Network: HBO
Season Year: 2026
Watch: HBO Max
I thought, for some reason, that Industry was amongst the most popular shows on television. I’m starting to doubt that fact. And doubt myself. It may actually be a niche view. One that I was admittedly squeamish to watch when Season One first rolled around in 2021. It was a borderline Millennial / Gen-Z coked-fueled sexcapade. Every other scene involved someone snorting something and/or sticking something embarrassing in someone else. As a solidly Gen-X individual, I felt like it was for the kids and was squarely made for a generation who didn’t grow up with MADD demonstrations and Len Bias and AIDS and a chiding Nancy Reagan telling us that everything (sex and drugs being at the top of the list) was going to kill us. We lived in a weirdly demure and conservative time where only dirtbags did blow and had tattoos, and casually promiscuous sex was looked upon on the same level as school shooters and dudes in windowless white vans. Which we were also made to be scared of.
Point is, Industry was the antithesis of all this. A bunch of young people working in a stressful industry in London, all sleeping with one another and casually doing coke off every open surface. But, once I got past the cringe, the show was endlessly entertaining. The characters didn’t talk like normal humans most of the time — and some of them were incredibly awful — but there was never a shortage of craziness and fun. Even if I mostly hated the people on screen. Which, unless I’m misunderstanding this show, isn’t necessarily a feeling the creators would dispute. Now, going into season four, we’ve moved past the original conceit. The characters who haven’t left the show for one reason or another have moved into adulthood. They are no longer plebes or whatever the British call the bottom tier of finance business drones. And, yet, they mostly retain their horribleness. There are indeed very few characters on this show who escape the sin of being incredibly unlikable and damaged. Or damaged and unlikable. Whichever. But, in moving the show out of the confines of the investment bank workplace, Pierpoint & Co., that brought them all together, the creators have done what feels like a soft reset on the series. The shelter of that place made their decisions feel less impactful. As if the company itself shielded them from their constant poor decisions and follies. But, now, out in the wilds of the wider world, the shields are down and shit is getting real.
And, again, I thought absolutely everyone was watching this show. But, as I type this, I feel like perhaps almost nobody is watching it. It hasn’t gotten any Emmy attention, and outside of The Ringer podcast network, I hear next to nothing about it. Which, given the 20-somethings on the show, the subject matter and the wackiness, I thought would be more of a thing. Plus, this season features a ton of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and a scumbag Charlie Heaton right off the Stranger Things finale. And he gets to use his real English accent! Or at least an English accent. Maybe people are put off by the TL;DR of the financial plotting or the Britishness of it all, but season four manages to work in all of the sex and drugs, but also expand the finance and political stuff into the stratosphere. Which, if the barrier is in fact the whole money-talk thing, perhaps that’s a negative. But, as a person completely clueless about Wall Street type stuff, as well as British governmental nonsense, I can still say that this season was a ton of fun. Well, okay, not fun, but intriguing, good entertainment. Because me calling this show “fun” would expose me as a pretty twisted dude.
And why is that? Well, because one guy — after causing his wife to get shot in the face at the end of last season — has turned to selling coke and getting, uh, oral favors from a very young woman in his car for said drugs. And that’s before being a witness to another murder and jumping from a building and trying to crawl away on shattered legs. So fucking disturbing. But fun! And the creators seem to be moving the Yasmin (Marisa Abela) character into some sort of Ghislaine Maxwell vector, which is also… not fun. All while her husband, Sir Henry Muck (Harrington), hangs out with an absolutely evil sociopath, Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), in some questionable clubs where glory holes are the main attraction. While Eric (Ken Leung) gets bored being retired, gets himself wrapped up with Harper Stern (Myha’la) again and also gets himself wrapped up with a girl who is or maybe isn’t a girl. Let’s see, Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka) has a really creepy threesome with the Mucks and Kal Penn spends the entire series drunkenly getting lap dances. Fun!
Now, these are just snippets of what’s happening with some of the characters, but you get the idea. There is continued debauchery and bad behavior. The show is intense, and an hour of watching it can leave you a bit drained. But with the expansion of the world this season into this kind of more mysterious global criminal enterprise — played in a very effective Matt Damon from The Talented Mr. Ripley performance by Minghella — really adds an adult, prestige twist to this insane workplace drama. There is a main character on this show named Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche), which in itself is just crazy. As we learned last season, she did OnlyFans to pay for university (I think) and secretly got exposed by that creeper Rishi (Sagar Radia) because he was high and jealous. But, yeah, he gets his. Anyway, she’s back in the mix and though the character gets oddly sidelined toward the end of the season, is the one ray of light — other than maybe her new partner in not-crime, Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh from Ted Lasso) — in a series filled with fucked up and sad people from top to bottom. Because the creators clearly have an opinion about these people and don’t feel anyone should escape unscathed. Even when they “win,” the win is empty. Because, apparently, money can’t buy you happiness. Just ask Harper and Eric.
Whatever the viewership of this show actually looks like, I’m interested to see if this has a long life after season five, which is supposed to be its last and final season. The creators have really set this thing up to be a way more intriguing and broader show than when it started, and I’m all for it. I don’t imagine there will be any time travel or anything (though I’ve learned not to rule anything out), but there will certainly be some Russians, some espionage, some political shenanigans and I’m sure more sex and coke (and maybe some sex trafficking) before the series ends. I think now would be a good time for people to catch up with the series. Though if you’re squeamish or are a sheltered Gen-X kid like myself, you may want to gird yourself for the level of DGAF these kids display. I only wish I could be so carefree. Though their lives look pretty terrible, truth be told. And I think that may be the point. Or not. Your call.
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