The Season 4 premiere of Industry, HBO‘s most unhinged and underrated drama has arrived. And if you thought the show was slowing down in its old age, look no further than the title of the first episode — “PayPal of Bukkake” — and I think it’s pretty clear that the series isn’t holding back.
In fact, despite a relatively slow start to the season thanks to completely rebooting the premise of the series after the conclusive third season finale, there are still plenty of absolutely outrageous moments between all the financial speak. Sure both Harper Stern (Myha’la) and Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) get their own jaw-droppers. But there’s plenty of time to be aghast at the behavior of new cast-members like Kal Penn, Max Minghella, Kiernan Shipka, and Charlie Heaton.
So with that in mind, since this site is Buzzfeed circa 2013 (nobody check me on this), let’s count down the 13 most unhinged moments from the Industry Season 4 premiere. And in case it wasn’t clear, spoilers past this point. Also, another warning: usually we censor stuff on this site, but that would be everything on this list. So beware, as there’s some salty, extremely not-safe-for-work language past this point.
1. Sabrina The Teenage Witch Grows Up
Right in the cold open, as New Order’s “True Faith” plays on the soundtrack, we meet Shipka’s executive assistant Hayley Clay. She’s being tailed by Heaton’s Jim Dycker for unknown reasons — it later turns out he’s a financial tech (fintech) journalist working on an exposé story about Clay’s company, Tender — and he followed her from a bar, to a club, to her home, where they hook up.
And if you know Shipka from her good girl roles like Sabrina on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Mad Men, and others… Um, yeah, this is not that. Hayley pops pills, Dycker rubs her breasts, and when they get back to her apartment — really, her boss’s apartment — she tells Dycker, “You can use your tongue wherever you want. Come on. My ex said my pussy looks like pink bubble gum.”
Though it’s possible nothing really happens between them, as a warning, this is just the beginning of the wild things Shipka is gonna get up to this season. And immediately, when Dycker fights with Clay in the next scene, she tells him her boyfriend is coming home, and “he’s big, and he’s fucking Black!” When Dycker asks what that means, she shoots back, “You know what it means, bitch!”
2. Of Course This Season Is About OnlyFans (Sort Of)
The driving plot of the first episode is about Tender, which wants to be the new PayPal, but bigger, divesting themselves of any ties to porn. Or as new cast-member Toheeb Jimoh as trader Kwabena Bannerman refers to it early on, “mid-cap spank sites.”
In fact, Bannerman even throws it over to Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche), who works with him at Harper’s fund, noting that these are “predatory” sites that “coerce the vulnerable.” That’s a reference to Sweetpea’s time on OnlyFans, but the way, though the show creates a new site called Siren to sub in for the real online megasite.
Continuing down that road, Bannerman continues to joke about Siren, irking Harper and Sweetpea, until he awkwardly explains, “I don’t consider myself a prolific masturbator.”
This, by the way, sets up our Tender CEO Jay Jonah Atterbury (Penn) and CFO Whitney Halberstram (Minghella), who are introduced talking about injecting semen into your face, so consider that a bonus moment. But they’re arguing about taking payments from Siren — Whitney wants to move the business in other directions, while Atterbury thinks “the nuts and bolts of our biz is tawdry.” Guess who wins?
3. Rishi Hits Even Rocker Bottom
Considering Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia) ended Season 3 paying for his spiraling debts by watching his wife get executed in front of him at their kitchen table, you might have thought he couldn’t get lower. Brother, you’ve never watched Industry then, as he hits rocker bottom this episode, conning a man out of his phone so he can get illegally obtain info for Harper.
While it’s not as tense and horrifying as what happened to Rishi last season (yet), it’s somehow sadder than the one-time Pierpoint employee is now doing odd crimes for whatever dollars he can snag.
4. Atterbury Loves Porn
After being shown an extremely generic ad for Tender with a lot of “Asians” in it, a pissed off Atterbury vapes, stalks around the office in his socks, and explains why they can’t give up Siren as a client, which has become bigger than OnlyFans. He throws out bon mots like “Jerking off is recession proof.”
Halberstram has another take noting that, “We can’t expect people to want to deposit their savings or take a mortgage with us if we’re associated with squirting videos and ‘Ebony GILF gets force-bred by Black Bull.'”
“Fuck yeah,” says Atterbury. “That’s my go to when I’m hungover. Hey, does it make me racist or anti-racist that I can only get hard for Black-on-Black action?”
Oh, and this scene gives us the title of the episode, as one of the Tender employees says they don’t want to be known as the “PayPal of bukkake,” which Atterbury loves — and tells his assistant, Hayley, to write down.
5. Siren Used To Be Called Colonel Creampie
Once Halberstram goes rogue and cuts Siren loose, they explain that the app is feminist, to which the CFO prompts them to recall what the name of the app was when they originally signed up with Tender. It was “Colonel Creampie.” Which, to be fair, is not quite as catchy of a name.
6. Harper Is Boning Bannerman
Because Industry has never met a relationship it can’t make inappropriate, Harper is boning Bannerman, her employee, in an explicit sex scene that begins with Bannerman — mid-sex — checking to make sure that he should avoid “the ass.”
They then proceed to have a completely nude conversation about Sweetpea’s leaked sex videos, with Harper asking if Bannerman has ever fantasized about her, “a pristine white girl who’s pussy you can just fucking ruin.”
7. Harper Gives A Man A Stroke
Harper, pissed off after losing a client, goes rogue herself and sets up an “emergency gate” on her fund in order to piss off the dude who has been hamstringing her at work.
Immediately, a livid client — James Ashford (Tom Stourton), who was introduced last season — enters and screams at Harper, calling her and her employees “arsonists” and explaining that he’s asking for a refund request.
The furious Ashford further tells Harper there’s no need to be so “sesquipedalian,” which he’s probably using to mean “long-winded” but also, funnily enough, means a word that is long. But he gets stuck, saying “sesquipedalian” over and over, with Harper whispering in response, “Is this all because you couldn’t make me come?”
“Sesquipedalian,” says Ashford, to which Harper gives him the ol’ stink eye and says, “If you’re gonna have a fucking stroke, please do it outside my office.”
Instead, he does it inside her office, falling directly through her glass table, unconscious. “Very… Inconvenient,” Harper says. Later, we find out it was a “transient ischemic attack,” which is a precursor to a stroke, though Harper calls it a “baby” stroke. Either way, not great, Harp.
8. Go Woke, Go Broke
In the fall-out (no pun intended) from Ashton’s stroke, Harper gets called in by Otto Mostyn (Roger Barclay), who reads her the riot act and explains he brought her on to be the progressive face of the company… But none of that “woke” stuff matters anymore.
“I accidentally called a subordinate a retard yesterday,” Mostyn says. “Nobody flinched. And you know what, Harper? Tomorrow… I might do it again.”
There are few outright evil characters on Industry; Mostyn, however, fits the bill.
9. Atterbury Proposes A Foursome
During a heated dinner with Halberstram, Atterbury tells the latter he’s going to stick around while Halberstram heads to a prior engagement — a dinner set up by Yasmin.
“I’ll keep the tab open,” Atterbury says. “This dysmorphic TikToker from Stockholm is gonna slide into that seat. She could bring a friend? Might be fun to hang à deux. A four? Quatre.”
Mostly, I’m highlighting this because of the turn of phrase “dysmorphic TikToker from Stockholm” which I have to imagine led to the entire writer’s room high-fiving each other after coming up with it.
10. Harper Strokes Her Big, Black Dick
Halberstram takes Harper home after Yasmin’s dinner, and has sex with her. Afterwards, he asks her, “Did you enjoy how I fucked you? Want to return the favor? Do something for me?”
Harper is unsure, but he directs her to his walk-in closet, and to a box which holds a big, black strap-on. And an a moment that would make Garth Marenghi proud, Harper straps it on and looks at herself in the mirror, stroking her big, Black dick and admiring herself.
Listen, does Harper want to be a man? Not really. Or at least, not necessarily. But does she know she’s a 5 foot 1 inch Black woman in a man’s world of finance, and people have underestimated her since the series premiere because of it? For sure. There’s also some interesting info we get here about Halberstram, who previously had chided Atterbury for talking about black-on-black action in the office. But the purpose of this scene is to realign Harper and show her what she already knows: she is the biggest swinging dick in the room, and nobody else comes close.
11. Eric And Harper Join Forces
There are arguably no two characters on Industry who are more destructive to each other than Harper Stern and her mentor, Eric Tao (Ken Leung). Yet with the most minimal amount of prodding, Harper gets Eric out of retirement, where he flies to England and she proposes a partnership.
“Think we’re capable of being that for each other?” Eric asks, and if you’re anything like me you were screaming the TV like Jason was right behind them with a knife.
“You came,” Harper answers simply.
“You called,” Eric says back.
What’s actually craziest about this is that Eric and Harper almost have a real conversation, though Eric is holding back. “It’s funny how honest communication can feel like an exorcism,” Harper says once they decide to split the new business 50/50. And it is pretty crazy… Perhaps not as unhinged as some of the other moments listed above, but for those of us who have been watching this show since Season 1, putting Eric and Harper in a room is akin to placing a few cans of gasoline next to a box full of dirty old rags and newspapers.
12. Atterbury Gets Ambushed
You can’t say Halberstram didn’t warn him. With Atterbury digging in against “Tender 2.0,” aka the version without porn, Halberstram assembles the board to relieve him of his job as CEO. They end up removing him because of a morality clause, but it’s clear that Halberstram wanted him out because Atterbury wasn’t on board with the change of the company from the “PayPal of bukkake” to a legit modern bank in your pocket… Or rather, as Halberstram becomes interim CEO, he describes Tender as “a bank killer.”
13. Henry, Run Amuck
If you’ve been wondering where Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington) has been all episode, Yasmin’s casual mention that he has a cold isn’t quite accurate. Instead, right at the end of the hour we catch up with Yas’s husband, who is dressed in a robe at an antique harpsichord, snorting crushed pills. Jon, oh snow, am I right?
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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