If you thought last week’s episode of Industry on HBO was a devastating trip through a nightmare realm, well, get ready for more of the same on Season 4, Episode 5, “Eyes Without a Face.” The new hour debuted early on HBO Max because of the Super Bowl — and will also premiere in the regular time, regular place Sunday night on HBO — but this bonkers show waits for no dumb sports game. The real contest is what’s happening between Harper (Myha’la) and Tender.
Spoiler warning past this point, but last week’s episode ended with a shocking death: James Dycker (Charlie Heaton) OD-ed while partying with Rishi (Sagar Radia), who himself plunged to his death. Or not, as he instead landed on his feet, breaking them and getting arrested. Meanwhile, Yasmin (Marisa Abela) got promoted to director of communications for Tender, also promoting Hayley (Kiernan Shipka) who thanked her by calling her “mommy” and showing off her barely clothed butt. So, that’s going well.
Nearly entirely off-screen last week, though, was Harper. There were some moves on the short front, but this week picks up on that in a big way (and shuffles Yas off-screen, instead). After discovering that Tender’s Sunderland outpost was a dude in a house collating spreadsheets, they’ve now also figured out that something weird is going on in Ghana. And backing that up — at least on our end, as the eye in the sky TV viewer — is that Tender CFO Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) has been heading down to Africa very, very frequently. So what’s going on?
We’re about to find out as we break down the wildest, most unhinged moments on Industry Season 4, Episode 5, “Eyes Without a Face.” Oh, and just a note: normally we censor things here on the website; not so for Industry.
1. Father Of The Year
Things start swimmingly with Eric (Ken Leung) fighting with his ex-wife, Candace (Alexandra Moen) in the driveway of their kids’ school. It’s a wide-ranging argument that goes from Candace calling our Eric’s “whore in New York” to Eric saying “one of our kids is fucked in the head. Why else would they expel her?”
“You give her everything except what she needs,” Candace responds when Eric says that this — whatever “this” is — is what happens when a child is never left wanting. And that’s at the crux of Eric’s arc this season in particular, that he, like Harper, only comes alive when he’s focusing on what to do about money. Real people? Not so much. Earlier in the season, Operation Normal Guy and Normal Girl were utter failures, and as we’ll see later in the episode, inter-human relationships are foreign to both of them.
But the point here is that Eric can’t figure out how to give his daughters what they need when it’s not money. And just to drive this home, the next scene finds Eric learning that they have 48 hours — 72 at most — before SternTao completely implodes. He’s losing his family, he’s losing his money… What will Eric have left at the end of the day? Nothing?
Later, as Harper lashes out at Eric, she calls him too “timid” because of his kids, and frankly, she’s right. Gone is the baseball bat swinging madman of Season 1, and now in Season 4 Eric is stuck between being a bad father and being a bad hedge fund manager. He’s not doing a great job at either, and even if Harper is off what he needs from her — it’s not to be a financial partner, he needs a daughter he respects — she’s spot on in terms of him not knowing how lucky he is.
2. Was Dycker Killed?
While Harper gets the news that her mother died (though we don’t find that out until later, Kwabena Bannerman (Toheeb Jimoh) raises some conspiracy theories about the death of Dycker and Rishi going to jail for manslaughter charges. He thinks it’s weird that the coke they took was laced with fentanyl, that Dycker died right before he was going to go to Accra to follow up on the Tender story, and that overall it seems very “sloppy.”
“Well, Rishi was fucking sloppy, wasn’t he?” Sweetpea shoots back.
This all seems like now classic Bannerman blathering, he does tend to spit off a lot. But the way the other characters are quick to dismiss it gives his theories a little more weight. It is weird that Dycker died so strangely, and that Rishi was there, and a million other strange coincidences. Is there more to this? Given what happens to Sweetpea later in the episode, it’s a strong “maybe.”
By the way, at this point we’re four minutes into the episode. This show is nuts.
3. Hello, Dolly Hotel Girl
After Eric and Harper’s first fight in the episode, Eric considers phoning his wife. Instead, he gets a call from “Dolly Hotel Girl” who tells him, “hey, honey, I’n in the bar. Are you coming down?”
“Don’t call this number again,” says Eric, who is a changed man and never does anything untoward with this woman. Just kidding.
Late in the episode, Eric and Candace have clearly been letting their daughter have it in the hotel room, and for once he’s acting like a dad and husband (or rather, ex-husband). His kid has fallen asleep, and he gives Candace his master bed. It even seems like there might be reconciliation there.
Unable to fall asleep on the couch, Eric looks in on his wife and daughter sleeping… And calls Dolly Hotel Girl.
Down in her room, he asks, “You always have a room here?”
“On standby,” says the girl, who gets down on her knees.
“Hey,” Eric says. “Make me feel big.”
“Yes, daddy,” says the girl as he watches her suck him off in the mirror.
I’m explaining this out of order (more on that below), but Eric ultimately only gets off on himself. And the idea that this particular transaction is framed as a daddy/daughter one is extremely alarming. While other characters might come out of this episode better and stronger, Eric definitively does not.
4. Harper And Eric Talk Like Human Beings
This may be the single most shocking thing that’s ever happened on Industry: Harper and Eric have a real, human conversation when Harper tells Eric that her mom died. She “went overnight” after an accident running for an Amazon delivery.
Eric ushers Harper into his room, and tells her that she can talk to him. Harper confesses that “she was awful to me. And she tortured my brother so badly, she fucked him up to the point where he was incapable of loving me. And it’s his love when I was young… That’s the only love I remember.”
This is a jaw-dropper for a number of reasons, but the biggest is Harper revealing her real feelings with no subterfuge, hidden agenda, or jab at the end. And that would be wild enough, but Eric talks to her, asks her honestly, “what else do you remember?” She also remembers “hate” and Harper slowly sits down next to him at the foot of the bed.
Eric then reveals that his daughter got thrown out school for being the ringleader of a group that catfished a peer. They made her travel, dress provocatively, and took pictures of her when nobody showed up. “Meticulous fucking cruelty,” Eric says. He also says the pictures were dark, with the kid “dressed like a hooker.” Perhaps that’s why he (initially) turns down Dolly Hotel Girl?
In any case, while Eric and Harper both talk about their feelings, with Eric confessing about his kids, “I know when I’m with them, I know it’s the only place I should be. But I don’t want to be there.” He knows it’s a betrayal. And Harper is smart enough to know that Eric picked a career built on transactions.
So here we have a woman who lost her parent and feels empty about it, and a parent who feels empty about his kids. And the two just… Talk? To each other? As equals? Asking each other questions and listening to the answers?
And it ends with Harper saying all she ever wanted from her mom was for her to see her as the force she’s become, as someone undeniable. “You are undeniable,” Eric says, bringing Harper to tears.
5. Inspector Sweetpea
The bulk of the episode, as mentioned, is spent with Sweetpea tracking down info on what’s really going on in Accra with Tender. And the first bit of weirdness trumps the Sunderland twist. Looking into related company SwfitGC, she discovers… It’s a PO Box in a nondescript hole in the wall post office. And when she gets the number for the box, it’s once again the Tender Call Center hold message, complete with “Sail Away.”
The big catch, though, is Tony Day (Stephen Campbell Moore) Tender’s CFO in Africa. A tense, five-minute meeting where Bannerman chugs water and chows down on snacks ends with Sweetpea telling Tony he can call her any time about anything, and booking an appointment with the lawyer who helped broker the deal that led to Tony Day’s large novelty check picture.
That lawyer? Named Lawyer, to which Bannerman quips, “By example, I was christeners ‘Dog-fucker’ Bannerman. Fun fact: nobody laughs. And Sweetpea, subsequently, pushes a little to hard. Why was SwiftGC bought for so much money by Tender when it’s a PO Box? What is Lawyer the lawyer trying to hide? Bannerman, who was spouting conspiracy theories mere minutes earlier about Dycker and Rishi is quick to write off everything Sweetpea finds suspicious.
Later they find a bit of common ground over drinks, as Sweetpea reveals that she couldn’t get a job anywhere thanks to her Siren leak, until Harper hired her. And furthermore, “the guy who outed me, he got his in a sort of roundabout way.” Yeah, she’s talking about Rishi. While she doesn’t know for sure, it makes sense to her – and she’s probably right.
This also leads to a real, human conversation between Sweetpea and Bannerman; or at least Sweetpea, while Bannerman gets called over to do karaoke. And he sucks.
While Bannerman butchers Robbie Dupree’s “Steal Away,” Tony Day calls Sweetpea. “Tell me, are you a compulsive liar, or was this a one-off?” he asks, and lays out that he knows who she is. Sweetpea counters with what she knows about Tender. And Tony Day reveals that he was Jim Dycker’s leak, and that Dycker mentioned he could “sketch out some pathways for me.” Sweetpea doesn’t know what he’s talking about, though it sure seems to be “exit strategies.”
7. Mirror, Mirror
Tony Day finds out where Sweetpea is — she tells him her location if he wants to talk — and he tells her that Accra isn’t a violent city, but “the beach can get dangerous at night.” Beyond all reason, Bannerman is still murdering karaoke, when Sweetpea is cornered by a man in the ladies room. He chokes her, licks her face, she scratches him — and he punches her right in the nose, knocking her head into a mirror and cracking it.
Was it Tony Day? Probably, and Sweetpea is livid, tissue paper stuffed up her nose and blood on her clothes.
“I am so fucking jacked up right now,” she says. “I will go to fucking war. I will run a fucking train on them.”
8. #SweetBanner Rising
Several drinks later, Sweetpea, holding a martini and sporting a broken nose, turns to Bannerman and says, “Can you stop fucking around and just admit that you’ve seen my tits?”
Bannerman considers lying, then says, “Okay, cool. Fine. Yes. Fuck it. Yes, I saw it.”
“Did you like it?” asks Sweetpea, to which Bannerman starts stammering.
“I don’t know what the right answer is,” Bannerman says.
“Honesty,” says Sweetpea, laying out the theme for this week’s episode. “Honesty.”
“Okay, well, I mean, I didn’t not like it.”
The conversation continues with Sweetpea asking if Harper is good in bed, and then asking if he wanked to her Siren videos. The conversation evolves from there, with both admitting they watch porn, with Bannerman referencing last week’s episode by asking her what she thought about the “bird who got shagged by 1,000 yoots.” And then Sweetpea wants to know what he likes. “Okay, you made me say this… I like… Premium calcium. Small, blonde, white women.”
“Yeah, I guess some things are attractive because you can’t have them,” Sweetpea answers.
Hey, guess what happens next? If you guessed “Bannerman fucks Sweetpea from behind while pulling her hair” then congrats, I guess.
Putting a capper on the whole thing? When we cut back to Eric in London, he’s scrolling through an email from a “Daniel Miller” that includes Sweetpea’s “City Tart” nudes. I guess some things are attractive because you can’t have them.
9. Another Sunderland
Finally managing to track down SwiftGC, Sweetpea and Bannerman get taken to a broken down ghetto, and a old, rusted out building with dust and leaf filled floors, no lighting, and a completely empty fifth floor where SwiftGC is supposed to be. There two guards there that don’t know SwiftGC, or Tender, and when Sweetpea tries to call the eternally on hold Tender help-line, the guards pick up the phone and immediately hang it up.
“What are we looking at?” Bannerman asks, standing in the broken down loft full of unused TVs and a few random chairs.
“A facade,” says Sweetpea.
Sweetpea calls back to the home office to tell Eric and Harper the news, and lays it all out… The short (no pun intended) version is Tender is built on a house of lies, hiding money they don’t have in fake purchases so the auditor doesn’t look closer at where their money is going. Weird, someone moving money around buying the same company over and to jack up the price despite it not being attached to any real value? Seems like a crazy scam that would never work!
“Fake users drives fake revenue, which drives fake cash, which then must be deployed on acquisitions which accounts for more fake users and more fake revenue,” Sweetpea continues. “It’s a feedback loop of fakery.”
So not only was Harper right about Tender, thanks to Sweetpea and Bannerman she was more right than she possibly could have imagined.
In order to get the info out, Harper decides to bring their evidence to the ALPHA conference on women in business she was invited to. Meanwhile, Sweetpea calls Dycker’s old boss Edward Burgess (David Wilmot) to see if she can figure out some of those “paths” for Tony Day. The game is afoot!
10. Who’s Watching Tony?
Storming into Day’s office, they lay it all out, but basically feed a lie to a liar — a shortcut to what Burgess warned them around, that sources take time to develop. But there’s an eye-opening detail here, that Tony isn’t scared of Tender CFO Whitney Halberstram… He thinks someone else is watching him. Actually, he knows they are.
“I want to know exactly how I am able to minimize my liability before I make any kind of disclosure” Day says. “And I want counsel before any of that.”
Bannerman offers to fly him to London so nobody can trail him or trace the ticket, and introduce him to Burgess, but he doesn’t think anyone will believe them without his help.
That’s when Sweetpea threatens to report him to law enforcement, and he’s still not swayed. “You’re salivating over the speed of it all, aren’t you?” Day says, and yeah, he’s right. But Sweetpea lays out another theme for this episode of Industry: “Who fucking cares what incentivizes the truth?”
That’s what played out in the convo with Harper and Eric, and with Bannerman and Sweetpea; and now with Tony Day, who leaves it at “I’ll consider.”
11. Sweetpea Tells Harper
Harper, still trying to be a human being, and actually doing a pretty good job of it, visits Sweetpea — sneaks up on her really — and gives her a hug, and lays out how they’re going to present the evidence she found.
“I’m so, so sorry this happened to you,” Harper says. “This is my responsibility.”
“Don’t take this away from me,” Sweetpea says. “I work for you, you know, you don’t have to act out this like pastoral compassion.”
Oh, and then Sweetpea tells Harper about screwing Bannerman. “I feel like transgressions are best dealt with head on.”
What’s so fascinating about this scene is how Myha’la is playing Harper as having grown exponentially as a person since the death of her mother at the beginning of the hour. She’s open, she’s supportive, and when presented with a tricky business situation responds with dignity and class instead of burning Sweetpea’s house down, like she would have in earlier seasons.
Sweetpea isn’t on the same growth path, yet. And it’s also a stark contrast with Bannerman, who doesn’t tell Harper about him and Sweetpea, but is downright rude about her liquidating his positions without asking him.
She still doesn’t obliterate him, so there’s growth there. But also, it seems like this new, emotional in tune Harper is done at the end of the hour.
“If anyone calls for me, tell them I’m busy,” Harper says to Bannerman. “I’m working.”
The actual end, though? Sweetpea, crumpling in private, finally letting all the emotion and horror she’s been holding in for the entire Accra trip; and perhaps since her nudes were leaked from Siren. Whatever it is, “Eyes Without a Face” plays on the soundtrack, as the camera zooms into Sweetpea’s closed eyes and she sobs.
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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