There’s really no reason to have a fourth season of HBO‘s Industry. The concept of the series by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, which is a co-production of HBO and BBC One, is that it follows a group of graduates vying for jobs in the cutthroat world of finance banking, specifically at the fictional London bank Pierpoint & Co. At the end of Season 3, everyone left the bank for other jobs, and even the bank itself was sold to an Egyptian fund, effectively ending the series and wrapping things up neatly.
But Industry is back for a fourth season, and so are most of the characters, now in new situations, with new settings and a new tone that leans into financial thriller versus the mere spiraling pressure of the Pierpoint sales floor. If you’ve been with the show since Season 1 like I have, versus the johnny-come-lateleys who hopped on Season 3 when the show got hot (if you love Industry so much, name three of its seasons???), it’s a big swerve. And even that aside, while it takes a few episodes for Season 4 to hit its stride – the full season was provided for review to critics – once it does it’s as engrossing, as thrilling, and as shockingly profane as the previous three seasons.
The action this time around is centered on a new app called Tender, which aims to be the next PayPal, but bigger. Initially run by new characters played by Kal Penn and Max Minghella, the premiere seeds the idea that there’s something very wrong with the company already, and it’s not Penn’s party animal CEO. Instead, they’re being investigated by a fintech journalist played by Charlie Heaton, proving he’s much more than Jonathan Byers on Stranger Things. Heaton’s Jim Dycker is trying to get an in good with Haley Clay, an executive assistant played by Kiernan Shipka, working hard to obliterate the good girl image she’s built over the years by spewing lines like “My *ss and my p*ssy look like pink bubblegum.”
Part of the issue with the first few episodes is that our Season 1 through 3 characters are mostly on the sidelines of the main action at Tender, so meeting these new characters takes time. They’re also not as fully fleshed out as Myha’la’s cutthroat Harper Stern, or Marisa Abela’s always eager to please Yasmin Kara-Hanani. Harper is pulling her old tricks initially, running a fund alongside fan-favorite Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche) and a new trader played by Ted Lasso breakout Toheeb Jimoh as Kwabena Bannerman. But it isn’t until she teams up with her mentor/foil Eric Tao (Ken Leung) to investigate Tender’s business dealings that things really get rolling.
Though Yas and Harper are the two sides of the coin, even more so than previously, the core relationship of Harper and Eric is the most engrossing. They’re two people who have so devoted themselves to their jobs that they can barely relate to the people in their life – Eric spends most of the season struggling to talk to his daughter the same way he talks about monetary transactions. And while both Eric and Harper have ruined each other’s lives on previous occasions, it’s only with each other that they’re able to be honest, leading to some of the most jaw-droppingly acted scenes in the season. Often, it’s like watching two robots figuring out what it means to be human; but when they do, the real shocker is that in Season 4 they might just make each other better – not good, necessarily, but perhaps not “worse.”
Meanwhile, Yas is stuck as well, but for her it takes the form of trying to be the doting and devoted wife to Kit Harrington’s Lord Henry Muck, who has the most appropriate last name of all time… There is not a situation that he can’t muck up, and make much worse than it currently is. If there’s one weak spot in Season 4, it’s the amount of attention paid to the gratingly sad-sack Henry, who we’re repeatedly told is an enigmatic tech CEO but mostly seems like he can barely muster a coherent thought through his overwhelming sadness and crippling addictions. Henry’s storyline also leads to the worst episode the show has ever done, taking place over his birthday, that features a tired TV trope I won’t spoil here. Having him in a supporting role in Yas’s story in Season 3 worked; elevating him to main player status does not.
What Season 4 does successfully, on the other hand, is chart the opposing paths of Harper and Yas as they crisscross and spar. There’s a thread between the two of them from their time at Pierpoint that bonds them, even when they’re on opposing sides of deals. Industry Season 4 charts how one can rise and the other fall, what that looks like for each, and how they can impact each other, even when they often don’t share the screen together during a given episode.
The plot is a flip, for sure. Where every trade at Pierpoint was life or death when, let’s be honest, it’s all just money, in Season 4 the show enters a much bigger stage where the money they’re playing with can literally end lives, and destabilize entire economies. That sort of thing needs setup, and time, and when those careful pieces Industry puts in place in those initial episodes come crashing down, it’s eminently satisfying.
There’s also, as one has come to expect from this show, plenty of shocking sex from threesomes to glory holes and everything in between. All credit where it’s due, the show definitely deploys these scenes because they’re envelope pushing, but they also come from a place of character and plot, first. The frank language and explicit situations will cause a gasp or a bark of laughter (there’s a scene with Yas in Episode 3 which is one of the funniest/most shocking things the show has ever done). But they’re all there for a reason, not just to titillate the audience.
Look, I’ll be perfectly honest: watching this show often feels like it’s broadcast in a foreign language… I couldn’t begin to tell you what an equity fund is versus an IPO or any of the other terms thrown out rapid fire on an hourly basis. So it’s all credit to the actors, writers, and directors for getting the urgency of each situation as well as the overall plot across so efficiently. And while we didn’t need a fourth season of Industry after the satisfying way Season 3 wrapped up, Season 4 makes the case that since money doesn’t stop, Industry doesn’t need to either. There’s a wider, more horrible financial world out there for Yas and Harper to explore, and if Down and Kay want to continue further? Why, just tell me where to send the check.
Industry Season 4 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of Industry premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. ET. Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in Industry Season 4 with premiere dates.
- Sunday, January 11, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 1 – “PayPal of Bukkake”
- Sunday, January 18, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 2 – “The Commander and The Grey Lady”
- Sunday, January 25, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 3 – “Habseligkeiten”
- Sunday, February 1, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 4 – “1000 Yoots, 1 Marilyn”
- Sunday, February 8, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 5 – “Eyes Without a Face”
- Sunday, February 15, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 6 – “Dear Henry”
- Sunday, February 22, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 7 – “Points of Emphasis”
- Sunday, March 1, 2026: Industry, Season 4, Episode 8 – “Both, And” *Season Finale*
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