Industry's cocktail of business dealings,free phone to phone video sex sex, and drugs has earned it comparisons to Succession, Billions,Euphoria, and Skins. But in its third season, it's never been clearer that Industry is doing its own thing.

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That's because Season 3 of Industry is the show in experimentation mode. Flashbacks are on the table now, supporting characters get more of a spotlight, and the scope has never been larger. Co-creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay pull references from everywhere from Uncut Gemsand the films of Michael Mann to Barry Lyndon and A Room with a View, creating episodes that vary in tone but never lose the frenetic energy that makes Industry tick. The risks of constantly playing with a show's formula may not always pay off (looking at you, The Bear Season 3), but for Industry, whose characters live on risky choices and shifting alliances, this approach proves absolutely perfect.

What's Industry Season 3 about?

Myha'la, Harry Lawtey, and Marisa Abela in "Industry." Credit: Nick Strasburg / HBO

Of course, the risks Industry characters take often end them up in hot water. Take Harper Stern (Myha'la, Leave the World Behind), whose forged college transcript in Season 1 led to her firing from fictional investment bank Pierpoint & Co. at the end of Season 2. Hungry to stay in the game by whatever means possible, Harper's now taken an assistant role at investment fund FutureDawn. And while she finds the job — and FutureDawn's focus on ethical investment — mind-numbing, she also discovers a potential new ally in cutthroat portfolio manager Petra Koenig (Sarah Goldberg, Barry).

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Harper may roll her eyes at ethical investing, but over at Pierpoint, it's all the rage. Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela, Back to Black), taking over Harper's old role, is working alongside Eric Tao (Ken Leung, Lost) and Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey, Joker: Folie À Deux) on the IPO of buzzy green energy company Lumi, headed by untested (yet very rich) Lumi CEO Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington, Game of Thrones). Whether anyone at Pierpoint actually believes in Lumi's mission or the "ethical" aspect of ethical investing is something Industry takes razor-sharp delight in skewering, just as the show tackled COVID-19 profiteers in Season 2.

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This being Industry, it's not long before the personal and professional clash in spectacular fashion. Lumi's IPO comes at a fraught time for almost every member of Pierpoint. Yasmin has become tabloid fodder following her father Charles' (Adam Levy, The Witcher) embezzlement scandal; Robert is reeling following an unexpected loss; and Eric's recent separation has led him down a road of sex, drugs, and poor managerial decisions. Honestly, Harper should be thanking her lucky stars she's not at Pierpoint anymore — although that certainly won't stop her from re-entering the fray in unexpected ways.

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Industry embraces the chaos in Season 3, with thrilling results.

Sagar Radia and Ken Leung in "Industry." Credit: Nick Strasburg / HBO

Industry's new focus on ethical investing and the addition of characters like Petra and Henry prove its commitment to expanding season by season. That commitment is evident on a formal level, too. Yes, you'll still get juicy personal drama and high-speed trading-floor chatter. But you'll often be served these Industry staples in new ways. Flashbacks to Yasmin's time on a boat with her father add an intriguing mystery element to the season, and an episode focused entirely on Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia) adds necessary depth to an oft-sidelined character, all while raising the bar on just how stressful Industry can be. (Seriously, you've seen nothing yet.)

As Industry kicks itself into higher gear, so too does its ensemble cast. Myha'la, Abela, and Lawtey remain three anchor-solid leads, playing the complicated feelings of friendship and competitiveness between this trio with as much pathos as cutthroat instinct. Goldberg and Harington are fun additions, too: Goldberg's sharpness as Petra perfectly complements Myha'la's as Harper, while Harington's Muck hides layers of sleaze and manipulation under the guise of "being vulnerable."

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But it's Leung's Eric who feels the most like Industry's rotten core in Season 3. Separated from his wife but newly made partner, Eric's whole identity is Pierpoint, Pierpoint, Pierpoint — with a side of midlife crisis. As he gets back into drugs — "I haven't done blow since 9/11," he reveals in the premiere — and casual sex, it's almost as if we're watching him return to his early days at the bank. He would have fit right in with the hard-partying grads in Season 1, with the small caveat that he's still their boss. It's fascinating to watch Eric try to recapture that youth and the "relentlessness" he ties to his masculinity, with Leung often playing him like a just barely contained explosion.

Yet even as Eric and every other member of Industry's cast throw their entire beings into their work, there's always the chance that it could chew them up and spit them out at the slightest wrong move. Of course, there's also the chance that it could reward them and make them richer than rich. That atmosphere of high-risk, high-reward decision-making, complemented by high-risk, high-reward television-making, makes watching Industry a high of its own. It's brutal, it's intoxicating, and it's never been better.

Industry Season 3 premieres Aug. 11 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max, with new episodes weekly.

Topics HBO