Here’s why the ‘Industry’s Trump nod’ is so important

HBO’s Industry has never shied away from current events, from Season 2’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic to Season 4’s focus on age verification in the UK. However, in its Season 4 premiere, Industry goes further by bringing in a real political figure: President Donald Trump.

The show’s version of Trump, played by a Trump lookalike, makes a brief appearance during a scene where retired Eric Tao (Ken Leung) hits the golf course. He and the retired billionaire spotted Trump in the distance, wearing his red MAGA hat, and exchanged glances with him.

“Did 47 ever let anyone play?” one of Eric’s friends wonders.

“Not in this life,” replied another.

It’s a surprise speech, a final move Industryit’s a portrayal of a world of wealth, access, and power that most viewers will never see. But more than that, it’s an important character moment for Eric, showing where life has taken him after Pierpoint.

First, the culture of the golf course is a far cry from the high-stakes, high-pressure, high-speed business that Eric used to rule over. It stands still, while Eric prefers to monitor every change in the market – the last thing on the mind of his golf partners.

“He is surrounded by these old white men who have made a lot of money. They have this wealth that they always add up, they just play golf and go back to the same restaurant.” Industry producer Mickey Down told Mashable about Zoom. “Eric is trying to convince himself that this is a good life and that he doesn’t feel the pull of the old life he experienced in the first three seasons.”

Trump’s presence on the golf course actually goes back to Eric’s “old life.” It is not his time as a leader IndustryThe first three seasons, but his first days in the trade area.

In IndustrySeason two, the series explores Eric’s relationship with his mentor, a man named Newman. The audience never met him before his death, but in one key scene in Season 2, episode 4, Eric spends time in his New York office, which has been left untouched since his passing. On the desk is a MAGA hat, a symbol that speaks not only to Newman’s views, but also to what his relationship as a white man in power might have been to his Asian subordinate.

“You go under [Eric’s] read a bit into Season 2, you can see that he has this background where he is [experienced] some kind of racial abuse from the commercials in the ’90s,” Down explained.

Eric’s Season 4 interaction with Trump, however far-fetched, feels like a “complex” of Eric’s complicated relationship with his mentor, according to Down. He remembered to add a reminder of Newman’s racism in the original text to drive the minute home.

“In the script [Industry co-creator Konrad Kay and I] wrote, [Eric’s] the counselor was in this person. Now here he is, waving the number 47,” said Down. How did I get here? How did a kid like me, who I come from, end up waving to a president who represents all these things?’

New episodes of Industry Season 4 premieres Sundays at 9 pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.