It's so funny how all the tragedy and heartbreak in Industry keep bringing these characters back to the dance floor. To the sound of Daft Punk, Industry season 4 episode 7 sets the stage for a gloomy season finale, as Tender's collapse hits the UK financial world like a hurricane, dragging everyone down in its wake.
Episode 7 is very entangled in the past, a reminder that these characters have grown old. The possibility of losing everything now hits differently, at a stage in life when starting anew starts to resemble an unattainable fantasy, worlds away from the reckless hopes of youth.
The HBO series continues to deliver its darkest, most poignant season. Harper and Yasmin reconcile in a strange way, but there's still room for many things to go wrong.
Time for desperate measures
The penultimate episode of Industry season 4 opens with yet another clash between Yasmin and Henry, as they contemplate the prospects of losing everything. Yas is concerned about their money, which Henry recklessly used to buy Tender stock, whereas all Henry can think about is the damage to his reputation, with Tender shaping up to be another great failure in a long line of missteps.
"I feel like I'm in the room with a reptile," says Henry when Whitney drops by at his office the next day. Whitney refers to the recent Tender fallout as a simple "misalignment between the velocity of my vision and the velocity of regulation." This tiny misalignment happens to involve fraud, embezzlement, and market manipulation, and to get around this gap, he proposes a hostile takeover of Pierpoint to buy Tender enough time to regularize their payments.
Yasmin, on the other hand, is determined to find a way out of the Tender mess — even if it means throwing Henry to the wolves. She meets with Lord Henry and orchestrates a narrative against Tender through the headlines of his newspaper empire, aiming to expose the suppression of a memo and the UK government's dubious role in fueling Tender's market growth. Yas also pays a visit to SternTao's headquarters, where she convinces Harper to add fuel to the fire, as the collapse of Tender’s stock price now serves both of their interests.
The talented Mr. Whitney is running out of options
Whitney and Henry travel to New York to launch their bid for Pierpoint. So far, Whitney has done a great job of pretending everything is under control, despite a continuous stream of bad news. But ahead of the AGM, we finally learn that the wall is closing in on him as well: as Whit attempts to flee the country, he is intercepted by Russian intelligence agents, who force him to proceed with the Pierpoint takeover.
Can Tender's chain of command get any weirder? We’re still far from grasping the full extent of Russia’s involvement in the company’s vicious financial scheme. Whitney officially makes Pierpoint an offer, but we later learn the deal doesn't go through: Pierpoint exec Wilhelmina Fassbinder has taken advantage of Whit's daring bid to finalize the sale with a different company.
Henry comes back to London to discover Yasmin has resigned and is leaving him to his own devices. Harper takes Yasmin's story to FinDigest, while Norton's papers amplify the narrative, causing Business Secretary Lisa Dearn to resign and triggering a Serious Fraud Office investigation. A desperate Henry goes after Whitney, only to discover his phone abandoned at his desk. In an earlier scene, Henry scolds Whit for always being on the phone, to which he replies: "If you ever see me without it, you can assume I'm dead." Could this offhand remark conceal something darker?
Industry season 4 episode 7 ends with Yasmin and Harper finally confessing their insecurities and repressed feelings to one another, reclaiming a sense of care and closeness they feared had vanished. They celebrate the moment with a night of partying — a tribute to the old days.
Industry season 4 episode 7 review
As Industry approaches another season finale, it’s hard not to wonder how the series can move forward from here. Is there really more story left to tell? Ever since major characters started dropping like flies, it's become increasingly difficult to care about the new faces onscreen. Sure, Henry, Whitney, Hayley, and Sweetpea were all great highlights this season, but after so many departures, everyone except Yas and Harper seems so utterly disposable, regardless of how important they are to the ongoing storyline.
Even Yasmin and Harper's conversation in the end feels devoid of genuine emotions. Their words certainly reflect the unwavering nature of their friendship over the years, but seem determined to circumvent the defining chapters of their shared journey: their early rivalry at Pierpoint, their complicated relationship with Rob, their prevalence in a collapsing financial world. What's behind Industry's hesitation to refer to its past with more transparency?
Instead of offering a true reckoning with the past, Yas and Harper's exchange comes off as a long-overdue but ultimately superficial reconciliation. At this point, how many times have we watched them trade kind words, only to stab each other in the back shortly after? This is particularly frustrating given that Yas and Harper are Industry's last dependable assets. If even their rare moments together fail to inspire confidence in the narrative, what exactly is holding the series together?
Overall, Industry season 4 episode 7 keeps us glued to the screen thanks to its brisk pacing, but it doesn't live up to the hype of its previous episode. The whole government storyline has been uninteresting from the get-go; its predictable resolution, while necessary for the broader narrative, generates little excitement.
To be fair, the episode's merit lies in Industry diving into the gloomy intensity attributed to Henry and Whitney's scenes, a tone that had already been cultivated in episode 6. Their only comfort is the shared despair in their eyes, fueled by the unmistakable contrast between Henry's naivety and Whit's calculated confidence.
Of all the threads converging in the Industry season 4 finale, the fallout of these two characters is what promises the most intrigue, assuming Whitney ever shows up again.
Watch the Industry season 4 finale on Sunday, March 1, on HBO and HBO Max.