Here's why '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 centering of online age verification in the UK. However, in its Season 4 premiere, Industry goes one step further by bringing in a real-life political figure: President Donald Trump.

The show's version of Trump, played by a Trump look-alike, makes a brief appearance during a scene in which a now-retired Eric Tao (Ken Leung) hits the golf course. He and his fellow millionaire retirees spot Trump from afar, sporting his usual red MAGA hat, and exchange a wave with him.

"Has 47 ever allowed anyone to play through?" one of Eric's friends wonders.

"Not in this lifetime," another responds.

It's a surprising allusion, the ultimate move in Industry's portrayal of a world of wealth, access, and power that the vast majority of its viewers will never see. But more than that, it's a crucial character moment for Eric, indicating just where life has taken him post-Pierpoint.

For starters, the routine of the golf course is a far cry from the high-stakes, high-pressure, high-speed trading floor Eric used to lord over. It's stagnant, whereas Eric would rather monitor the market's every change — the last thing on his golfing companions' mind.

"He's surrounded by these older white guys who have made loads of money. They have this passive wealth that is constantly compounding, so they just play golf and go to the same restaurant over and over again," Industry co-creator Mickey Down told Mashable over Zoom. "Eric is trying to convince himself that this is the good life and that he isn't feeling the pull of the old life that he experienced in the first three seasons."

Trump's presence on the golf course does actually call back to Eric's "old life." Not his time as a leader in Industry's first three seasons, but his earliest days on the trading floor.

In Industry's second season, the series explores Eric's relationship with his own mentor, a man named Newman. The audience never meets 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 volumes not just about Newman's ideologies, but also about what his relationship as a white man in a person of power may have been like with his Asian subordinate.

"You go under [Eric's] hood a little bit more in Season 2, you realize that he has this background where he [experienced] some sort of racial abuse from the trading floor in the '90s," Down explained.

Eric's Season 4 interaction with Trump, even if it's from afar, feels like "the apogee" of Eric's complicated relationship with his mentor, according to Down. He recalled adding a reminder of Newman's racism into the premiere script to truly drive the moment home.

"In the script [Industry co-creator Konrad Kay and I] wrote, [Eric's] mentor was this person. Now he's here, waving at number 47," Down said. "It felt like a real moment of, 'Where the fuck am I? How did I get here? How did a kid like me, from where I am from, end up waving at the president, who represents all these things?'"

New episodes of Industry Season 4 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.