Industry Season 4 Review: HBO's Finance Drama Reinvents Itself, to Thrilling Results

Pierpoint is dead, long live Pierpoint. That's the baseline idea behind Industry's spellbinding fourth season, which picks up one year after the bank around which the series was formed was sold and stripped for parts. Mickey Down and Konrad Kay's eternally underrated finance drama earned a long-deserved boost in popularity during its excellent third season, which ended by blowing everything up for its characters (literally, in the case of Sagar Radia's Rishi, who watched helplessly while his wife was shot in the head) and subsequently gave the series an opportunity to reinvent itself for Season 4. Season 3 wrapped up so beautifully that it could have easily functioned as a series finale, but as the eight-episode fourth season pushes briskly forward, it becomes obvious why Down and Kay chose to wipe the slate clean and start anew. These once powerless characters have strived, clawed, and backstabbed their way to the positions they now find themselves in, only to discover — as is often the way — that none of it has actually made them feel fulfilled, or any less alone.

When Season 4 begins, the people who once populated Pierpoint's trading floor are scattered around the world: Harper (Myha'la) is getting restless being confined in her role at Mostyn Asset Management, Eric's (Ken Leung) new life as a retiree has rendered him unmoored and listless, Rishi has become a shell of the person he once was, and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) is finding her new position as wife to the spoiled Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington) to be maddeningly unsatisfying. What brings them all back together is the arrival of the incredibly named Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), the co-founder of Tender, a tech company with a reputation of processing payments for pornography platforms. Like Harper and Eric, Whitney is an American trying to carve out space for himself in London's finance world, hoping to legitimize Tender into a trustworthy bank. As Whitney's influence grows, he draws the ensemble into his orbit, and back into each other's as well.

Now at the top, there's little room for these characters to ascend. An early needle drop of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" functions doubly as a favorable nod to Mad Men and a way of asking the season's central question: Is that all there is? The main objective of Industry's fourth season is to excavate what comes after the supposed happy ending. More often than not, it succeeds at doing so, reaching riveting new heights as Down and Kay boldly and unexpectedly experiment with genre. (The co-creators have cited Tony Gilroy's 2007 crime thriller Michael Clayton as a reference, and the film's influence really starts to take shape about halfway through the season.) But the most welcome change from Season 3 is a renewed focus on the show's most electric relationship: Harper and Eric, whose twisted mentor-mentee dynamic took a backseat after he had her unceremoniously fired from Pierpoint at the end of Season 2. Harper knows that what she's missing the most is someone at her level, someone who excites and challenges her. It's what leads her to call Eric for advice, and it's what leads her to entice him out of retirement by dangling the idea of starting their own fund together. A pair of outsiders who have always seen each other with stark clarity, Harper and Eric muse about their shared desire to have their names on the door, and from there it's off to the races. What Industry has done with these two is nothing short of stunning, creating two of the most fascinating TV characters of the decade.

9.3

Industry

at HBO Max

Like

• The writing and direction remain sharp
• The experimentation keeps the show feeling fresh
• Myha'la and Ken Leung are back together

Dislike

• The new characters aren't as compelling as the older characters

This entire review could be spent on how Myha'la and Leung complement each other, frankly. They're devastatingly excellent together, their chemistry untouchable even after an entire season with their characters on the outs, and having Harper and Eric back in close quarters gives them plenty of opportunities to go toe-to-toe. The Machiavellian Harper has made herself in Eric's image — that is, of course, the guy who prowled around the office with a baseball bat rather than the apathetic deadbeat dad she finds herself working opposite now. It's evident that Eric deeply believes in Harper, but he gets lost when trying to talk to her as a peer, an obstacle that comes to a head late in the season when he shies away from telling her the truth about a damning piece of information. It's clear that Myha'la and Leung know their characters inside and out, and that they have a complete understanding of how crucial their relationship is to the success of the show. As a result, the two actors handle their joint scenes with delicate grace. It's impossible not to feel something each time Industry reminds us that Harper is still saved in Eric's phone as "Harpsichord," his nickname for her from their early days together.

That nickname is one of many ghosts that haunt the show's ensemble this season. In one standout episode, Industry even leans ever so slightly into surreality when Henry's demons manifest as actual ghosts. Others are more literal: When newcomer Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh) questions whether Harper and Yasmin would even be friends if they met as they are today, an offended Harper demurs, snapping at him, "You can't just strip people of their context." The message is clear: If you weren't around when these women met as hungry, inexperienced graduates, you have no business commenting on the current state of their ever-fluctuating relationship. (Harper and Yasmin's dynamic is second only to Harper and Eric's in terms of what makes this series shine the brightest.)

Industry's fourth season is so expertly crafted that the few things that don't entirely work can be forgiven. While Radia is excellent as the already pathetic Rishi's life somehow manages to get even worse, the character's storyline does feel like somewhat of a stretch. And the time spent with the season's newest players — like financial reporter Jim Dycker (Charlie Heaton) and MP Jenny (Amy James-Kelly), who beat Henry for a parliamentary seat — is sometimes enough to have you tapping your watch in anticipation of getting back to the good stuff. But for every extended sequence set in the chambers of Parliament, there's a scene that burrows deeper into the case of folie à deux happening between Whitney and Henry, or one that reveals another surprising layer of Kiernan Shipka's assistant character, Haley. The thing about Industry is that it's just really good television, and it will always win you back. If the series was forced to fend off inescapable comparisons to Succession when it first premiered in 2020, Season 4 makes it clear that this show has fully grown into its own very unique animal.

Premieres: Sunday, Jan. 11 at 9/8c on HBO and HBO Max
Who's in it: Myha'la, Marisa Abela, Ken Leung, Kit Harington, Sagar Radia, Miriam Petche, Charlie Heaton, Kiernan Shipka, Toheeb Jimoh
Who's behind it: Mickey Down and Konrad Kay
For fans of: Industry Seasons 1, 2, and 3, Michael Clayton
How many episodes we watched: 8 of 8