lost pages

The fourth season instalment of HBO’s Industry is proof that allowing a show to breathe pays dividends.

Industry season four is quite an achievement. It never pulls its punches and really makes you seep inside all the messy emotions that can plague the human psyche of its ensemble cast.

What series creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay have made with the fourth season of Industry is quite remarkable.

I say this, as I am glad HBO stuck with this series and did not cancel the show when it first started off back in 2020, how time has flown. I would have never guessed the evolution and trajectory of this series and left both starstruck and reeling with having to contend with the fact that the end is near, with a fifth and final season that is on its eventual way.

Indulge me for a moment when you look at the first season of Industry, for what I see as a solid but not exemplary start. It can almost feel like a whiplash seeing how much the show has changed from its initial premise of working inside the corporate world to a full blown soap opera that continues to leave me utterly dumbfounded by how Down and Kay not only grew with the show, but definitely left an indelible mark in my personal life in that they created such a raw, intimate and visceral world with characters that are moulded and shaped by both their actions and personal struggles. This is truly great television, but would say one of the greatest accomplishments of Industry, is the way it does not flinch in making a character drama, who take the time to soak inside the puddle of their emotions and left bares the scars you do not wish the world to see.

Industry season four to put it lightly is incredibly unnerving and goes to more darker and unhinged places, whilst offering the doses of euphoria and adrenaline of seeing the mechanical wheels turn around the mind of its characters. You see Harper Stern played by the wonderful Myha’la, try and both figuratively and metaphorically re-imagine herself and cement herself as the relentless and ruthless entrepreneur she is, or what she likes you to believe.

It has to be said, Industry has some well written characters and I would say some of the best written fictional characters I’ve come across. The two that really stuck in my mind, is both Harper Stern (Myha’la) and Yasmin Kara-Hanani or now formally addressed as Lady Muck, played by the great Marisa Abela.

These two characters act like a foil between each other and represent each other’s deepest insecurities and social imbalances. Without giving too much away, I was blown away by the performances of these two leading actresses, with how both characters on-screen give life to each other and when both share the scene, there is boundless soul-searching to be involved.

Amidst all the chaos and inner turmoil that unfolds this season, there has been that semblance of ‘calm before the storm’, that things are reaching a new boiling point and we have yet to see how everything fully erupts and shatters what you have come to expect.

Having a fifth and final season to wrap up this banking drama turn slowly into a tightly woven melodrama, is a task I have full trust in its creators. It seems to me, the right time for the series to cap things off and I am glad Mickey Down and Konrad Kay get to end the story on their own terms.

Industry is one of those shows I do not know, if I can recommend to people, for how it really pokes inside the deepest and darkest parts of the human condition being very freaky and downright disturbing at times. Probably best to describe it as the demented version of Succession, where the characters are more in your face demanding your attention, where apparent subtlety is replaced with abrasiveness and uncompromising cruelty.

It is a series like no other and I would not have it any other way. It is a show that found its voice and its footing through stumbling at first, but relenting on just like its characters full of anguish and delight for the potential of what could possibly come next.