Everything is Falling Apart on ‘Industry’

Michel GhanemMon, February 16, 2026 at 3:00 AM UTC

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Industry Season 4, Episode 6 Recap: Trainwreck Simon Ridgway/HBO

Throughout this week’s episode of Industry, we hear Whitney reading lines from a letter addressed to Henry. But its context isn’t revealed until the final scenes. Is it a eulogy? A love letter? His inner monologue? A suicide note? Industry loves keeping the viewer hovering in ambiguity, but as everything starts crashing down around Whitney, “Dear Henry” goes delightfully off the rails. It's an exquisitely performed, brutal car crash of an installment—and the best episode of the season so far.

“Dear Henry” opens with Yas and Harper exiting opposing elevators at Tender HQ. Finally! We haven’t seen these two interact in a while. Harper warns Yas about Whitney’s shady business dealings, but Yas interprets Harper’s message as nothing more than a threat. (“Why do you always pick apart at my stability?” she asks her friend. Girl, please be so serious…). Yas has little right to act as the victim here; she was more than happy to throw Harper under the bus by going after the late FinDigest journalist Jim. Harper’s words don’t seem to do much to sway Yas’s opinion of Tender, but they might ultimately be enough to plant a seed of doubt within her mind. Regardless of the outcome, it’s always delicious to watch these two spar.

Whitney gives Tony a call with a vaguely threatening tone, encouraging him not to stray from their pact. After that, he drops in on Henry, who’s singing in the shower at his London rental. Whitney gazes at him erotically through the open door into the bedroom, and Henry boldly returns the eye contact. I love Heated Rivalry! Yasmin struts in, acting like she has no idea what’s really going on between them, which gave me a giggle. Henry rudely tells her to calm down; Whitney was just dropping in with flowers as a housewarming gift! Moments later, Yas admits she does know what’s going on: Whitney wants to fuck Henry. She knows it, and we certainly know it, too. She also drops the reveal that Whitney and Henry hooked up back when they were in school. Gasp! “You can be a homo at school,” Henry says. I mean, clearly, you can be a homo at work, too.

At the Tender offices, the government reps and Tender’s executives have a very serious meeting. We don’t see much of it, but Jennifer Bevan says the Labour Party wants to use Tender as a test case in a government trade deal. That definitely won’t end well. We also find out Henry has started drinking again, and he won’t be listening to Yasmin’s concerns about it. She brings up her meeting with Harper (proving Harper did get through to her after all), but Henry isn’t eager to listen. This marriage is not in a good place. Someone get Esther Perel on the phone!

Simon Ridgway/HBO

Over at a swanky dinner, Henry and Whitney meet with their auditor Jacob Oleander (Steven Cree) about their U.S. tax audits. They order an expensive bottle of wine and discuss Tender financials. It feels as though Whitney is trying to sweeten the deal here (he throws in some flirty hand-touching) to ensure his company passes an audit with flying colors. After dinner, Henry and Whitney hit up a gay club, where things get hot and heavy quickly. In a back room, Henry uses a gloryhole while Whitney gives him affirmations and strokes his hair. Kinky! We get the Industry title card right when Henry orgasms. This is the most direct intimacy we’ve had between these characters after all that edging. Incredible stuff here, folks.

After that steamy scene, the duo sit by the river as the sun rises. Henry admits he thinks Yas hates him and that sobriety had made him more productive, then he proceeds to get existential about what life is all about. He also pokes holes in Whitney’s supposed life story, claiming that the biography Whitney provides sounds like something out of a bad novel. Henry, in his own estimation, can see right through Whitney’s tales: “I’ve got plenty of middle class friends,” he says. In effect, he calls out Whitney as a liar…while also accepting the lie as the armor it is. What an odd situationship.

Later that day, we’re finally at the ALPHA conference, where Harper gets on stage to make her big reveal about Tender. (She’s worn her power suit with massive shoulder pads for the occasion.) With the help of some graphs and catchy slogans, she breaks the scandal down as more and more people start filing into the room. Yasmin is there, too, and we get a quick cameo from Anraj (Irfan Shamji), who we haven’t seen since last season. Harper is confident and clear, and her presentation is a resounding success. Enough to sway the market? We’ll have to see. According to a quick look at Whitney’s phone and some concerned phone calls he fields from his employees—he takes them from inside his private jet as he flies between Accra and London—the market is responding. Whitney is already in a bad mood from wasting his time flying all the way to Ghana to meet with Tony, only to find out the man had already come to London. (This is why we call in advance, friends.) He briefly looks at the emergency exit, perhaps wondering if that would be the quickest way out of all of this mess.

Meanwhile, apparently Henry didn’t show up to the ALPHA conference because he was too busy having a hotel-room threesome. He is officially back to his vices—so much for his enlightened era! Yasmin is not happy with him when she finally reaches him by phone, but he couldn’t care less. Speaking of Yas, Tender’s head of comms isn’t even around to crisis-manage the company’s sinking reputation? Whitney’s guidance to his corporate team is to stay the course—but as Sweetpea tells Harper over at the SternTao hotel room, they’ve already got Tony in their pocket. Jesse Bloom is also mentioned! Are we getting Jay Duplass’s return? This reminds me of the tweets about how Industry treats its old cast members like Marvel Cinematic Universe cameos.

Simon Ridgway/HBO

Eric makes Kwabena write up exactly what is happening on their whiteboard. The numbers don’t necessarily make any sense to me, but “we’ve gone from red to black” is enough to tell us SternTao is in a way better position now than before Harper’s presentation. Eric says he’s just had his favorite day in finance, ever! They’re drinking and celebrating. Finally, a well-deserved win.

When Whitney gets back to London, Hayley informs him that Yasmin has been sniffing around his email correspondence. Hayley is quite upset about some pent-up issues and clearly feeling used, though the details of why aren’t yet totally clear. Hayley asks for $750,000 to stay quiet after threatening to go to the press. Whitney refuses, and she calls him a try-hard loser before storming out. We haven’t gotten the most fleshed-out arc for Hayley this season, so this feels a bit sudden, but, God, does Shipka sell it anyway.

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Whitney calls Harper after this; I had momentarily forgotten they hooked up earlier this season, but they’re on opposite sides of the aisle now. He’s still defending his business (despite saying he regrets moving it to Britain) but also pulls out some stacks of cash and a Lithuanian passport with an alternate identity while they chat. She calls him a con man and brings up his shady funeral business, which has taken on a new resonance after her mother’s death last episode. (If you recall, his business model was about stripping grieving to its base needs.) Right when I’m considering what the actual purpose of this conversation is, Whitney decides he’s not just Whitney, he’s Whitney Houston, and starts serenading Harper with “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” He’s totally lost it—or, at least, he’s stopped hiding his real sociopathy.

As a Hail Mary, or maybe just out of desperate loneliness, Whitney tries calling Jonah—but all he gets from his former friend is “get a lawyer or kill yourself, whatever’s cheaper.” Whit has officially burned that bridge. His associate comes into his office, and they brainstorm how to handle the Tony Day situation. The Russian foreign intelligence services comes up…Huh. This is heading in a dark direction, right?! The idea that Whitney has been hiring Russian muscle is fresh on our minds when Eric receives a concerning email mid-conversation with his daughter. His jaw drops: It’s a video of his time with “Dolly Hotel Girl” from the last episode, as well as a photocopy of her passport—evidence that he had sex with a minor.

Simon Ridgway/HBO

The next day, Whitney finds out where Tony is meeting SternTao and FinDigest for breakfast as all sides of our story converge. Am I the only one whose heartbeat is quickening here? Whitney somehow beats the others to breakfast and tries to talk Tony out of whistleblowing by leveraging their relationship. Whitney does have a point: Tony probably won’t receive immunity from whistleblowing—at least until the authorities are involved. Industry has made a point to have very little, if any, police presence on the show. Instead, the creators have spun these complex narrative webs without the inevitable detective storyline, which, frankly, is a relief in a medium where police are over-represented. But even after Whitney’s convincing intervention, Tony still seems on board with Sweetpea and FinDigest.

To do some image rehab, Whitney gets mic’d up for a live segment on CNN, where he’s ready to shift the Tender narrative. He’s also joined by Eric, which doesn’t seem to be what Whit expected (especially after that video). The segment begins and Whitney, who has stayed fairly calm and collected up until this point, is starting to show signs he’s being worn down. (Eric points out he looks “shiny.”) Tony Day gets called in unexpectedly, and as it turns out, Tony decides to stick with Whitney and begins defending Tender Africa’s business dealings. Ugh, traitor! Eric nails his piece with a strong monologue, though—and pushes for a new audit.

Henry, who has emerged from his bender and finally shown up to work, is watching CNN from his Tender office, where he begins to panic. He shouts at an assistant to get Jacob on the phone. While this PR crisis spirals out of control, Hayley shows up at Yas’s house, ready to spill the tea. We find out Hayley was hired from an escort agency, and that Whitney has been using his assistants to seduce important individuals, sometimes on video, for extortion. That includes Yasmin’s own threesome with Hayley and Henry back in Austria. Oh, wow…Whitney is even more twisted than I imagined. Hayley has done it all for access and power, but she wants to shift her allegiance to Yas, whom she looks up to. For some reason.

Simon Ridgway/HBO

Back at SternTao HQ, Harper offers Eric some compliments for his CNN performance, but something feels off between them. Eric’s lawyer is in the room, and he’s decided to transfer his stake in SternTao to Harper in a generous deal that gives Harper full control. Through tears, Eric admits he felt real fatherly pride for Harper. She signs the agreement and storms out angrily, but without the full context, she doesn’t understand why he’s made this decision. Eric is in a tight bind, though: He knows there are potential legal consequences headed his way, but he’s too deeply ashamed to tell Harper the truth. Leaving is the only way he can protect himself, Harper, and the company’s viability. This is truly Eric’s rock bottom.

After all that, we learn Whitney’s CNN appearance did help Tender rally in the stock market, but there’s still far too much chaos going on at home base. Henry is the one who’s stirring things up now: He’s fired Jacob and is going to pursue a new audit. Whitney, at last, admits defeat, realizing there’s not much he can do except try and bail while he can. He hands Henry the letter we’ve been hearing tidbits of throughout the episode, which is essentially a full admission of guilt. The last thing we hear is “there’s a hole in my bucket.” It’s so over for this man.

In the elevator, Whitney switches his SIM card to a new phone and makes a suspicious phone call. He’s in full self-protection mode now, presumably fleeing the country before he lands in jail, so he will likely try to do whatever he can to cover his tracks. (I just hope he doesn’t go full scorched-earth.) The last shot of the episode, as the credits roll, depicts Eric walking alone down a long road. This feels like a bittersweet potential send-off for one of Industry’s most complex characters, who, like Rishi before him, has reached unprecedented levels of depravity.

I really hope we get more of Ken Leung before the end of the season, but if we don’t, what an absolute pleasure to watch him tear into another complex arc as Eric. I cannot wait to see how Harper and Yasmin clean up the mess these men have left in their wake.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”