact that her mind would go from we have this business problem to I need to leverage my like now married in relatives publishing influence to get this Nazi a byline so that we can clear away for this merger like she she gets the way that modern power works right and the ways that like soft power specifically can be leveraged right like I think everything that happens in terms of the room with Jennifer Bevin is an extension of Yaz's influence too like she just gets that better than anybody else. It's what they call like soft skills, right? And she understands that that's how power works inside of this context.

Okay. What I want to say about sukiaki specifically is thinking about the trend that Yaz and her team are taking towards white nationalism, fascism, all of that. Right. Sukiyaki, which was this hit song in the U.S., is seen as this example of a post-World War II, sort of like globalization of Japanese culture. This idea of like sushi restaurants, Shogun, you know, this Japanese language pop hit. So the way in which like multiculturalism, post-World War II, the like benefits of that, you know, expanding across the globe. And again, when you think about the. team that Harper, Stern Tao has put together, like this, I, just like in just such a sharp

contrast to the whiteness and the white passing of the, of the other team that is amassing on the other side of the chessboard here. I think it's really interesting. Absolutely. The way it's used in Madman is in an episode where Don, Don Draper has to basically tell Mohawk Airlines after he has promised them that he will do business with them, he has to let him go and that he's at a Japanese restaurant and this waitress approaches him and she's like, hi, you look handsome and alone.

That's he often does. Should we do something about that? And he's like, for once in his life, Don Draper says no, because he feels so bad about basically cheating on Mohawk Airlines that he is faithful to Betty for literally probably the only time in his life. It's crazy shit. That is playing. So I don't know.

It's just like, I don't know if that's why they picked the song or if they were just like, this is a banger we agree with you. Joanna, we also have a playlist that's just called Sukkiaki. But like, I think it's interesting to think about those themes of like, when do you keep your word, when do you feel on your word, when Harper gives her word, or Yaz gives her word in this episode. I don't believe either of them. And that's an interesting place to be. That's another way in which you can think about Mad Men is like Don Draper constantly did reprehensible things and we're still rooting for him at the end of the day. And that's true of a lot of these people in this world too. I think industry does an impeccable job of that.

Again, Yaz is not a person who I would ever endorse the things that she does. But I am invested in that character's outcome. And I am obviously invested in Harper's. And I think the balance of those ideas are so interesting, Joe, in terms of the team she's putting together and especially coming from a position in which she was put as like a woke figurehead leader. Right. A token leader of this fund into getting the power and influence in one that she legitimately does run

through a relationship that she legitimately did build, fucked up as it may be. And when given the choice to build her team, she is hand-selecting people who in their ways are kind of outcasts in these space or overlooked in these space, or there are walls of power that will prevent them from ever getting

where it is that they think they want to or need to go. And Harper is the kind of character who I don't know what she would do with that. I don't know to what extent she sees that as a play in the same way that she was a play for somebody else. I almost never trust her motivation and I think that's because the show has painted her to be exactly, like, so incredibly unpredictable.

And so incredibly, like, clever and squirrely and evasive in terms of, like, ever getting pinned down in any one direction so much that she would be the one leveraged. Like, she always finds a way out in a way that I think it's, like, incredible and deeply admirable in some ways, but also underhanded when it needs to be. Absolutely. All right, you mentioned Yaz's proximity to the fourth estate to journalism.

So both Yaz and Harper have these... two different arms of journalism sort of working in concert with them, right? Yaz has the power to place an article, be it about Jenny Bevin's future, you know, in the Labor Party, or get this Nazi byline as to you. So perfectly put it earlier, right,

through the Viscount Norton, her uncle. So there's that, and that is, like, legacy media. Yes. And then you've got... And I think the implication is, like, tabloid legacy media a little bit. Is it? Like, is it the sun?

I thought it was more like... More esteemed than that? Telegraph Guardian. Maybe you're right. It could be wrong. Though you're right because he's like, he's like, we're going to print this story about your dad's death.

It's like a little... Maybe it's walking the edge of like splitting the difference between the two. Harpsichrist's wrap on a Gmail.com. If you in the UK have a better sense of the comp here for this particular slice of journalism. But our guy Jim... Mm-hmm. At this financial institution,

much, much scrappier, sort of, nobody gives a shit about this particular journalistic endeavor. And it's interesting because, like, what Yas is doing is definitely corrupt. I'm just placing what stories I want to place in this paper. Yes. But it's not like what Jim and Harper are doing

is above board, right? And I feel like I've seen this, you know, a comp that I made to you before we started recording was this 2003 BBC miniseries, state of play, which is incredible. And what I told you is that you're surely familiar with this of the gif of James McAvoy sweating and like fanning himself. That's from state of play 2003. But that's Bill Nyey, Johnson, David Morrissey.

And it's about the intersection of journalism and politics in the UK in 2003 and scandal. It turns out the two are related. It's crazy. But the way in which that miniseries, which is an incredible miniseries, gets into what does it mean to speak truth to power? What does it mean to be an incredibly flawed and vulnerable journalist to yourself and go up against? Because he's got truth on his side, but he's also messy. I mean, there's maybe some axes to grind or a sense of like wanting to reestablish his honor. I don't know if you made this association, but as Harper is kind of like testing the waters and like why he's doing this and mentions that he not only got like worked in the FTX mess, but then wrote a business.

it reminded me a lot of, I don't want to call out this woman by name, but the writer at the financial editor, I believe, or writer at the cut, who then talked about the ways in which she was financially scammed. And it's like, there's one thing to like go through these experiences. And then there's another level of like, oh, I'm going to mine this for content. Right. And then where that puts you and kind of like what it says about the state of the media industry, what it says about your need to establish a certain kind of voice that like, why would you ever do that, even if that were true, even if you did. go like way over your skis and get involved in FTX in a way that you might.

Right. Why would you ever write about that? Right, right. And it's this idea of, I promise I wouldn't talk about succession. But like thinking about succession and like... Don't make promises you can't keep, Joe. It's very Harper and yes of me. But like, this idea inside a succession of like, we've done something horrible.

We are very powerful. We've done something horrible. So like, you know, Whitney knows what Tender is doing. He knows what Gorgeous Jeffrey is doing in Sunderland. Like, he's aware. I mean, work in Excel, that's all. Can you prove it? And is anyone going to listen?

Yeah. And you're going to publish, but did anyone click on it? Yes. You know, how do you write, how do you cut above the noise? Right. How do you rise? How do you prove it? And if you are in Jim's position, which is like, this is pretty inside baseball as far as

journalism goes, but you hear from sources all the time if you're a journalist doing your job. And maybe the most critical part of your job is first asking yourself, why is this person telling me these things? What acts do they have to grind? Exactly. What acts do they have to grind? What do they have to gain or to benefit?

And look, there are people who will just share stuff for the sake of sharing stuff because they care about the broader sense of whatever industry they work in. Like that, I'm not saying that doesn't happen. Virtuous whistleblowers exist. But usually they have an ax to grind or... Or stand to profit quite a bit in the way that Harper does.

Like Harper is going to have access, we can only presume, to a lot of information and already has some as far as to what tender is doing. Right. And Eric says the blow. lowback of leaking the story piecemeal to her is, is huge. Why is Jim doing this at all? That he's making himself vulnerable. He's making Harper vulnerable. So the way in which Harper and Jim, though they are both right about Tender, though she and Sweet P do like shoe leather reporting. They really too. Jim, you should have gone to Sunderland, obviously. But like,

it might not matter if the way in which they did this was shady enough that Tender can prove that, you know? We wanted to shout out, the actor who plays Jim's editor, David Wilmot. This show loves a ginger, by the way. They do. Kenny's back. Kenny's back. David Wilmot, who we both know from Station 11, he was recently in Hamnet,

plays his editor who gives him back the redacted version of his piece. I'm hopeful because that's an actor that I like know and recognize and really like that we're going to get a lot more of this sort of like editorial journalistic. You know, like if Jim's been. out because he seems quite chaotic. Yeah. Like, is there a way in which his editor can, like, carry on the piece or something like that? I don't know, but that's something I have my eye on.

I mean, that relationship has to have legs on this show. Right. You almost don't introduce Jim as a character unless, one, you're very interested in getting into journalism in some aspect, and clearly this season is. And also, you want to establish this as, like, not a co-leading world of the show, but a counterbalancing one that can be weaponized, you know, or can be men. manipulated or or in some ways can check in theory some of the powerful bases. Supposed to.

In practice, I have my doubts. Why the fourth estate is there, but what can I do? But I do think this show has become, you know, there were complaints in last week's episode that the show lost a threat on being a show about finance. And you certainly couldn't say that in this episode. We are back to the world of finance in a serious way inside of episode three. But this season, in the greater introduction of politics, even more so than we've had. before. And the introduction of journalism, it's sort of like this

triangulated or the nobility, then it's like a square of like power. What is power? It's money. It's nobility. It can be journalism. Influence and politics. See, I would argue it is never about finance. I mean, you and I and Jody

love this show and we spent the first episode trying to figure out what a short was. Exactly. It's like those mechanisms are the trappings, right? They are the ways that the show propels forward, but they're not really what it's about. Our guy Kenny, who's back, has this incredibly juicy line.

The by side is full of tyrants who deny their tyranny. The cell side is full of slaves who deny their servitude. Sell more in the middle, all of human life. Kenny, poet. On the walk and talk to the elevator. I know. Making it look easy. Yeah, yeah. Just pop down from his desk, has this stuff

locked and loaded. How do you feel about, and again, harpsichrist wrap on a Gmail.com, because we are not financial experts. No. I think legally we are required to say on this podcast, we are not financial experts. Do not take any financial advice from us.

Do not. But we've got a bunch of fictional companies banging about PurePoint, tender, you know, et cetera, but occasionally we get a Goldman Sachs

or in this case a Deutsche Bank. Like, do you, like, does that mean anything to you that they occasionally go to like a real financial institution? I think it's helpful only

as a shorthand, right? In this case, it's like kind of shots fired. at Deutsche Bank. It's like, oh, this is a real step down for Kenny in a lot of ways. Tough look, Kenny.

Right. So it helps contextualize, right? What these institutions, the real ones are in relation to the fictional ones. Right. We get Kenny in this episode. We get good old Hillary Wyndham. Like, last scene wearing a mask on the pure,

no, probably not last scene, but like really memorably in season two, wearing a mask on the floor. Yeah. And then at one point he gets like a bust of himself out from a package. I don't know if you remember that from season two. I somehow don't. But Hillary, who was like Yaz's supervisor and Kenny's supervisor.

So we get him on the phone. And is there anyone else from a previous season that you're dying to see come back? Oh, my God. It's a great question. I'm not even trying to even think who would even be on the bench. I think the moment when they were at, I think it was at Goldman where Daria and Kennedy were like on the other side of the table from them was like a truly wonderful moment. Daria am always ready for Daria to come back. Personally.

But yeah, is there anyone else you would like to say? I have a great answer. I need to brainstorm on it. You mentioned Eric's very risky financial stake in this, $10 million. Doesn't seem like a good decision. No. Just to buy your surrogate, work daughter, a pony? I wouldn't do it personally.

Sure. Is this going to go well for him? Is this going to be fine? Does anything go well for anybody on this show? Great question. I think, look, once you reach a certain level of power, things can only get so bad. But in a sense, Eric is risking. that level of power.

Yeah. Right? He's, he's risking the insulation that would allow him to kind of go about his life in a devil-made care way. So this is,

it could be a real come-upance for him. I hope not. In the same way that I'm rooting for another character, too, Eric is, you know, not great himself in terms of some of the decisions he makes and the ways he treats people.

And I know he is now our bastion of work-life balance, but has not always been such. True. Can I ask you a really important question, Rob? Please. Were you to have a future

as, I believe it's our colleague Kitty Baker who used this term in her recap last week to robe goblin your way through life. Would you rather dressing gown

harpsichord heroin robe goblin your way through life like Henry Muck or New Roe-Rish $10 million to burn hotel room service forever robe goblin your way through life like Eric?

I don't know what it says about me but for some reason Eric's feels sadder. There's something about Like even being in like a borderline haunted manner that is now a museum playing on the do not play harpsichord slash sniffing drugs while you do it. Sure. Feels less sad than being perpetually in a hotel room in the same row eating the same room service every day. There's just there's something a little too old boy to that for me. Do you have, do you have a go-to room service order?

I mean, burger is the safest bet. That's your, that's your bed. I really, I mean, with all due respect to the fine room service cooks out there and the hotel, hotel chefs. Yeah. Most hotels, I'm just not trusting that much beyond the burger. It's a fine fact. Club sandwich, maybe a salad. Can I tell you what mine is?

Please do. It's, and I don't usually do like, it'll be like a breakfast. Because usually like when we're in hotels, we're like traveling for, or like often traveling for. Like, if I'm paying for room service in a hotel, it's because I'm expensing this hotel. Not out of pocket. Trip, right? No. Like, if I'm on vacation, we're not doing room service necessarily.

I thought you would love a $32 omelette. It's eggs bened egg. Egs Benny. See, that's wild. It's really good. You're trusting your life to Hotel Hollandeys. Yeah, yeah.

I simply could not, Joe. Hotel Hollandes atchamil.com. All right. Anything else you want to say about this episode that we haven't said? I did want to talk about one more thing, Joe, as far as Harper and Eric are concerned. You know, they have this big confrontation

in the hotel suite, which I assume will just be the setting of all their confrontations from now going forward. Well, they did leave the house. That's good. They went to Deutsche Bank. I did appreciate that Sweet Pee was like

really on a role, like, explaining the ins and outs of this, like, deep investigative work she was doing only to be interrupted by Eric flushing the toilet in the other room. Mortifying. Also, we should talk about Rishi showing up here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's circle back to them in a second. I think the kind of like paired desperation, whether they're aware of it or not, between Harper and Eric's circumstances, where she goes out on a limb and is just, like,

saying very plainly, like, how important this is to her, that this kind of is her only like to stand on. And I think you can see it in the way she's conducting herself or she's always been a workaholic. That's always Harper. It's true. I feel like, when I think of Harper, I think of her from season one on with like, cokey eyes, like rapidly chewing gum. Everything's on the edge of collapse always, right? I mean, it's kind of the only way she knows that operate is everything is on fire and it burns down. And then she tries to grab onto something else and then sets that on fire and burns it down. But the way in which she's kind of leaping into this investigative work, too, I mean, it's, it is a journalism of a different kind. Like, she is leveraging and working gym

in order to, like, basically manipulate tender share price. But she's also the one who's on hold, getting into that Orinoco flow in a way that's like, I don't know, like, the process parts of this episode are a little spotlight, are a little like enlightened season two, are a little like Pelican brief. Like, there's, there's just, like, the process parts of this episode. Yeah. Are a little, like pouring through documents in a way that obviously appeals to people like us who have done like if you've done any kind of digging or journalistic work before. Well, you say Pelican Brief and I'm sure if Mickey and Conrad are listening and actually emailing us about Mejo Black, they're excited because they're like 90s thriller.

That's what we're going for. Oh, and a good one this time. Mejo Black is not a thriller. It's not. But it is 90s. Pelican Brief rules. If they're like, we're going full, we're going full Grisham. Yes.

Like that's great. Bad news for journalists. side of those. It doesn't really usually work out for a journalist inside of that. I'm not betting big on Jonathan Byers and Stranger Things making it through this season. No. I think it's like that's a bit of like a casting spoiler

in its own way where it's like casting somebody who was most recently known for being like a teenager on a beloved vintage property. I think to me it's like a great shorthand for maybe this guy is in over his head in ways he can't even begin to comprehend. It's like the apocalypse and also journalism.

Two hard things to wrap your your arms around. The true upside downs. But what is Eric bringing to this conference? Like you're talking about Hopper's desperation. What do you feel like

Eric is bringing to this conference? Well, I think he's in his way just as vulnerable, but almost doesn't care. Right? It's like everything he's putting on the table, everything he's putting at risk.

He seems like, not oblivious to it, but it's like whatever, man. This feels, well, this feels very like, it's very in the water right now. This very like late Don Draper or if you prefer,

end of Marty Supreme, or end of Jay Kelly or whatever where it's like is dad is being a dad important actually is that the most important thing well also is dad okay is dad okay well dad's never okay but like it is interesting because you know you talked about last week I think you talked about Henry and Yaz and they're like sort of twin issues right Harper and her twin issues right but like there's the daddy issues on that side of the story and then there's like Eric being the issue ridden daddy on this side of the story which I think is really interesting How do you read all that from Harper's perspective? Because she's, like, she wanted Eric here. Yeah. You know, so it's like she is also pursuing this relationship in a way. But is Eric just more of a means to an end for her? Do you think there actually is something more to that relationship?

Well, I think it goes back to, like, when you think back to season one and the moment where Eric locks Harper in that room. And then she then, like, reports on him. Yeah. And then sort of recants and Darius out and stuff like that. do you feel like she was actually terrified in that moment when she was locked in the room with him? I would need to go back and check the tape. Yeah.

My memory of it, and like, again, maybe this is just all of her cumulative actions kind of coloring my perspective is that, yeah, there's an element of fear, but there's also the story you can tell.

Yeah. And there's also the way you can use this. And then he also, he fired her allegedly for her own good. Like, is that how you, did you believe him when he was like, when he exposes her at Pierpoint,

did you believe that he did that for her own good? That's the story he told us the viewer. But do you believe that's why he got rid of her? I don't. Okay. I mean, well, I guess maybe the answer to all these questions for me is like kind of both.

Right. Like, I do believe on some level he thinks that. Is it the actual driving course of his actions? Probably not. So with nowhere to turn, she turns to Eric because she knows that he has some sort of like weird attachment to her and that she can sort of leverage.

her position with him towards something. I think it comes from that, yeah. But will there forever be trust? Is there like, is there too much damage for there to be like an actual partnership there? I think there is a weird kind of trust. And some of it is like in, yes, she is turning to Eric because that's a relationship she can work.

And someone who, like an ally in a sense, even if it's an opportunistic one. But it's also someone who actually does sort of understand her on a level that other people don't. Right. And see something in her, there's like a mutual understanding. standing between them of like we are this kind of person. Right.

And regardless of the stories we tell or what we project to the world or even what we do to each other, like that's never going to change. Yeah. Speaking of broken trust forever, we should talk about Rishi. So he shows up, Sweet he's like, fuck this, I'm out. You and I were talking about how did it all actually end with Rishi and Sweet P last season? Was there something that he did directly to her? There are smaller cuts that he made to Sweepie, but it seems like her reaction here.

is as much based on this public perception of Rishi that he was involved in his wife's murder, which he was involved in his wife's murder. But like that he maybe murdered her or something like that. So I don't believe that Harper will not be turning to Rishi again when she needs someone to do work for her. I don't, I believe that Harper will try to make it

that Sweet Pee and Rishi are not in the same room again. But, you know, needs must. It's true. you know, take what she can take. Also, it's worth noting sweet peas objection was not even necessarily like you can't work with this guy. It's, I don't ever want to be in the same place. Like, do not put us together

ever again in any context. Anything else you want to talk about? I thought this was just a fine episode of TV. Fine, you're using fine in like the very positive sense. Oh, yes. I quite enjoyed it. I quite enjoyed just like the twists and turns that industry takes. Even when it's like, could you have seen

the Adolf Hitler twist coming a little bit, sure. Yeah. But seeing it play out and seeing all of the layers build of like, again, the deals we're willing to make with ourselves and with our situation in order to like facilitate whatever business ventures we have. Like, even with all of that kind of slowly layering, I appreciate, I appreciated the structure of it. Okay.

So this has been a great, a fine episode of this podcast. A fine, fine episode. If we're clipping anything for social media, I think it should be you and I just saying, get this Nazi a byline, endorsed by Roma. What are you trying to do here? And we miss Jody Walker a lot, obviously. We will be talking to her about every squelch when she returns for episode four. Press Easty v. Spotify.com.

Harpsichord strap on at gmail.com. If you have Me, Joe, Black Opinions or anything else. And we will, you know, we'll be back. Anything else you want to say about? Like, we're, how many episodes in, we're three episodes into, is it an eight episode season? I believe it's an eight episode season. We're almost halfway done. That's wild.

Thanks to Devin Ronaldo. We'll be back soon. Always. Bye.