It’s not often that a series gets better year after year (even “Game of Thrones” and “Lost” ended with a whimper). But here comes the third and best season yet of HBO’s “Industry,” with eight high-profile episodes streaming weekly on Max since Aug. 11, after moving from Monday to the cooler Sunday slot once held by Emmy behemoth “Succession.”

Whether or not you think this rollicking financial drama can compete with the escapades of the Roy media dynasty, it certainly has its share of entertainment.

A new attraction is the recasting of Thrones hero Kit Harington – yes, the seductively moody Jon Snow – in a hilarious change of pace as Sir Henry Muck, the aristocrat behind a strange-looking green energy company.

Do you need to watch the first two seasons of Industry, which began in 2020, to keep up? No. But you will have a lot of fun doing so.

At the end of the second season, the coke-addled, bed-to-bed analyst trainees of the fictional London investment bank Pierpoint & Co. were at each other’s throats, and that’s exactly what series creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay wanted.

Take, for example, the relentlessly ambitious Harper Stern, the transplanted New Yorker who plays Myha’la (“Bodies Bodies Bodies”) with such skill that you can practically watch a thick skin form over what’s left of her fragile emotions. Harper was fired by her mentor and father figure Eric Tao (Ken Leung in a standout performance that rises to Emmy-level status in Season 3).

Call it backstabbing 101. Harper’s fake college degree supposedly got her fired, but backstabbing is par for the course at Pierpoint. Harper is still in touch with her best friend Yasmin Kara-Hanani, the publishing heiress played by Marisa Abela, who just hit the jackpot with her role as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black.

Can Yasmin take Harper’s place or is her colleague and sometime platonic roommate Robert Spearing (a great Harry Lawtey) next in line as he and Yasmin ingratiate themselves with Sir Henry? Does sex play a role? You bet.

The same goes for Yasmin’s relationship with her hissing father (Adam Levy). Flashbacks of the two on board the yacht named after her suggest a shocking trauma.

Despite the hectic scenes on the trading floor that feel like gladiator fights, it’s the emotional bloodshed that cuts deepest. Episode 4 plays out like a suspense thriller, with trader Rishi Ramdani (the brilliant Sagar Radia) putting his job and his life on the line because of his gambling addiction.

And where is Harper in all this? She’s wormed her way into a fledgling American investment firm, where she’s taken in by a new mentor, Petra Koenig (Sarah Goldberg), despite ethical lapses that include insider trading. Series newcomer Goldberg, who was so good as Bill Hader’s acting and romantic partner in “Barry,” is excellent in a role that encapsulates how greed eats away at morality.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the lives of Harper and Yasmin, both of whom attempt to justify their actions by blocking out any trace of emotion or responsibility.

The indelible portrayals of Myha’la and Abela highlight what they have lost as people, as their characters lose touch with the wounded feelings that originally bound them together.

As in “Succession,” the beautiful people in “Industry” are avatars of the lies told in the name of gaining power.

By the end of season three, these young deception apprentices are helpless in a society where opportunities are nonexistent. As hot-blooded and funny as the show is, every laugh has a sting that reveals a broken world that looks frighteningly similar to our own.