The Most Egregious Emmys Snub of the Year Reflects a Disturbing Trend in TV Awards
Industry is a TV show that regularly baffles me, but in a good way: There's little I love more than watching these fictional hotshot bankers spout a bunch of impenetrable financial jargon on a Sunday evening. But I'm currently experiencing a new flavor of Industry -related baffle, and I don't like it at all. When this year's Emmy nominations were announced on Tuesday, I saw that my show was nominated for exactly... nothing. And I'd sooner be forced to explain what happened to Lumi's stock in Season 3 than explain the decision Emmy voters just made, because I simply don't get it.
The third and most recent season of Industry , which began airing last August, marked a breakthrough for the show, both creatively and ratings-wise. Though I've loved the show since the beginning, I can see how it might not have felt particularly groundbreaking in its early episodes, when it seemed like its ambition was to be a Grey's Anatomy for the banking world, swapping first-year doctors for first-year financial analysts, only with way more drugs and sex, thanks to its HBO imprimatur. But over time, it's matured into something better and more complex, a financial drama populated by thrillingly complicated characters and relationships. Emmy voters are shorting the wrong stock, or however you say that, and are looking stodgy in their inability to recognize the great show that has emerged.
Marisa Abela in particular demanded to be recognized with an acting nomination for her peerless portrayal of Yasmin Kara-Hanani, a deceptively straightforward heiress who spent the third season embroiled in scandal thanks to the disappearance of her ne'er-do-well father. Abela was honored with a BAFTA award following the season, not to mention a budding film career (we'll all agree not to mention that Amy Winehouse biopic ), but it's frankly criminal that the Emmys aren't taking this opportunity to get a piece of her too. I don't want to live in a world where I have resentment for Sharon Horgan or Keri Russell, both of whom received nominations for their work in Bad Sisters and The Diplomat , respectively, and both of whom I love, but that's the position the Emmys are putting me in.
And that's to say nothing of Ken Leung, who has been doing Emmy-worthy work since the show's first season playing Eric Tao, a managing director at Pierpoint & Co. who finds himself increasingly sidelined by forces beyond his control. Sagar Radia, as a mouthy trader named Rishi with a gambling problem, also had a standout Season 3 that should have secured him a nomination, especially after one final sequence in the season that has taken up residence in plenty of viewers' minds. Couldn't the Emmys have spared at least one of those White Lotus supporting nominations for these guys?
I don't mean to pick on The White Lotus too much, but it, along with The Bear and Severance , are prime exhibits in the disturbing trend of TV shows that start strong but struggle to maintain their quality, but get awarded with Emmy nominations anyway. Industry deserves recognition all the more for bucking this pattern and getting better every season. With any luck, the Emmy snub won't change that: One of the show's creators promised as much on Twitter when he briefly weighed in on the show's lack of nominations: “Who cares, we're busy working on a better season,” he wrote Tuesday . Better than Season 3, one of the best seasons of TV I've seen in years? For all we know, that still may not be good enough for the Emmys, but that won't stop me from praying for an Industry -al revolution.
