By Rifan Muazin 
A long-standing cultural maxim suggests that when the British get old, they become pathetic, while their American counterparts, when faced with the same inevitable decline, simply go psycho. This dichotomy serves as the spiritual foundation for the fourth season of Industry, a production that has long functioned as a British procedural with a thrashing, hyper-capitalist American heart. In its latest iteration, the series skillfully blends the pathetic with the feral, signaling a sharp departure from the bildungsroman structure—to use an Eton and Balliol approved term—that defined the first three seasons. If the earlier chapters of the show were about young graduates learning the rules of the game at Pierpoint & Co., Season 4 is about those same characters realizing that the game is rigged, the board is melting, and the only way to survive is to abandon the last vestiges of their humanity.
The speed of betrayal in this season has moved from a strategic crawl to a chickenshit velocity. The premiere episode, provocatively titled “PayPal of Bukkake,” sets the tone by introducing Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) as the season’s central antagonist and new villainous North Star. Whitney’s betrayal of his Tender co-founder Jonah (Kal Penn) happens with a ruthless efficiency that makes Eric Tao’s season-three betrayal of Bill Adler look positively glacial. We are no longer watching the slow-burn erosion of loyalty; we are witnessing the instantaneous vaporizing of professional bonds. The treacheries in Season 4 feel more degraded and significantly pettier than before—ranging from the gaslighting of a former colleague suffering from brain cancer on a corporate stage to the cowardly avoidance of eye contact while firing a partner for the "sins" of pornographic banter. These are the actions of men who have traded their souls for martinis "cold as space" and a seat at a table that is rapidly shrinking.
Character churn has also accelerated, reflecting the volatile nature of the modern high-finance landscape. In previous seasons, we watched Robert Spearing undergo a gradual, drug-fueled processing of his fraught relationship with his mother—a narrative arc that felt earned through time and chemical intervention. In contrast, Season 4 introduces Henry Muck (Kit Harington) through a narrative speedrun. In a single episode, Muck traverses the entire spectrum of privilege and despair: intravenous drug use, a "nepo-baby" meltdown at his own extravagant fancy-dress birthday party, a hallucinatory bender with his father’s ghost, and a desperate, love-starved encounter with Yasmin Kara-Hanani at daybreak. It is a performance of frantic kinetic energy that mirrors the instability of the British aristocracy trying to maintain relevance in a digital-first world.
The shift in power dynamics is perhaps best illustrated by the changing role of Otto Mostyn. At the conclusion of Season 3, Mostyn was presented as the ne plus ultra of the show’s overlords—a sinister, fish-gutting, King Lear-quoting aristocrat who viewed himself and Harper Stern as kindred bandits. However, in Season 4, his stature seems diminished, relegated to brief "diva-offs" with Harper while draped in an ermine robe. He brags about his ability to be ableist again before dematerializing into the royal shadows. When we encounter him later, he is a figure of dreary decadence, jangling a tin of mints on an overstuffed couch during a prolonged refractory period. The comparison to The Wire’s Stringer Bell is inevitable but unfavorable; Otto Mostyn may have the pedigree, but he lacks the street-level survival instincts that make a true titan of industry.
The cinematic influences of showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay have become more overt this season, moving from subtle nods to full-scale homages. The monologue delivered by Jim Dycker (Charlie Heaton) in the episode "1000 Yoots, 1 Marilyn" is a coked-out, Zillennial xerox of Tom Wilkinson’s legendary opening in Michael Clayton. Down and Kay have openly admitted that the work of Tony Gilroy serves as a guardian angel over this season, and the influence is palpable. The final moments of Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia) in that same episode evoke the high-stress, "crash" endings of Safdie Brothers films like Uncut Gems or Good Time. Rishi, a character whose previous rock bottom involved the murder of his wife, finds himself in a spiral that feels both inevitable and claustrophobic. Even Henry Muck’s suicide attempt in a vintage Jaguar feels like a direct echo of Lane Pryce’s first failed attempt in Mad Men. As a famous American poet who spent his life pretending to be British once noted, immature artists borrow, but mature artists steal.
Despite these heavy influences, Season 4 remains a resounding success because it captures the specific "dark glee" of the current moment. The show is mesmerizing in its ruthlessness, featuring scenes that are as absurd as they are chilling. Whether it is a threesome taking place under the watchful eyes of Adolf Hitler’s paintings or Whitney slowly tipping over a chair just to bark at his assistant Hayley (Kiernan Shipka) to fix it, the show leans into the grotesque. In the episode “Eyes Without a Face,” the absurdity reaches a peak with security guards in an empty building in Accra, Ghana, who spend their shifts repeatedly picking up and dropping a phone receiver—a metaphor for the hollow nature of global infrastructure.
Kit Harington’s performance as Henry Muck is a revelation. Having been largely pigeonholed as the "sad boy" of Game of Thrones, Harington here displays a range that many didn’t know he possessed. There is a undeniable "Eminem-in-8-Mile" quality to his work, perhaps bolstered by the biographical overlaps between the actor and the character—both hail from historic families and have been open about their struggles with alcohol misuse and mental health. Harington magnetizes every scene he is in, vibrating between jolts of unearned confidence and maudlin loafing. His work in the episode “Dear Henry” is particularly noteworthy, likely serving as his Emmy submission. From the vulnerability of a shower scene observed by Whitney to the "eye acting" at a business dinner—reminiscent of the David Niven school of British leading men—Harington portrays a man whose identity was sculpted by forces beyond his control.
Henry Muck represents a specific type of British failure: a man kept warm by the class system, pulled into a marriage designed by others (in this case, Lord Norton), and given infinite chances at achievement despite public shame. He finds his only true escape in the "glory hole" of Whitney’s drug-fueled embrace, where the simple validation of "everyone wants you" provides a narcotic simulation of peace. By dawn, he is a new man, "cracking on" with the weapon of his tribe—using middle-class status as a slur to dismiss those he deems beneath him.
The show deserves significant credit for its "dark velocity," effectively dragging Zillennials and Zoomers into a premature middle age. The post-grad days of Season 1 feel like a different decade entirely. The Pierpoint trading floor, once a high school homeroom for the protagonists, has turned to dust. Characters like Rob, Gus, Venetia, and Anraj are gone, taking with them swaths of Yasmin’s and Harper’s shared history. This reflects the reality of one’s twenties: the people who define your early career often become ghosts by your thirties.
The new world of Season 4 has teeth that the old one lacked. Yasmin has evolved into a sexual puppet master, yet she is already being challenged by younger women who move even more relentlessly across the gameboards of power. Marisa Abela’s costuming—high necklines and faux-power shoulders—suggests she has vaulted past the "girlboss" era into something more ancient and formidable: "Lady Muck." Meanwhile, Sweetpea (Miriam Petche) and Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh) represent the "New Class" of Industry. Sweetpea’s investigation into Tender’s deceptions showcases the courage of youth, but the show remains consistent in its portrayal of the cost of such courage. Her assault in a bathroom, resulting in a broken nose, serves as a gender-inverted echo of Jack Nicholson in Chinatown—a perverted badge of survival in a world that punishes curiosity.
Harper Stern’s evolution is perhaps the most complete. She has moved from a scrappy outsider to the head of her own fund, a commercial enterprise as jaded as her inner topography. She is the pitiless sun around which the jittery planets of men like Eric and Whitney orbit. While she still feels momentary anxiety around "dumb money" social settings, her ability to accelerate through that nervousness marks her maturity. Her eyes, flickering between curiosity and disdain, tell the story of a woman who has fully embraced the "hard way" (the literal translation of SternTao).
Eric Tao, conversely, remains trapped in a cycle of stagnation. He cannot let himself age, which leads him to the rooms of young sex workers just minutes after playing the role of a decent family man. His failure as a mentor is complete; one of his daughters has become the exact kind of "mediocre little monster" that Harper once mocked to get hired. When Harper and Eric swap "confessions" in Accra, it isn’t intimacy; it is a data exchange. Eric is no longer capable of anything more.
As Industry enters this more mature, more cynical phase, it mirrors the precariousness of the television industry itself. The sorting mechanism that once turned TV stars into movie stars is creaky, and the career trajectories for talent behind the camera have never been more uncertain. Mickey Down and Konrad Kay have created a show that reflects this "market watching" anxiety. They know that the processional of profiles and photo shoots can turn to silence faster than ever. In a world of contraction and homogenization, where shows are increasingly produced by entities like Palantir or tailored for vertical video, Industry stands as a testament to the intensity of living like there is no tomorrow. Because, as the characters on the screen and the creators behind it both know, in the world of high finance and high-stakes media, there often isn’t one.