Note: This story contains spoilers from “Industry” Season 4, Episode 1.
Even if you’ve been a fan of “Industry” from its first episode, you’re not prepared for Season 4.
“[They’re] completely different shows, even though — obviously — their core identity, in some ways, is the same,” series co-creator, writer, director and executive producer Mickey Down told TheWrap.
“It’s such an accelerated show,” series co-creator, writer, director and executive producer Konrad Kay added. “There are moments to come where you can really feel the romance and the potential of transformational change, and it hits you like a f—king wet fish across the face because it’s so different to what you’re used to. That’s part of the what me and Mickey try and do with the show is dead-eyed, cold, sociopathic and then this stuff at the edges, which really makes the show almost worth watching because you’re hoping the characters have those moments.”
Even the premise of Season 4 marks a major departure for the series. Season 3 ended with Harper (Myha’la) and Petra (Sarah Goldberg) choosing not to short PierPoint at the last minute. But their attack led to the sale of the company and the characters of “Industry” breaking away from the investment bank that served as their home since Season 1. Instead of looking backwards though, this installment is looking aggressively forward as it focuses on the payment processing startup Tender in a story that will pit Harper (Myha’la) against Yasmin (Marisa Abela). Tender emerges as a payment company with a promising future, as its shady past and partnerships with adult websites threaten to destroy its growth.
“We blew up a bank in the end of Season 3, and we kind of want to explore the beginnings of a bank in Season 4,” Down said.
Tender wasn’t just a way for the series to explore another aspect of the financial world. Through the financial startup, Down and Kay wanted to explore the increasingly digitized world of today, “where everything has to feel like a democratic version of anything that has come before it,” Down explained. Like Season 3’s green energy startup Lumi, Tender is poised as a friendlier and more open version of a decades-old institution. But beneath its cheery commercials and empty slogans, Tender is another story about a company attempting to rebrand power.
“We collapsed the ideas of banking and tech in a way that we couldn’t do in PierPoint because PierPoint was a 150-year-old institution,” Down said. “[Tender] allowed us to do a second, new continuation of the Lumi story, which was was about a startup IPO. This is about the second stage in that startup. Obviously, there are things attached to the story which feel slightly more pushed in terms of the fraudulent nature of the company.”
This season will also push its central characters to new extremes. That’s clear from Episode 1, which takes an unflinching look at Harper’s sex life. Initially, Harper is unable to get off, a physical manifestation of the frustration and resentment she feels about being controlled by her new business partner, Otto Mostyn (Roger Barclay). Though Otto gave Harper her own firm, his oversight makes it impossible for her to complete the shorts she’s promised her clients. But when Harper hooks up with Tender’s CFO and co-founder Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), everything changes.
“We were a bit on the nose this season in the sense that we literally gave her a dick,” Kay said, referring to the strap on Harper wears in the premiere. “We found that kind of thrilling.”
Though Down and Kay wrote the moment to have a “blackly comic edge,” it’s also supposed to be transcendent for Harper. At long last, she has some of the power she so desperately craves.
“Marisa [Abela] watched it cold, and she was like, ‘You wouldn’t believe it, but I laughed and then it almost brought me to tears. I was like, f—ck, she’s got the dick she deserves,’ ” Kay recalled. “I thought that was kind of beautiful.”
“Industry” has always been distinct in its approach to sex. More than almost any other show on television, the series’ bedrooms are a stage for characters to express their deepest desires, as well as their most secretive insecurities and frustrations. The team spent a great deal of time making sure that each steamy scene highlights something about a character while advancing the plot. After that, the scenes were treated like stunts. There was a tremendous amount of storyboarding, talking to actors and intimacy coordination that went into each. Though the show pulled back on sex scenes in Season 3, it’s ramping back up this season.
“In Season 4, we came roaring back with some pretty explicit, well-rendered stuff that manages to be quite hot, quite close to the edge, quite provocative without ever feeling salacious, which I think is actually pretty difficult,” Kay teased.
“Industry” Season 4 airs Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
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