Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Chris Revelle | TV | January 15, 2026
Can HBO Max interest you in a little Sunday night misery? Not just any misery, mind you, but fine, distilled, artisanal misery. Misery that feels satisfying, like poking at a sore spot with your tongue. Industry, the show that charts the rises and falls of cynical young stock-traders in the merciless world of international finance, has returned for a triumphantly bad-vibed fourth season. When the series first started, it played like a blackhearted Grey’s Anatomy for the banking set, but seasons of lies, betrayals, and Pyrrhic victories have aged our cynical traders. Gone is that youthful just-graduated energy they had when they started at Pierpoint (RIP), and in its place are bottomless pits of want and self-loathing. Whatever sense of fun or gamesmanship they once had is buried. The fourth season premiere promises stress and strife, but instead of dread, it has me salivating. Industry is a miserable show about miserable people and the miserable lives they’ve made, but it’s such a watchable, exquisitely-made misery that I can’t look away. Industry is like dark chocolate or black coffee; the bitterness is the point.
If the premiere has an inciting incident, it’s the new Labour government’s internet safety law that’s announced to great fanfare and panic. It’s not clear what exactly the law entails, but pornography and sexual media are in the crosshairs. This puts leading sex work platform Siren in hot water, along with Tender, the payment app partnered with Siren. The Tender founders, slovenly Jonah (Kal Penn) and refined Whitney (Max Minghella), clash about how to handle the precarious situation.
Harper (Myha’la) sees an opportunity to turn her fizzling fortunes around. Her big idea to short-sell unscrupulous businesses using illegally-obtained insider information has left investors scared, her boss displeased, and Harper’s team doubtful. With Harper just one wrong move away from losing her position, she brings Rishi (Sagar Radia), last seen watching his wife get murdered for his gambling debts, out of his hole to do some light espionage to figure out just what the government is planning.
Enter Yasmin (Marisa Abela), now answering to Lady Muck after marrying Henry (Kit Harrington). She seats Whitney at a dinner party where he can charm a Labour minister in return for letting Henry onto Tender’s board. Harper attends in the hopes of making new lucrative connections and strikes up a connection with Whitney. I won’t spoil where it goes, but suffice to say that I salute Industry for using a kinky scene to show a new side to Harper.
Eric (Ken Leung) lurks on the fringes with a fund named after the daughters he never has time for. He can still activate a self-destruction in Harper so strong that she nearly destroys her career in this episode just to swipe at him. Rounding out the newcomers are Hayley (Kiernan Shipka), an executive assistant at Tender, and financial reporter James Dycker (Charlie Heaton). James is investigating Tender, and he’s not above seducing someone to get his answers.
It’s a lot of table-setting, but leave it to Industry to suffuse the proceedings with an excellently dismal pall. There’s a nasty new thread that tracks the current era’s “anti-woke” ideals that gives the show a new oppressive quality. Race is discussed much more openly than before, with lines comparing Harper to an “angry Black woman” and a line from Jonah about Tender’s ad with “a lot of Asians in it.” Harper and Jonah both get moments that briefly touch on this, and hopefully, there’s further exploration of it as the show goes forward.
Industry is a show where misery is art. No one on this show is within miles of happiness. Just look at Harper, who rant-dictates an angry email to her naked underling she took home from work, her blinding rage close to the surface. Or look at Yasmin, who’s married to someone so deluded and helpless that she might as well be pre-chewing Henry’s food for him. What comes through stronger than ever is that for all their wealth and power, these people’s lives are small, airless, and pathetic.
Maybe it scratches the “eat-the-rich” itch or the drama is just so bracing that it can’t be missed, or maybe it’s the wicked thrill of watching ants flee a firecracker dropped in their ant hill. Whatever the case, Industry’s unhappiness is so engrossing that it becomes its own pleasure, and I can’t wait to see what horrors are coming next.
