This story contains spoilers for Industry season 3 episode 4, “White Mischief.”
Rishi Ramdani is overextended.
And not just because, on this week’s Industry, between ripping lines, he’s dripping blood from his nose onto his infant who is strapped to him while he is simultaneously trying (and failing) to tip an OnlyFans creator (who is also a coworker) and zip his pants in front of a urinal.
He’s balancing a gambling addiction, a landscape-heavy cottage in London’s countryside, a brand new Lamborghini Huracan (had to text some Miami plugs to get an ID on that one), an inappropriate relationship with his coworker Sweetpea, and renovation on a recently purchased neighborhood cricket pavilion. And a marriage that is on the brink of disaster due to said reasons. And, of course, his mid-level trader position at Pierpoint, where he’s long sterling cable to the tune of half a billon and facing an HR investigation for seemingly keeping the “Overheard at Pierpoint” subreddit in business with a nonstop barrage of NSFW quotables.
In this week’s episode, we get to know Rishi (played by Sagar Radia, who makes the absolute most of this largely-solo showcase) a little better. After his coked-out Boxing Day celebration with his family, we’re invited into his home life. He does this move that I’ve recognized from enough finance men in my life, where he reaches his arm over his head, and massages his back with 70% effort in an attempt to relieve tension from the day. His wife Diana quotes The Body Keeps the Score, and alludes many of his physical ailments are manifestations of his stressful lifestyle.
After Rishi insults his wife for being hot and trying to turn him on (“You’re a mother!” he scolds her when she shares a sexual fantasy) a college friend named Vinay knocks on the door to say hi and see the new place. We learn Vinay does not, in fact, want an Arch Digest tour of the country cottage, but is actually coming to ask about the status of the $200,000 it turns out dear Rishi owes him. He even asks a question I’ve been meaning to pose to a few men who have Venmo requested me before: “How are you in finance and you’re so broke?”
S3E4 felt a little bit like Industry’s answer to the “May 11th, 1980” sequence from Goodfellas—a paranoia-inducing score, the feeling of being watched under looming danger, and a director (Zoé Wittock) going all in with tense scene after tense scene illuminating one character’s downward spiral. When I read GQ’s interview with Radia and learned that he rewatched Uncut Gems to prepare for this season, it made a lot of sense.
In the final scene Rishi fights off the episode-long accusations that he’s a misogynist by performing oral sex on his wife who’s just said she can help him with his debt—while he’s between her legs, he proudly exclaims how misogynists would never go down on a woman. He then visits his newly-purchased boys club and smashes all the portraits of old white dudes. To continue riding the high, he calls Vinay and says he not only has the $200,000 but he also wants to put $50,000 on the previous tip. “I’ve got a feeling, a great feeling like fate is shaving her c–t just for me.”
The red and green heatmaps of the Bloomberg launchpads, the Little Drummer Boy soundtrack, Rishi’s gambling and drug-blanked eyes—we have a new instant-classic Christmas episode.
