In some ways, Harper represents the fantasy of the American dream: that, with hard work, you can be whoever you want to be and drastically reinvent yourself. But she’s coming up against the reality of British society, which is basically “Know your place and stay there.” Myha’la agrees, though Harper wouldn’t see it that way. “She’d be like, ‘Fuck that, bro. You say I can’t do it? Watch me.’” Still, Myha’la thinks that classism can be a “veil” that is used to disguise other prejudices. “I personally think that the project of whiteness is working very hard to say, ‘No, it’s all about class!’ to avoid saying that it has anything to do with race,” she explains. “Class and race are intrinsically linked; they just are.”
This was explored in “White Mischief,” a heart-pumping episode from last season which followed chauvinistic city trader Rishi Ramdani (played by Sagar Radia). The crux of the episode was Rishi realising that, no matter how many tweed jackets he wore or how much money he made, the white people in the rural village he had moved to were never going to accept him — a fact they communicated in a very British, barely-spoken way. “Obviously,” Myha’la says, “there’s poor white people and rich people of colour, but you can’t say it’s all about class.”
On Yasmin:
At the start of season three, we saw Yasmin on a downward spiral. Her wealthy publishing magnate father had mysteriously disappeared amid an embezzlement and sexual harassment scandal, and the paparazzi had begun stalking her every move. Floundering, she found herself in a love triangle with Rob — a banker from a northern, working-class background, who arrived at Pierpoint & Co. naively thinking it would be a meritocracy — and Henry, the living embodiment of privilege. In the end, when she agreed to marry Henry, she was reunited with her one true love: status.
In season four, Yasmin (or Lady Muck, as she is now formally known) is finding her feet in Henry’s world, where everyone has a function. “Yasmin grew up with money, but she did not grow up in the aristocracy,” Abela says. “She’s playing the good wife — and she would fucking love it if Henry would just let her play that role a little bit better.” As she learns to wield the power of her new last name, she even engages in what I’d call rural drag, dressing in dowdy knits and country clothes. In fact, Yasmin’s trajectory can be best summed up by two costumes: last season, as she hid from the paparazzi hiding outside her home, we saw her dressed as Princess Diana — a de-throned royal who was also hounded by the press. And this time? She’s Marie Antoinette. Go figure.
When Industry premiered in 2020, it was one of the least-watched shows in HBO history. But now, having grown in scale and ambition and returning for its exceptional fourth season on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, Industry is more self-assured, more stylish, and more powerful than ever before.
