Industry: Season 4 Episode 4 – Recap and Review

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Episode 4 “1000 Yoots, 1 Marilyn” Recap and Details

• Director(s): Michelle Savill
• Writer(s): Mickey Down, Konrad Kay
• Public Release Date (HBO Max): February 1, 2026
• Check out more of our “Industry” coverage.

How To Lose Friends And Gain Promotions: Yasmin, Hayley, Whitney, Sweetpea, Harper, Robin, Henry, Jonah, Wilhelmina, Norton, James

Yasmin and the head of communications for Tender, Robin, keep bumping heads. Rightfully so, since, at best, Yasmin is a consultant, yet she is in every meeting, always has a comment, and it can feel like she is undermining a tried and tested professional. Thing is, Whitney likes Yasmin. Not to the point of doing anything unbecoming, but he recognizes she is an asset. Norton clearly lets her take the lead when legacy media is needed to support Henry, and Henry does value her opinion.

However, she does have one weakness in Harper. With Whitney gathering intelligence just as Harper does, he knows that she is working with James to short their stock and try to expose them. What he doesn’t know, though, is that while Harper is out in the open, Sweetpea is moving a bit more covertly and has gotten into Jonah’s ear. In fact, Jonah is more than willing to cooperate to expose Tender and offers documents being used as part of his defamation case against Whitney and Tender.

But that’s the long game, which will require a trip to Accra, Ghana – Whitney’s home away from home. Till then, based on Yasmin’s recommendation, Norton is used to strike back to discredit James and his association with short traders. This paves the way for Tender 2.0’s launch, which has some hiccups and strategies that need ironing out. First and foremost, the ghost of Pierpoint being involved, as Wilhelmina finds herself having to negotiate how their name is included and the request for additional funding. This gets managed, but with Henry’s history with the company, he gets the ick.

Strangely, though, Whitney doesn’t do the same to him. He betrayed his best friend, who built the business Henry waltzed into, yet as Yasmin seems less focused on Henry’s ambitions and more on her own, Whitney finds an opening to perhaps cut the middle man, or in this case, woman. Not completely, since he wants to be on her good side, but with Whitney needing a front man who thinks he is powerful, not someone who may get too involved, Henry has to be built up. Yasmin pushing him to be front and center, allowing Whitney to operate even more from the shadows, is icing on the cake.

Yet, knowing that Yasmin can be a foe if she isn’t treated as a friend, Whitney makes the bold move of dismissing Robin and installing Yasmin as head of communications at Tender. A job that was offered to Robin as something he could share with Yasmin, but with his ego unable to bear that, off he went. Leading to the major kicker here: Hayley.

While Hayley has operated as Henry and Whitney’s shared executive assistant, clearly Yasmin has taken to her. It isn’t clear why she is so invested in her, or what Hayley’s plans are, but it does seem one is using the other. Yasmin to maybe feed the need of taking advantage of someone vulnerable, willing to give themselves over to her, and Hayley? Well, she keeps her motives too close to the chest to figure out. But, with being a child model, it seems Hayley knows adults like Yasmin oh too well, and while she is willing to be exploited as an adult, it seems she is going to get more than a paycheck out of this game.

Is This What It Is Like To Hit Rock Bottom?: Rishi, James, Ed, Mary, Elaine

Rishi and James are father, did you know that? James is the baby daddy of Elaine, with whom he had a one-night stand, and Rishi is a father via his wife. But neither has custody. James, because, well, he likely doesn’t want to, and Rishi? Well, he can’t get a job, the murder case completely destroyed what was left of his reputation, and add in his mother-in-law, Mary, wanting to punish him as the courts wouldn’t? She has custody.

For both Mary and Elaine, by the end of the episode, it seems like they may have sole and permanent custody. Why? Well, James’ interactions with Harper, with Hayley, it pushes Ed into places he doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want to seem compromised; he doesn’t want to be associated with James, who is accused of potentially assaulting Hayley and impropriety. So, he lets James go, and who better to go on a bender with than Rishi?

After all, Rishi apparently is a drug dealer now, maybe a pimp to this girl named Melanie, and he still loves to drink, do coke, to excess. But this latest bender, filled with James trying to navigate his firing and Hayley’s accusation, almost ended up his last. James overdosed on alcohol and cocaine, and Rishi? He jumps from a multi-story window to escape from the cops, maybe the trajectory of his life, but only ends up shattering his ankles, it seems. Leaving him to, once again, face the consequences of his actions and learn he maybe hasn’t truly hit rock bottom yet.

New Characters in Episode 4

Edward Burgess (David Wilmot)

• Character Summary: Edward is the editor of FinDigest known for loving to take down the powerful.

Mary Smith (Melissa Knatchbull)

• Character Summary: Mary Smith is Rishi’s mother-in-law, who has custody of his son, Hugo.

Elaine (Amy-Leigh Hickman)

• Character Summary: Elaine is the mother of James’ child.

Robin Williamson (Jonjo O’Neill)

• Character Summary: Robin is the head of communications at Tender, who likes to proceed in a traditional way, with press releases and the least risky method of getting information to the public.

Melanie Dover (Elizabeth Collins)

• Character Summary: Melanie is potentially a sex worker, or someone Rishi has working with him when he deals drugs for strength in numbers.

Collected Quote(s)

• People only open up if the incentive outweighs their incentive to stay silent — Sweetpea
• Any anger I feel towards you is dwarfed by the scale of my faith in God. — Mary
• It’s on us, man. We’ve built an interface with the world which gives us what we want, but not what we want to want. — Jim

Question(s) Left Unanswered & Predictions

• Did Yasmin make sure a picture of Eric, not Harper, ended up in the paper, so that he would be discredited and she protected?

Review and Commentary

Highlights

The Dialog and Word Choices [82/100]

Weird highlight, I’m sure, but can I say that, beyond the financial terminology which fills the show, and honestly flies over my head, I appreciate the vocabulary of many of the characters. Henry’s speech using “intransigent,” James using “prurient” while high and drunk, and then some of the lines quoted above, really push you to see Down and Kay have really hit their stride.

The wordplay doesn’t feel like it is meant to show off but be true to the characters, and show that they didn’t get as far as they did purely by luck or were just ushered in. Henry may have failed his way up, but you can’t deny the environment, education, and opportunities he has had. James might be dead, though likely just experiencing a recoverable overdose, but he doesn’t end up in publications like FinDigest, with bosses like Ed lauding him, because it serves the plot.

Without deep diving into anyone’s background, we get a sense that they earn their way into being worthy of focus.

Yasmin Avoiding Living In Henry’s Shadow [83/100]

What you can never say about Yasmin is that she is lazy or ever rests on her privilege. She has always strived to make her voice heard, fit in despite often having to deal with boys’ clubs or people who lean a bit toxic, and while she may sometimes punch above her weight class, she adapts and learns quickly.

Case in point, when it comes to the communications at Tender, a lot of it can seem like she was handling Henry, living vicariously through him, but also, she is building something for herself. While she isn’t necessarily one foot in and one foot out, she refuses to be just his little wife. Yes, Whitney might be humoring her at times, but there is no denying that Yasmin has, both in terms of the merger/acquisition needed for the European license, and now the launch of the Tender App, played an essential role.

But I think the real test is going to come with Hayley being under her. Thus far, Hayley has been a bit underestimated, even by us, and I think that what she knew she couldn’t get away with under Whitney, she will press with Yasmin. Especially since Yasmin clearly likes to blur lines of what is appropriate or not. Never mind, needs so many HR classes for she is carrying PierPoint mentality into a far more structured role.

However, as shown by Yasmin’s past experiences, she doesn’t take being threatened well. Also, considering Hayley seems to have a grasp that maybe it was Yasmin using Henry’s penis to have sex with her, I would assume she may tease, but she won’t act stupid.

Harper/Sweetpea x Hayley/Yasmin [84/100]

One thing that is going to be really interesting going forward is watching and comparing Harper as a boss v. Yasmin as a boss. Now, we’ve seen both in supervisory roles, including Yasmin over Venetia, in a mentorship capacity, but now they are someone’s boss. They can hire, fire, create a paved road to success, or be hellacious.

Both have stumbled a bit, since Harper has a sexual relationship with Kawbena, and Yamsin had a threesome with Hayley. But, with Yasmin bringing Hayley closer, or rather, Whitney assigning Yasmin to her, and Harper putting immense trust into Sweetpea, now we’re going to see if they will do better or worse than what was done to them.

Harper, for example, has Eric. Their back and forth is legendary, and at this point, Sweetpea hasn’t experienced that kind of betrayal from Harper. If anything, she is trusted, has some of her sympathy, but I wouldn’t say Harper looks down at her. She likes that she is scrappy and underestimated; it makes them similar enough to appreciate one another. Add in Harper’s investment being so good, and Sweetpea has followed Harper to multiple jobs now; things seem good there.

With Yasmin, though, as noted in the last topic, things are complicated. Yes, Yasmin is invested beyond the sex, but there is a need to question if she wanted to personally invest in Hayley. Her mention to Whitney that Hayley could do more didn’t sound like she was volunteering. If anything, I think she wanted to remove the power imbalance, or maybe reward Hayley for pleasure.

Either way, it is going to be a highlight, to me, for the season, seeing Yasmin and Harper reach this point of their careers when they are decision makers, the boss, and start to mentor and mold the next generation. It will truly show who these two are, and I’m looking forward to the highs, lows, lawsuits, trips to HR, and more.

Whitney’s Long Game [81.5/100]

Whitney has to go down, right? Yes, he does have the vibe of a male Harper, someone who came from nothing and backstabbed his way to a comfortable position, but he is also the lead of this season’s company. Someone whose ambitions are clearly beyond what’s legal and ethical, and he has to be humbled. The only question is how and what is going on in Accra, and will it be his Achilles heel?

On The Fence

Did Rishi Really Earn This Kind Of Rock Bottom [74/100]

We’re not going to act as we have selective memory and disregard everything Rishi did up till his downfall in season 3. He was a bully, an ass, an addict, and made a lot of people’s lives hell because he thought he might be untouchable.

With that said, did he deserve such a hard fall from grace? His wife gets murdered before his eyes, he gets a massive amount of blame and probably accused of trying to kill her for her wealth, and he loses his son. Add in that he loses his job at Pierpoint, can’t work anything that isn’t sketchy, and while it leaves you to realize how bad things could get for anyone, why Rishi? Never mind, can he, or will he get, the option for redemption?

Overall

Our Overall Rating [80/100]

Time is shown to not only have passed from season to season, but the positions we find our leads in. No longer kids trying to earn their spot, prove themselves to the world, they are decision makers, supervisors, and working their way through this new role. But how many familiar patterns may have new characters play them out is worth asking. That and, with Industry finding a formula or rhythm that works for it, does that mean it won’t push itself further?

What To Check Out Next

Visit our main TV shows page! There you’ll find other shows we’ve covered, or look below for more of our coverage for this series:

• 

  Industry: Season 4 Episode 5 – Recap and Review

  As Industry focuses on the staff of SternTao, personal issues spill over in the pursuit of taking Tender down for profit.

• 

  Industry: Season 4 Episode 3 – Recap and Review

  Can Eric and Harper really make it work between them, and as much as Yasmin is an asset, can she also be Henry’s downfall?

• 

  Industry: Season 4 Episode 2 – Recap and Review

  Things shift in focus to Henry and Yasmin’s relationship, and so comes the question: can they get you to care about two characters known to be fodder for others?

TV Shows We’re Covering This Season