The HBO banking drama has just kicked off its fourth series, amid serious hype and with a starrier cast than ever. It’s also taking its story – and characters – to chilling new places.
Back in 2020, a new drama about a group of postgraduate bankers trying to make their way in London’s high-finance scene first aired on TV. At the time, the biggest story around the joint HBO and BBC series Industry was that the first episode was directed by Girls creator Lena Dunham.
Initially, the show failed to make that much of a splash on either side of the pond, earning a miniscule viewership. But, six years on and with the fourth series kicking off last weekend, the outlook is very different: ratings improved by 40% between seasons two and three, and it was moved to a plum Sunday night slot on HBO, while its stars are gracing magazine covers. Certainly, no-one could have predicted back then just how buzzy it would become – or just how macabre.
From the beginning, Industry always offered the superficial glamour of 20-somethings partying and hooking up in fancy locations, but that was curdled by the toxic workplace culture they found themselves in, in which horrific behaviour – bullying, misogyny, harassment and sexual assault, amongst other things – seemed to be completely normalised.
Now comes season four, more-anticipated than ever and featuring some starry cast additions including The Handmaid’s Tale’s Max Minghella and Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton. And from its opening episode, the tone is pitch black. Within minutes, a one-night-stand had revealed itself to be something more sinister, placing a young woman (Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka) in a vulnerable position; while later on, in a scene played for grim laughs, anti-heroine Harper Stern (Myha’la) berates an investor with the line “If you’re gonna have a stroke, please do it outside my office” – before he does indeed have a stroke in front of her, keeling over and smashing thorugh her glass desk.
What to be prepared for
And Industry fans have been told to buckle up: it’s going to get much, much more traumatic as the later episodes unfold. Vulture’s Roxana Hadidi has said: “Industry is operating at optimal bleakness… the cynicism is so high that it’s practically in orbit”. Belen Edwards at Mashable has described the new season as running on “nightmarish cycles” with “stomach-churning downfalls”, while the Wall Street Journal has likened it to “a vampire story”. As the closing credits to the eight-part series roll in March, viewers might well be asking if this is indeed the darkest show on TV right now.
