We are already done with half of the 4th season of HBO’s finance drama series, Industry, but it feels like so much more catastrophe is yet to hit the characters still, particularly because of their hasty choices in life. While the previous episode had the investigative journalist, James Dycker, publish his piece on Tender’s financial malpractice in the FinDigest magazine, the report did not have the intended effect on the stock market, at least not to the extent Harper Stern had predicted or wanted. Therefore, in season 4 episode 4, she and Eric Tao continue to try and work towards their goal, which is to short Tender stock, while there are shifting power dynamics in the payment processing startup.
Spoiler Alert
How does Yasmin force her way into an official role?
From the beginning of this week’s episode, the leaders at Tender are concerned over the latest article published in the FinDigest magazine against them, and specifically about how to react to the situation. Although the article has not been able to dent the company’s reputation, and many of the officials believe that they should instead be more focused on the launch of the payment processing company’s new app, others do not want to let the matter go unaddressed. Among these are the CFO, Whitney Halberstram, and also Yasmin Kara-Hanani, who currently does not have an official position at Tender. Although Henry had introduced her as a consultant in the previous episode, the truth is that she has simply been following her husband around and helping him out in situations where he does not even ask for his assistance. To be honest, Yasmin seems to be involved in the daily operations at Tender and might have even gotten her husband involved in the company, only because she cannot bear the boredom of being the housewife of a modern British aristocrat and only running the estate.
At the beginning of the episode, Whitney and Ferdinand meet with representatives of Pierpoint, who are investors in the startup, in order to raise more money from them as part of a deal to have the names of the two companies appear together on all public platforms in the future. At the same time, Henry oversees the final touches in the app, and specifically the modest launch that has been set up for later in the day. Yasmin does not sit idle, and instead wants to take advantage of the situation for her husband’s sake, as she has always been quite resourceful in smelling out such profitable opportunities. To put it simply, Yasmin wants to cleanse Henry’s image further, especially after he had gone numb in the meeting with the government officials in the previous episode, as soon as Lumi was mentioned. The fact that the man has evidently not been able to move past his failures, and that it might now affect Tender has been silently discussed by many of the high-ranking officials in the company, and Whitney too admits that he is disappointed by Henry’s reaction. Therefore, she plans on instilling Henry with confidence once again and having him appear in public to restore his image, and what better opportunity can there be than a grand event to launch Tender’s new app?
Although Whitney and Robin Williamson, the head of communications in the company, object to such a gala press event, Yasmin pursues the matter quite determinately. This is when Yasmin sees an opportunity to give herself an official role in Tender and directly asks Whitney to do something about it. Yasmin has undoubtedly been thinking of ways to secure a position for herself in the company, despite essentially having walked into the boardroom by using her husband’s role, and she now states that an official role in the communications department would give her the best chance to serve Henry and Tender together. Yasmin and Robin have not had the best relations, as the latter has kept questioning her worth and her presence on the company’s executive board, and she feels that this will be a great chance to get back at him as well. But the situation that pans out by the end of the episode is even more stirring, for Yasmin Kara-Hanani has other favors that she can give to the company, which make her extremely precious.
To begin with, Whitney wants to do something about the FinDigest article, and so he does some snooping around about the journalist who had written the report, James Dycker. Possibly having someone follow him around, Whitney gets hold of a photograph of the journalist and Harper Stern together, which proves that he had been consulting the joint director of a private fund with expertise in shorting. Therefore, this photo can be easily used to claim that James Dycker had been involved in a conspiracy to malign Tender and profit by shorting its stocks. Since Whitney knows Harper and her past at Pierpoint, he asks Yasmin to deal with the situation, and the latter simply retorts that she would definitely be able to do something if she is made a part of the communications team. Yasmin’s other asset that can be very advantageous to the company in this situation is her connections with Alexander Norton and his tabloids, which can be used to expose James Dycker and Harper Stern. Yasmin does help Whitney out, and by the end of Industry season 4 episode 4, he repays the favor by making her the head of communications, letting her fire Robin Williamson without any hesitation once the latter refuses to work under Yasmin.
Has Yasmin been played by Hayley?
Along with the smart wins of its central characters, Industry has also always put equal focus on the gross misjudgments made by the same characters, and the strangest of situations that they land themselves in. In the recent seasons, it has even been evident that no matter how low the central characters stoop or how dirty they choose to play, it is extremely difficult for them to manipulate and exploit younger individuals at the workplace. Industry season 4 introduces a significant development in this episode, which could well be considered another instance of a younger character triumphing over their senior in the most unexpected manner. When Yasmin had taken note of how Hayley Clay, the young executive assistant at Tender, seemed to look up to her and Henry with a certain spark in her eyes, she had decided to exploit this to mess with the young woman’s life and professional career.
Thus, Yasmin had first made Hayley get intimate with herself and Henry, and now when Hayley brings up the matter in a private conversation, she assures her that nothing wrong had happened, for all three of them are consenting adults. Yasmin then plays the full groomer/predator part by rallying for a promotion for Hayley, in order to buy her confidence into keeping their intimate acts to herself and to encourage her to continue engaging in such acts. Yasmin undoubtedly sees Hayley only as an employee to take advantage of, as a plaything, without any consideration about how she is essentially coercing the assistant into compromising situations for her delight. The consent that she talks about has been a direct result of the coercion, since Hayley is in no position to turn her down. Therefore, when she finally tells Hayley that she has secured a position in the communications department for her, Yasmin is genuinely proud and happy.
However, what she completely misses is the fact that Hayley has been totally aware of what has been happening with her, as she admits to having had numerous such experiences of being groomed and manipulated, primarily because of her charming looks. Hayley has indeed been playing Yasmin, knowing well how predators like her operate in the office, as she too had been looking for an opportunity for promotion into a more secure position. Once she gets selected to be part of the new communications team, Hayley reveals to Yasmin how she has been aware of her manipulation game and subtly threatens to burn her down if things go sideways. Thus, Hayley asserts her dominance by the end of the episode, which does not necessarily mean that she turns against Yasmin, but simply confirms that she will wield a certain influence over Yasmin, and over Henry by extension, from now on.
Is there possible chemistry between Henry and Whitney?
Whitney Halberstram looked a bit too admiring of Henry Muck when the two first met back in episode 2, although it seemed like a purely professional feeling at the time, since Whitney desperately wanted to bring Henry to Tender. But things start to take a different shape now in episode 4, specifically when Whitney visits Henry right before the latter is about to oversee the public app launch. Henry is extremely nervous of failing at his job once again, and Whitney provides comfort and confidence to him, with the two men coming extremely close, in a physical sense, which Yasmin cannot help but notice. What is even more awkward for her is the sight of Henry completely avoiding her and jumping into a warm embrace with Whitney after he successfully delivers his speech at the app launch and publicly redeems himself once again. Towards the very end of the episode, Henry and Whitney have a private conversation in which the latter once again talks about how he believes Henry Muck to be innately valuable beyond just his aristocratic connections. There might just be a shift in personal relations in the later episodes of Industry season 4, since we already know that Whitney does not follow heteronormative sexual practices, evident from his acts with Harper back in the season opener.
Can Harper and her team find enough information against Tender?
Meanwhile, at SternTao, Harper and Eric have to address how the attempt to short Tender stocks has failed and also focus on keeping at it no matter what. Harper is much more determined in this plan than her co-founder, as she continues to be a passionate believer in her plans and schemes, despite doing so having led her to almost career-ending failures in the past. She wants James Dycker to continue investigating the matter, and to specifically write a follow-up to his first article, with the focus being on how Tender was misrepresenting data to hide their malpractices. Harper wants James to base the second article entirely on the information and data that she and Sweetpea had found from their visit to Sunderland. But the journalist is simply too scared to work on any such article at the moment, which results in Harper and Sweetpea having to do their research by themselves once again.
Just like in the previous episode, the two women seem to stumble upon something significant once again, which might expose Tender to be involved in gross corruption and favoritism if their theory can be proved right. Sweetpea tries to talk to the former CEO of Tender, Jonah Atterbury, but he does not lead her to anything massive, at least for now. Instead, she finds about a suspicious man named Tony Day, the current CFO of Tender in Africa. Strangely enough, Tony Day does not have the professional portfolio to hold such a high position, as he had worked at Morgan Stanley for many years before suddenly moving to a private security firm called Daiwa Securities and shifting to Accra, Ghana. During a time when the Ghanaian economy was going through very troubling times, Tony supposedly tried his hand at numerous massive businesses, like telecom and high-speed rail networks, but failed at all of them. He was then suddenly made the CFO of Tender in Africa, and the photos featuring him during takeover deals also look to be ingenuine and staged. Perhaps Whitney’s regular visits to Accra have something more sinister behind them, and Harper now decides to investigate the matter further by having someone from her team fly down to Ghana.
What happens to James?
James Dycker finds himself in a terrible mess in this episode, as he is under pressure from all sides because of his recent article. His boss, the editor at FinDigest, clearly warns him against a situation in which Tender authorities find out about his collaboration with short sellers and press charges against him. His personal life is already a mess, as he has a child with a woman he claims to have slept with only once, and James freaks out further when he realizes that his apartment has been broken into. It is somewhat unfortunate to see James in this state, as his situation represents the extreme risk that investigative journalists have to take while exposing influential corporations, but his hasty decision to have secretly teamed up with Harper is also responsible for his present misery.
Despite the severe stress he is under, James continues to hound Tender by appearing at the app launch, and even going on to ask uncomfortable questions to Henry Muck and Whitney Halberstram during the press brief. Both his journalistic intrigue and passion, as well as his terrible desperation to ensure that his journalistic career is not jeopardized, make James take such an extreme risk, which sadly ends up being the last straw for his editor. Shortly after Tender’s app launch, James Dycker is fired from FinDigest, and it marks the end of the road for the journalist. He knows that the firing will prevent other magazines from hiring him, and being heavily in debt, with the responsibility of a child on his shoulders, does not help at all. James simply gives in to his addictions and has an extreme bender, during which he meets Rishi Ramdani and ends up at the latter’s house. Here, the worst case scenario pans out, as James Dycker dies from a drug overdose, either accidentally or because he wanted to end his life before things got any tougher for him.
Does Rishi die in the end?
Rishi’s terribly dark past comes back to haunt him in Industry season 4 episode 4, as he receives a call from his mother-in-law, literally while he is engaged in a drug-induced act of intimacy with a significantly younger woman. In the previous season, Rishi’s humongous debts had led to his wife, Diana, getting shot dead by his loan shark, because of which his personal and professional lives were absolutely destroyed. Now, his mother-in-law wants Rishi to sign an official document that would change his young son’s surname, so that he is completely cut off from the boy’s life. Despite not favoring such an arrangement, Rishi knows that there is no turning things around, as his son already does not recognize him, and so there is no point in forcefully holding on to him. Ultimately, he ends up having a drug-fueled night out, during which he comes across James Dycker, and the journalist dies from the drugs that he had provided, at his very apartment.
This makes Rishi freak out, and driven by both fear and deep depression, he jumps from the balcony and attempts suicide. But he does not die in the end, only breaking both his legs and getting arrested by the police, who had come to his apartment to investigate a noise complaint. However, there is definitely some mystery regarding this whole affair, since a third man had also been present at the impromptu party at Rishi’s house and had conveniently left the place before things got too serious. The sheer number of police officers who came to Rishi’s house also did not make it seem like they had come to check on noise complaints, and it might be that the third man, hired by Tender or Alexander Norton, might have killed James Dycker and framed Rishi Ramdani for it.
