Review: ‘Industry’ Season 4, Episode 1 “Il Mattino Ha L’Oro in Boca”

Yasmin is on vacation on her father’s yacht and things are going bad. She catches him cheating on her mom with a pregnant woman on the cruise, in her room no less, making this the worst vacation of her life. She is also being chased by paparazzi everywhere she goes as more and more is coming out about her austere connections at Peirpoint and how she used her father’s connections there to her advantage. She is very over everything in the media world and her father. 

 

Yasmin is also worried about Henry, a new client for Peirpoint from Lumi. The company is going on the market, and tensions are high. The CEO fo Lumi is named Sir Henry Muck, portrayed by this season’s guest star, Kit Harington. He is portrayed as the worst; we see him be crass and arrogant with his employees pre-close, and Robert knows that he will be found being all talk. He goes as far as to get way too big of a head while an investor is skeptical about how large their original bid is. He decides to let the market price the stock, putting everyone on edge. The episode does a great job depicting the Orwellian nature of such a sterile and mostly crooked office setting. 

Eric is making what seems like a huge step forward in his career becoming a partner in the hedge fund. This is what he has earned and sacrificed many and himself for. It is an honor for him until there are racially pointed comments about how he earned his position. He is left floored as his boss, Otto, tells him must fire somebody. Yasmine is the first on his suggestion list as she has caused quite the scandal and noise for the company. He decides to remind her what a wrecking ball Harper had been for the company and that he had to let her go. This feels manipulative and seems that the friends in the workplace, except for Robert, have left her side. It feels that the writers have been playing this shtick of nepotism baby that can’t earn a thing for Yasmine for a great while and it feels a bit redundant now. She is a character that is very strong and likable; she can do the hard work and speak up for herself. This seems to be the only target on her back as a character. 

 

Tensions arise at the desk, and Yasmine tries to use an in with Harper to talk with a company of interest to Eric. Anna is now Harper’s new boss, CEO of ESG, and she isn’t doing too well at the new job. She’s starting at the bottom this season after being fired from Pierpoint because of lying about her education and shotty business ethics. 

Harper, however, uses this opened-door opportunity wisely as she has been talking with Petra, someone who seems to be of like nature and goes against the grain. She tells the portfolio manager that she is doubtful that Lumi is all it’s cut out to be, and that people could be spinning a story. This is Harper trying to get some serious brownie points on her way up the ladder back to the top again. Something to keep an eye on is whether or not Petra and Anna will fight and break a partnership, all for another new position for Harper to be hampered. However, most recently many will be very proud of how the show exemplifies that education does not equate to real intelligence in every single niche that exists and that a degree cannot tell everything about a person. 

Yasmin receives a phone call from Henry Muck and asks if they can plan to meet that night. She is desperately worried about being seen with him by the paparazzi. Instead, she meets him at a pickleball game and he ends up trying to convince Yasmine that they can’t help her get rid of stories of herself in the paper. She is also told to reconvene with her father for her “ease”, something we have seen Yasmine fight internally about. Will she finally get free from her father and make a name for herself?

At dinner with a coworker, Yasmine runs into Eric with someone who is not his wife. He tells them he is now separated from her and is on a bad date. Eric ends up ditching the date for the ladies’ company, turning into a coke evening at her flat. It is going great and Yasmine can connect with Eric as a manager and friend. She unveils to him that she helped Harper get the job with Anna. Eric disagrees that Harper is a good person that deserves this. Eric and Yasmin’s coworker end up coupling up for the night, leaving Yasmine unsuccessful at winning back her job playing the third wheel. 

Robert has an exceptionally horrible night with his client Nicole, who he had been seeing last season as she was not ashamed or scared of what happened between them behind closed doors. The two of them had been getting increasingly tense with each other at the end of season two along with getting more intimate. It makes sense that she asks the question of why Robert stays after they have sex. He is unable to answer the question thoughtfully. He says that he doesn’t know and she chalks it all up to validation from someone like her. It means so much to someone like him as Nicole puts it. The next morning they awake in a hammock and she is dead next to him in his arms. He goes back to work and ends up having a breakdown. Eric takes him off the floor to tell him that he is a man and he’s relentless. 

Kenny and Eric have a very stern conversation as he makes a complete turnaround decision to fire Kenny. Kenny takes this awfully and throws his relapse in his face, as he was someone who helped him with this in the past. And Eric’s ex-wife does the best thing ever: sends the twins to work with Dad on the IPO big open. Eric is sweating and everyone knows it. The episode ends with the lights out as an outage occurs as Lumi goes public. The worst thing that could happen for Lumi’s trades. 

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