Industry Season-Premiere Recap: Capable of Almost Anything

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A few years back, the show Industry unexpectedly became popular, and fans started showing their support by wearing purple hoodies with the Pierpoint & Co. logo – the fictional investment bank at the heart of the first season. Now, in its fourth season, Pierpoint & Co.’s London office has closed after a failed attempt to focus on ethical investing. What started as a gritty, ground-level view of the competitive world of finance has become something darker. Harper now runs her own fund at just 30 years old, and Yasmin is navigating high society. With each season, Harper and Yasmin feel less like ambitious rivals and more like distorted reflections of each other – their complex relationship is now the core of a show that offers sharp insights into class, wealth, appearances, and ambition, even more than it does about the world of banking.

When we see Harper again, she arrives at work in a chauffeur-driven Range Rover, dressed in expensive gray clothes. Everyone in the office at Mostyn Asset Management seems scared of her—or maybe worried about her. She was brought in by a powerful figure to manage a fund that only makes bets against other companies, but her career has hit a roadblock since the last season. Her team isn’t performing well, her investors are nervous, and her boss, Sir Otto, has put a junior employee in charge of monitoring her, who expresses his concerns by asking leading questions. Even Harper’s most trusted colleagues—Sweetpea and Kwabena, who joined the show last season—no longer just question her decisions privately; they openly disagree with her.

The show consistently uses current U.K. news events as plot points, which reinforces a sense of urgency and seriousness in both the fictional world and reality. In the latest episode, a recently elected Labour government is pushing a broad new Online Safety Bill. The bill’s purpose isn’t entirely clear, but it could significantly impact online platforms like OnlyFans and its competitor, Siren. Harper’s decision to bet against Siren – formerly known as “Colonel Creampie” – is controversial within the company. Kwabena thinks it’s inappropriate. We learn that Rishi believes this bet is a way for Sweetpea to protect her investments, but she worries it looks like an impulsive decision rather than a carefully planned strategy.

Harper is in a difficult position, having to publicly justify a business strategy based on a gut feeling and obtained through questionable means. I was surprised to see Rishi Ramdani back after the tragic events of the previous season, where his wife was killed due to his gambling debts. It makes you wonder how far a character who’s already hit rock bottom can fall. A key characteristic of this show seems to be that no one is left behind, even in their darkest moments. The series suggests that as long as someone is willing to endure the harsh realities of the financial world, it will continue to find new ways to exploit them. Rishi, unable to find legitimate employment, is hired by Harper to discreetly steal a phone from a political advisor at a pub. The phone contains a speech by Jenni Bevan (played by Amy James-Kelly), a new Labour minister, which will directly criticize Siren. The advisor, in a disturbing move, immediately shows Rishi a pornographic video, implying that everyone seeking power is corrupt.

Harper holds off on her plan to bet against certain companies until Bevan begins speaking. Whether Harper will face consequences or benefit from giving money to someone with a gambling problem in exchange for hacking a government official’s phone at a funeral is unclear, given the unpredictable nature of the industry. Fortunately, Bevan doesn’t disappoint. She clarifies that the Online Safety Bill isn’t about limiting free speech, but rather about stopping online abuse, particularly targeting those who disguise pornography as legitimate content. Bevan mentions the website Siren as an example and continues, explaining that the bill’s scope extends beyond just sex sites. Labour intends to also target the financial technology companies that support these harmful websites.

That leads us to the second location in season four: the modern, glass-walled offices of Tender, a payment processing company I admire for keeping the ‘E’s in its name. Tender is led by two new characters this season: the confident American, Jonah (played by Kal Penn), and his more polished partner, Whitney (Max Minghella, performing with an American accent). Currently, Siren is Tender’s biggest client, and Jonah believes they’ll continue to thrive despite the new rules. He figures as long as people have privacy, teenagers will always find a way to access adult content.

Whitney had concerns about Tender’s future even before Bevan’s damaging speech. He’d been secretly expanding their investments, acquiring companies in Ghana and other locations. However, significant businesses in socially conservative regions like Africa and Asia are hesitant to work with a company that processes payments for adult content, even if it’s something relatively tame. Whitney believes Tender has the potential to become a major digital bank—a competitor like Monzo, perhaps—and shared this vision with a friend from Stanford. When his friend, unimpressed, rejected the idea, Whitney began making decisions on his own. He canceled Tender’s contracts with Siren and other clients in the adult entertainment industry—a sector Jonah jokingly referred to as risky and exploitative.

Whitney repeatedly criticizes Jonah for being messy and behaving inappropriately, making it hard to believe he doesn’t realize something is wrong – except he’s usually drunk or suffering from a hangover. By the end of the episode, Whitney and the board will use clauses in Jonah’s contract to fire him. As a gesture of respect for their long friendship, Jonah is allowed to keep his future benefits and pension, but he finds himself with nowhere to go during the day and no reason to return home at night. Earlier, Harper tells Rishi, after covering his rehab costs, that people without purpose are essentially forgotten by society. Given how far Jonah has fallen, it’s unclear where he’ll end up – perhaps at the Priory, and almost certainly in court.

One of the things that makes the show Industry so compelling is its realistic portrayal of a world where success is fleeting, even when things seem good. We see this perfectly with Harper, who receives devastating news – a fund called Lily Lara wants its money back – right in the middle of a romantic encounter with her colleague, Kwabena. This scene encapsulates the show’s chaotic energy and Harper’s tendency for self-sabotage. Just moments after being intimate with Kwabena – a privileged British colleague – she’s furiously typing an angry email. Ignoring Kwabena’s warnings, she sends out a company-wide notice blocking all withdrawal requests, essentially preventing investors from accessing their funds. It’s a disastrous decision, but the show’s writing makes it feel entirely consistent with Harper’s character. Season four begins on this particular day because it marks a turning point – the moment Harper decides to completely upend everything. Harper thrives on isolation and only trusting herself, and this day embodies that need.

Investors were upset by the email, and James Ashford, previously harmed by Henry’s fraudulent energy company, suffered a stroke in Harper’s office as a result. Before collapsing, he revealed important information about Otto Mostyn, who recently became a Lord. This promotion brought increased public attention, and Otto worried Harper’s gambling and investment tactics would damage his reputation and affect his associates who lead British public utilities. Following the problematic email, Otto confronted Harper directly. While last year, appointing a powerful Black woman like Harper was seen as good publicity, the situation now highlights a troubling regression in attitudes. Despite Harper’s intelligence, it seems unbelievable she wouldn’t realize Otto’s true motives for limiting her fund. The core message is that, even with increased representation, true power remains concentrated in exclusive circles, inaccessible to those like Harper.

Enter Yasmin Kara-Hanani, now known as the cleverly named Lady Muck. When Whitney wants to connect with Jenni Bevan, he bypasses her office and asks a mutual friend for help. This friend agrees to bring them together at her next dinner party. For the first two seasons, the show led us to believe that powerful City professionals were the ones truly in control. But in season three, it became clear that wealthy, aristocratic families were the ones manipulating the market. And behind every influential man and his estate, there’s a clever wife carefully managing social connections. She’ll happily seat Whitney next to a Labour minister, as long as Yasmin gets Whitney to hire her husband, Sir Muck, at Tender. After the collapse of Lumi, Henry reinvented himself as a politician during the final days of Conservative leadership—a position he lost to Jenni in the general election. Now, he’s looking for a new opportunity. The old aristocracy are remarkably resilient and always seem to land on their feet.

Yasmin invites her friend Harper, who, despite being financially astute and ambitious, feels out of place around wealthy people. It’s unclear who Harper interacts with besides Whitney, who drives her home and asks her to use a large sex toy on him. She agrees, but the scene focuses more on what excites Harper than Whitney’s preferences. It concludes with Harper looking at herself in the mirror, perhaps wishing she didn’t have to rely on others for sexual satisfaction. The episode touches on issues of race, particularly through comments about Harper being an assertive Black woman and a warning from Whit to Jonah about his porn preferences at work. While the episode doesn’t deeply explore race, it seems to be signaling that this will be a recurring theme.

Beyond the obvious, the story also emphasizes the power of narrative control. Whitney once told Jonah, back when they were both in Palo Alto, that in America, you define your story by starting to tell it. Eric echoes this sentiment when Harper reaches out – both to berate him about a funding request honoring his daughters, and to seek guidance from the one person who’s tried to sabotage her career but is now her closest advisor. Eric advises her to take responsibility, focus on a project she believes in, and pitch it to her investors. Harper, unaccustomed to collaboration, wonders if they could work together, but that would require Eric to come out of retirement and leave his young, Black girlfriend in Westchester. The name ‘Tao Stern’ keeps appearing, or perhaps it’s ‘Stern Tao’.

By the time Eric arrives in London, Harper has identified a new target, thanks to a professional investigator. The episode, titled “Paypal of Bukkake,” begins with financial journalist Jim Dycker (played by Charlie Heaton, known from Stranger Things) secretly following Whitney’s young assistant, Hayley (played by Kiernan Shipka). Hayley, who is as wild and unrestrained as the students we met in the first season, is at a nightclub, clinging to the DJ booth. Jim inappropriately touches her while dancing, and the next morning, he immediately asks about the previous person who held her job. Once Hayley realizes who he is, she rightfully throws him out and warns him that her boyfriend will be home soon, highlighting a recurring theme in the show.

Later in the episode, things really ramped up when Jim got a leaked email about Harper’s involvement and called her for a response. He accidentally hinted that Siren was just the beginning of a much bigger problem, and it made me wonder who was funding Siren – maybe they’re the real villains. The scene was intense because Harper was still hiding in Whitney’s bedroom while Jim was talking, and he mentioned a company called Tender, warning that these people would do anything to bury a scandal. Whitney seemed to notice Harper was off, asking if she was okay, and she just coolly replied “never better” – Myha’la really nailed that icy, unsettling delivery. It’s funny, Jim’s worried about Whitney being dangerous, but he hasn’t even begun to understand Harper! As a viewer, I found that incredibly ironic and a little chilling.

The world of finance has always adapted, but this feels like a deeper shift – a change in how the story is told. The show’s biggest weakness has always been its lack of real consequences. Whether characters succeed or fail, or the firm prospers or collapses, it never truly impacts the outside world – it’s all just business details. However, a recent scene, filmed with a thriller-like intensity, suggests things are changing. When Jim dances with Hayley, and declares he’s “capable of almost anything,” he fundamentally alters what’s at stake in the series.

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2026-01-12 06:00