‘Industry’ Showrunners Break Down The Season 3 Premiere’s Most “Bombastic” Moment: “I AM A MAN AND I AM RELENTLESS”

Industry Season 3 Episode 1 “Il Mattino ha L’Oro Bocca” crescendos with a pep talk that maybe does more harm than good. After a shellshocked Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey) bursts into tears on the Pierpoint trading floor, manager Eric Tao (Ken Leung) pulls the younger man aside to set him straight. Soon, Eric is growling at Robert, “I AM A MAN AND I AM RELENTLESS!” Robert echoes the words back and goes straight to work monitoring Lumi CEO Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington). Eric, then, fires colleague and friend Kenny (Conor MacNeil) in order to appear strong to the rest of the board.

The “I AM A MAN AND I AM RELENTLESS!” scene is the stuff that makes the HBO show so addictive to watch. It’s high octane acting, full of nuanced layers and sheer bombast.

We wanted the big moment at the end of the episode. We wanted something that felt bombastic,” Industry co-creator Mickey Down told Decider during a recent interview. “We wanted something that felt big.”

“And a nice moment between Eric and Robert, who, you know, have shared very few moments throughout the series.”

Of course, before you turn “I AM A MAN AND I AM RELENTLESS” into your new personal workplace manta, you might want to zoom out and see how this proclamation of power is actually a display of weakness. Robert, of course, has just come into work fresh off the heels of waking up next to a dead Nicole Craig (Sarah Parrish). Robert visited the older woman secretly for a hookup that was half lust, half emotional purging. Although she died of natural causes, Robert thinks he cursed. So much so, he can’t articulate what’s happened beyond telling Eric simply that he “lost a client.”

Eric, on the other hand, is in the throes of a burgeoning midlife crisis. His new promotion at Pierpoint gives him more power than ever before, but the pressure to be even more ruthless. He has to let someone from his team go so as not to look weak. Instead of canning either Yasmin (Marisa Abela) or Robert, he fires Kenny…because Kenny helped Eric in the immediate aftermath of his separation. Ergo, Kenny has seen Eric at his lowest.

Down explained that he and co-creator Konrad Kay wanted Robert and Eric’s moment to be a “rampant display of machismo on the back of probably the most vulnerable thing that ever happens on the floor, which is someone bursts into tears.” The whole scene is the intersection of emotional vulnerability and the pretensions of masculine power.

“The show has always been about like placing your vulnerability at the door to enter Pierpoint because it’s not a place where the currency is vulnerability,” Down said. “Actually, to show how vulnerable you are could be is actually to the detriment of your career.”

“So the fact that Robert bursts into tears on the floor makes everyone, in a very small way, question, ‘What the fuck’s going on?'”

Down pointed out that Eric is also caught in a moment of vulnerability. He arrives late to work smelling of alcohol, fresh off the wagon, and having hooked up with Yasmin’s friend. Down explains that in the course of this scene, Eric is also rallying himself to be less vulnerable.

“He thinks, ‘What kind of person do I want to be? The weak version of myself is not the person who would get ahead. And I’ve gone too far. I’ve done too well to regress into that weak version. So you know what? I’m going to rally myself and just give this guy the worst version of what he needs there.'”

So what does Robert actually need? “He needs someone to put his arm around him and say, ‘Actually, it’s going to be alright. Go back to your desk,'” Down said. “Instead, [Eric] calls him a pussy and riles him up and riles himself up to do the thing that he needs to do next.”

Once again, Industry rules the most when it explores the dichotomy of what it emotionally costs to be emotionally unflappable. No one who is actually relentless needs to yell, “I AM A MAN AND I AM RELENTLESS” to get their job done.