Industry Season 4 Episode 2, ‘The Commander and the Grey Lady’, sees Henry (Kit Harington) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) trading barbs about the “proletariat” while dressed like the bourgeoisie – one of many signs that the Mucks’ honeymoon period is well and truly over.
There’s almost too much TV to watch this month: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Pitt Season 2, His & Hers, Tell Me Lies Season 3, and that’s before we get to the triumphant return of everyone’s favorite dysfunctional city slickers in Industry.
Season 4 Episode 1 sees Harper (Myha’la) plotting a new fund with Eric (Ken Leung), while newcomer Whitney (Max Minghella) shakes things up with his fintech company Tender. Later, Yas hosts a party where she connects Whitney with the right people.
She indicates that Henry might be working for Tender soon, but why wasn’t her husband there to say this himself? Yas puts it down to a “little cold,” but as we learn in the new episode, it was a little lie to cover up a big problem. Warning: spoilers ahead!
What does proletariat mean?
Proletariat is a term from Marxist theory used to describe the working class – people who do not own capital or property and must sell their labor to survive. It’s often contrasted with the bourgeoisie, who control wealth, resources, and economic power.
In Industry Season 4 Episode 2, the word comes up as Henry and Yasmin argue at the Mucks’ stately home. They are both dressed up as 18th century royalty for Henry’s 40th birthday party, making the timing rather ironic.
Earlier on, Henry ran for Tory MP in the constituency of Wakefield, only to lose out to Labour MP Jennifer Bevan (Amy James-Kelly). This sends him into a drug-fuelled depression, one Yasmin has been trying to drag him out of.
She invites Whitney to the party, who offers Henry a CEO position at Tender. But Yas later finds him hiding in their bedroom snorting pills in a state of undress, at which point she explodes.
“You need me to dress you now? You’re not enough of a f**king infant,” she says, to which Henry replies, “Yeah, and engineering meetings for me,” suggesting he’s frustrated that she set up the offer from Whitney.
Yas pleads with him, saying that Whitney admires his talent, but Henry asks, “What f**king talent? Tell me, why did we buy that shed in Wakefield if you didn’t vote for me?”
“Oh, grow up. I’ve never voted. What difference would my vote make?” she spits, leading Henry to clap back, “What, for the proletariat? Oh I’m sorry, too close to home?”
Yas asks what that’s supposed to mean, and he responds, “It means, my circumstances are fixed. They’re f**king cast iron. There’s only one consequential thing I can do with my life.”
She then accuses Henry of treating suicide like poetry and insisting that his death would be “procedural… boring.” Ultimately, she’s shutting down the fantasy he’s building around oblivion.
Henry initially uses “proletariat” as a sarcastic jab at Yas’s political apathy, before repurposing the language of powerlessness to frame his own fate as inescapable, a move Yas angrily rejects when she accuses him of romanticizing suicide.
What’s wrong with Henry?
Henry is clearly suffering from depression and unresolved trauma, particularly around his father’s suicide, yet his pain appears to be tangled up with extreme privilege, emotional underdevelopment, a fragile ego, and copious drug use.
This is made clearer in Industry Season 4 Episode 2 when he’s able to bounce back at the drop of a hat, demonstrating how much easier it is to fight battles when you have endless resources at your disposal.
After losing the Wakefield MP race, Henry becomes joyless, using drugs and lacking libido, which causes frustration for Yas. She tries to coax him back to life alongside his uncle, Lord Norton (Andrew Havill).
Norton tells Henry he doesn’t need to be “uxorious” – a word meaning excessively devoted or submissive to one’s wife – but he at least needs to stop being callous or else he’ll end up losing her.
Henry repeatedly returns to his father’s suicide, which we discover happened on the morning of his 40th birthday. As he approaches this same milestone, it seems he considers himself destined for the same fate, which Yas considers self indulgent.
Especially since Henry refuses to take medication to treat his depression, instead using all sorts of illegal substances, which is no doubt making his mental state worse.
At the same time, his ego is astonishingly fragile. Any setback sends him spiralling, and yet the tiniest bit of validation can restore him instantly.
His sense of entitlement becomes clear on the night of his birthday party, when he makes a scene at the dinner Yas has organized for him before heading to the pub with an old friend. While there, he viciously attacks a local, nearly beating him to death.
Even in the aftermath, he’s not worried about real consequences. The Mucks own the pub and the land they’re on – everyone around him will clean up his mess.
Following this, Henry heads outside, where it’s revealed that his “old friend” is actually an illusion of his late father. This realization sends him into a further spiral, and he goes to the garage, turns on the engine, and attempts to kill himself by carbon monoxide poisoning.
At the last minute, he hears Yasmin’s voice and manages to escape. Shaken but alive, Henry drives back to the main house, where he and Yas reunite (and have sex on his car bonnet).
By the end of the episode, he’s ready to accept the CEO role at Tender and even suggests they try for a baby, highlighting how quickly he’s able to snap back. Yes, he’s well again, but without having actually changed.
AU Deals: Games That Aged Brilliantly and Finally Cost What They Should