Industry's Myha'la and Ken Leung on the 'Culmination' of Harper and Eric's Relationship

[The following contains spoilers for Industry Season 4 Episode 6, "Dear Henry."]

Toward the end of Industry's second season, Eric Tao (Ken Leung) wryly delivered a line that encapsulated the entire series: "Isn't it lucky that no one is ever satisfied?" Among the HBO finance drama's perpetually unsatisfied cast of characters, Eric and his protégé Harper Stern (Myha'la) may have been the most discontented — until this season, that is.

The start of Season 4 flirted with the idea that Eric and Harper might have been on their way to something resembling satisfaction when she enticed him out of the comfortable mundanity of retirement with the prospect of forming their own fund. Thus, SternTao was born, and the first leg of the season saw the pair cautiously navigating the parameters of their new partnership: Harper mourned the vicious, baseball bat-wielding Eric of seasons past, while Eric struggled to treat Harper as a peer. It wasn't until the two shared a starkly honest moment where Harper confided in Eric about her mother's sudden death that they found themselves on a more even playing field, a crucial reminder that no two characters on the show see each other as clearly as they do.

"Dear Henry," directed by Luke Snellin and written by series creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, is named for a letter to Henry (Kit Harington) written by Whitney (Max Minghella), who spends much of the episode aware that his smoke screen of a fintech company, Tender, is about to be exposed. But Season 4's sixth hour ultimately belongs to Harper and Eric, as SternTao yo-yos repeatedly between being so over and being so back.

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An explosive presentation from Harper about their bombshell Tender findings has Eric glowing with pride ("You just gave me my favorite ever day in finance," he tells her), while Eric's subsequent dressing-down of Whitney on CNN proves to Harper that her old boss is still in there somewhere. It all comes crashing down when it's revealed that the young sex worker Eric met up with in the previous episode was not only underage but also filming their encounter. Eric's subsequent decision to dissolve their partnership is as much an act of cowardice as it is his way of saving Harper from his own self-destructiveness. She begs him to tell her why he's walking away. Not only does he refuse, but he can barely look at her, which devastates her as much as it enrages her.

The last time we see Eric, it's from behind, as he walks down a long, tree-lined street until he's out of view of the camera. If you saw it as a funeral for one of modern television's most fascinating characters, both Leung and Myha'la agree. Ahead of Episode 6, the actors spoke to TV Guide about what they interpreted as a culmination of everything Harper and Eric have been through together.

I want to start by asking you both how you approached Harper and Eric's dynamic this season. To me, these episodes have emphasized that Eric sees Harper as a daughter more than he does his biological daughters, but Harper tried to set boundaries with him about their level of intimacy early on. Did you think of their relationship differently from how you have in seasons past?
Myha'la: I don't know that I necessarily thought about it differently. I just think it came to fruition in a way, to me, that felt predictable. I was, first of all, just really happy to be working closely with Ken again, and excited that Mickey and Konrad were interested in sort of blowing up what it means personally — like, if we don't have the bank as an enclosure or an authority, what happens when we're left to our own devices? And I think we have well earned some intimacy, or peeking into what really is going on with these two people. But honestly, Harper, to me, has always felt like [Eric's] kid. So, you know, being an adult and working with your sort of pseudo dad…

They begin this episode on a high, with Eric telling Harper, "You just gave me my favorite ever day in finance." Then this parallel comes later where Harper is so obviously proud of Eric while watching him on CNN. What was it like getting to play those two moments in contrast to each other?
Ken Leung: I think the first one was really fun, it was very celebratory. And then the second one was kind of the opposite. Not that it wasn't fun, but it was harder to play.

Myha'la: You had a lot more going on. I mean, practically, what was it like? I wasn't actually watching Ken, I was looking at a green screen. But I think for Harper, the feelings around it come after she's [seen Eric on CNN] and then she goes, and she's like, "I got food! Congratulations, you were great out there!" [Then] immediately the rug [is] being pulled out from underneath her. I appreciated that I had that sense of pride and excitement for the future, going into that next scene, because it gave me a place to fall from.

Speaking of that, tell me about shooting that scene where Eric dissolves their partnership. It's very hard to watch.
Myha'la: I think for me it was also pretty hard to watch on the day. Because I think what we don't see is a little more aftermath, and Eric is left alone, Ken is left alone with his thoughts and feelings. Once I walk away from the scene and I'm out of the scene, I take Harper's shoes off, I'm not in her brain anymore, I'm me and I'm just waiting for them to call cut. So it was difficult for me to turn around and watch the monitor and watch my friend suffer alone on the set. That scene is the culmination of years and years and years of this relationship. I won't speak for Ken, but I think Harper comes into it feeling this mentorship, idolizing him professionally, they build a personal relationship. It feels paternal to her, but she's not going to address that, because that's f---ing weird. And when they get to a place where they admit that that's kind of what's going on, and she's forcing it to not be personal — when she finally allows it to get personal, it goes exactly the way that she anticipates it going. Her only other sort of paternal relationship is the one with her father, and he's not in her life at all, so she was avoiding this very thing and it happened anyway. So I think on top of her being upset with [Eric], I think she's really mad at herself as well for letting it get to this place she knew it was going to get to.

Leung: [The scene] was really beautiful. A lot came up that I didn't expect to come up. I kind of don't know how to talk about it. You know, I hear that it may have been hard to watch, and that I was left alone, but I'll say that I didn't feel alone at all. It was beautiful in that sense. I felt the crew in a different way. Sometimes that happens when it looks like you're alone, but if you're going through something, there's a gravity to it that pulls energy to you and then it feels peopled. So it's a really beautiful kind of experience. Yeah, I loved it. I'll never forget it.

That whole sequence made me think of Eric telling Harper, "I'm doing this for you," at the end of Season 2. He's again doing something that he thinks is for her that she sees as a massive betrayal.
Leung: You know, it's interesting you say that, because I think when he fires her, I think he convinces himself that it's for her, but it's really for him. Whereas in this scene, he thinks it's for him but it's really for her. There's a kind of beautiful symmetry there.

There was also something tragic about Eric saying, "No funeral," right after Harper had that line to Whitney about the purpose of funerals. It's dark, but that whole scene does read like Eric's swan song before he dies.
Leung: I think it's kind of accurate, though. 

Myha'la: I agree.

Leung: There's a death, you know?

Myha'la, do you have any thoughts on how Harper might have reacted had Eric told her the truth? Have you thought about it at all?
Myha'la: Oh... no. [Laughs] No! She'd be f---ing grossed out and freaked out. She'd still be angry and sad, but she'd be like, "What the f--- is wrong with you?" I think she would also be like, "Stop telling me this. Stop it! Stop!" You know what I mean? "You're implicating me. I don't want to know this about you. F--- off."

Leung: That's our next TikTok.

Myha'la: Deleted scenes! That's so funny. No one's asked me that.

Ken, do you know where Eric's walking off to at the end?
Leung: I don't think we're supposed to know. I think that's why we don't see his face. That's not the world of the story. And so in that case, that's where my playing Eric ends, and you as the audience actually have a say in it. Wherever you think is not incorrect. I'm only half of where he's going, you're the other half of where he's going. It felt really kind of meditative, this really long road. I think we can't really see how long it was, because I had to walk until you couldn't see me anymore. It was a really long road, but it was a residential neighborhood, it was a really pretty street, kind of a perfect day, and I was just told to take my time, not walk too fast, not walk too slow, and just walk. It was like a meditation, it was beautiful. We did it maybe three times, four times. And it ended in a dirt road, which was really nice. So this paved street ends up... dirt and trees.

There's something there, about the burial of it all.
Leung: Yeah, it's nice.

If you had to imagine a future for these characters and their relationship, do you guys think they'll ever find their way back together again?
Myha'la: I don't know, is Harper, like, visiting him at jail?

Yeah, is he going to jail?
Myha'la: I haven't thought about it, I don't—

Leung: Next to Rishi. We're sharing a cell.

Myha'la: Double cell block. I haven't speculated, I can't in this moment imagine what it would look like, but almost every time we've come to the end of a season, I'm always like, "I can't imagine how Mickey and Konrad are going to write themselves out of this," and then they do! There's no way to know what creations they're cooking up.

Would she ever work with him again?
Myha'la: Girl... I would be like, "As your friend, don't do that." But who knows?

New episodes of Industry Season 4 premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.