(Warning: Spoilers ahead for Episode 5 of Industry.)
There’s no getting around it: Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) is the main character of Industry’s third season. This season of the HBO drama, which follows the drug-fuelled and cut-throat lives of a group of damaged bankers in London, Harper Stern (Myha’la Herrold) takes on a more supporting role. Instead, the central plot-point has been the disappearance of Yasmin’s father—a wealthy publishing magnate who is rumored to have fled his luxury yacht after decades of embezzlement finally caught up with him.
Where is Charles Hanani? At the end of Season 2, we saw him angrily cutting Yasmin off after she challenged him on his inappropriate sexual relationships with younger women. The third season kicked off with Yasmin and Charles briefly reunited. The pair furiously argued aboard his yacht in the Mediterranean, after Yasmin walked in on her father having sex with a (pregnant) stewardess… in her bed. Through various flashbacks, we have learned about their totally messed-up relationship.
Up until Episode 5, we had been under the impression that Yasmin’s father would resurface at some point. In his absence, we’ve seen Yasmin suddenly stranded without the generational wealth that has propelled much of her life. Her last name was once a power tool, but now it’s toxic. With her father missing, paparazzi have stalked Yasmin’s every move, portraying her as a fun-loving heiress who lives a party lifestyle off daddy’s stolen money.
In Episode 5, we learn that a body has been discovered—and that it is likely to belong to Yasmin’s father. What happened to him? The specifics are still unknown, but it wasn’t until the last minute of the episode that Industry’s third season got its biggest twist yet. In bed with Robert Shearling (Harry Lawtey), Yasmin confessed to killing her father.
As Yasmin and Rob—the “Ross and Rachel” of Industry, if they did cocaine in Central Perk—lay in bed hungover, they giggled about the night before, which they both spent at various private member’s clubs. Rob remarked on the similarities between Henry Muck—an old-money billionaire who is currently infatuated with Yasmin, played by Game of Thrones star Kit Harington—and her father, saying: “You’re destined to marry your dad!” Yasmin laughs, and replies: “That would be impossible… because I killed him!”
Rob rolls over in bed, assuming Yasmin is joking, but then the camera focuses on Yasmin’s face and it’s clear that, unbeknownst to him, she has just let the cat out of the bag.
What does this mean? Up until now, we’ve been given small fragments of arguments between Yasmin and her father on the yacht. And we’ve also been given passing references to the fact that her father may have been sexually abusing her. (“I surround myself with these men, I want them to want me!” Yasmin tells Rob in Sunday’s episode. “I even wanted my dad to like me.” When Rob replies that it’s normal to want your dad to like you, she clarifies that she wanted him to like her “presentationally.”)
Now, the danger for Yasmin isn’t just the paparazzi ruining her reputation, or the lawsuits being filed against her by people who were owed money by her father, but the threat that what really happened will come out.
We still don’t know many details about the precise circumstances of Yasmin killing her father. We only know that he disappeared from the yacht where he was last seen. Harper was also on the yacht that day, and was seen in a flashback comforting a crying Yasmin. Does she know? Was she involved? (That would go some way to explaining the sudden sisterhood between them this season.) Could Harper use the information to blackmail Yasmin, if their relationship once again goes south?
Yasmin’s character arc—the driving force behind the show’s third season—is the most consequential thing about this twist. For the first two seasons, she was portrayed as a posh nepo baby who had glided from a private school to an elite university then a job in finance where, truthfully, people didn’t expect much from her. But now, we’re meeting another character: Yasmin the survivor.
As we learn that her upbringing might have actually been very dark indeed, we’re seeing Yasmin’s thirst for survival. She is desperate to not only prove she belongs at Pierpoint, but also that she deserves her place in elite British society, even without her father. You’d be a fool to bet against her.
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