As he often does in “Industry,” Eric Tao (Ken Leung) begins to offer a bit of world-weary wisdom to his protégé Harper Stern (My’hala) in the series’ season 4 premiere. From his decades of more advanced experience, he posits that later in life, “All you’ve got is…” Yet before he can finish, Harper interjects to propose, “Money?” To which Eric, sensing it’s not worth making the more sincere point, defeatedly replies, “Yeah, money.”
What comes after getting what one wants marks the primary preoccupation for this latest edition of showrunners Konrad Kay and Mickey Downs’ series set amongst strivers in the London financial scene. Season 3 concluded on notes of tempered triumph for the three twentysomething leads. Harper got to run the hedge fund she so deeply desired – and on her own terms. Yasmine (Marisa Abela) got the monetary and reputational lifeline she needed by marrying into British nobility through Henry Muck (Kit Harrington). Robert (the dearly missed Harry Lawtey) completely escaped the venal banking culture altogether.
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Rather than clinging to the brash impulsiveness of its characters, “Industry” takes this season to reset and recalibrate in keeping with their growth and maturation as people. Harper turns 30 in the season premiere, which sets the tone for eight episodes that delve deeper into more reflective territory. Zillennial disillusionment hangs like a cloud over the proceedings, dampening the youthful vigor but sacrificing none of the series’ vitality.
Season 4 all but abandons the light workplace drama trappings altogether. The reboot proves natural for the story, as its original setting, the legacy bank Pierpoint, exists as a shell of its former self following its implosion. It also works for the characters, who have outgrown the corporate coming-of-age tropes.
Kay and Downs instead gravitate towards a conspiratorial thriller as a replacement tone. Harper’s hedge fund, along with Eric and the scene-stealing Sweetpea (Miriam Petche) in tow, sets its sights on exposing payment processor Tender. As the company attempts to make a bold foray into the banking world, calculating co-founder Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) orchestrates a boardroom coup to install Henry as CEO. (Naturally, this means Yasmine follows right behind him to begin shaping Tender’s communication strategy.)
The premise might seem to promise another catfight between Harper and Yasmine, once again at dueling ends of a business proposition that threatens to tear apart their trauma-bonded friendship. But a different past begins seeping in to cast a pallor over Tender’s fraught expansion plans. The ghosts of the 2020s haunt this season of “Industry,” from the moral rot of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the flagrant criminality of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. It’s as if Kay and Downs have penned a pre-emptive post-mortem for a decade defined by the impunity given to fascists, fraudsters, and financiers.
The show still works best when the showrunners can paint with broader strokes to capture the ambient malaise that hangs over the audience. This fourth season often carries the sensation of a first season, given just how thoroughly Kay and Downs rewrite their own rulebook – and it shows. The early success of “Industry,” a brainchild of two former investment bankers, represented the triumph of the creators’ writing what they knew with incredible specificity. Their incursions into politics and journalism as proper settings for the series demonstrate some growing pains.
Their point is clear in “Industry,” as they spend extended periods of time with renegade journalist Jim Dycker (Charlie Heaton) and fresh-faced Labour minister Jenni Bevan (Amy James-Kelly). Neither the press nor the government is equipped to hold powerful companies accountable. But raised to the standard of actual supporting characters, both Jim and Jenni feel more like ideas than people when compared to their counterparts in the financial sector.
These less-successfully integrated expansions of the show’s purview highlight just how special the true core is. Kay and Downs are smart enough to keep “Industry” firmly rooted in the dynamic between Harper and Yasmine, and there’s enough strong development around them to keep the series moving like a sleek vehicle. Yet to scale up, they have to lean a little too heavily on scaffolding built from familiar filmic references. For a program that’s usually so iterative, the Kubrick-maxxing in the first two episodes is notably imitative.
“Industry” is still perfectly good as a thriller, but this new genre styling gives way to even better human drama this year. While the investigation might move quickly to uncover the truth behind Whitney’s company, the show itself takes a notably more brooding and melancholic pace in interactions between characters. The cynical sense that some grand conspiracy might be propping up Tender dovetails nicely with Harper and Yasmine’s burgeoning understanding that their own lives are governed by forces outside of their sight – and control.
As complex as financial fraud might be, season 4 of “Industry” essentially boils down to a pair of foils. With Henry now elevated to the tertiary lead status once occupied by Robert, he gets a similarly contrasting counterpart to bring his flaws and foibles into relief. The hungry, upstart outsider in Whitney highlights the sclerotic nature of the ensconced British elite.
A lazier show than the one Kay and Downs make would turn Henry into just another “eat the rich” punchline. But he’s the most compelling feature of season 4, in large part because of Harrington’s willingness to so thoroughly abase himself in service of embodying a character in the throes of addiction and self-loathing. Henry’s humiliations force the audience to gutturally reckon with the truth that Eric tries to express in words, but may only be possible to understand through lived experience. A great business mind can extract money from a market, but meaning can only come from inside oneself. [B]
“Industry” airs Sunday nights at 9 P.M. ET through March 1 on HBO.
