In the Tender office, a message in neon is impossible to miss: “YOUR FUTURE IS A MOUNTAIN.” It is the kind of motivational workplace decor so vague that it’s down to the reader to decide whether it is positive or negative. But ultimately, it serves as a way to sell a company’s ethos wrapped in nonsense. Nevertheless, the hamfisted slogan does reflect what Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) are trying to achieve on opposite sides of the Tender line in an episode that points to Industry’s strength at building tension as both women look to conquer a summit. Yas has zero idea that Harper is targeting Tender, and for now, Lady Muck is riding a buzz from exerting power in the bedroom and boardroom. While the sometime best friends, sadly, don’t share a single scene in “Habseligkeiten,” they are on parallel rebranding paths that involve field trips, compromise, storytelling, and using the media to aid their cause. Each woman scores victories, setting an inevitable collision.
A month has passed since Henry Muck (Kit Harington) first stepped into the Tender office as CEO. Not only does the HBO financial drama excel at forward momentum within an episode, like Henry’s disastrous birthday party, but it also gets straight to the meat of the material as the aristocrat dried out offscreen. The tone of the episode, directed by Industry first-timer Michelle Savill, is lighter than Henry’s disturbing trip down memory lane and is comparable to last season’s Swiss jaunt for the ESG conference. It is not a case of repeating material, because unlike Henry’s doomed attempt to save Lumi, confidence within the Tender group is at a high, and this trip is a formality to secure the next stage of Whitney’s (Max Minghella) grand plan.
The Mucks come as a two-for-one deal. Yasmin is now a paid comms consultant for the fintech firm, and her word holds weight with her husband, even if he finds some of her methods distasteful. Yas understands the importance of narratives and uses all tools at her disposal to get this deal over the line. She encourages Henry to reference his recent mental-health struggles in a meeting with Labour MP Jennifer Bevan (Amy James-Kelly); and she has no qualms about utilizing the Norton legacy media machine to give a “tinpot tyrant” like Moritz-Hunter Bauer (Sid Phoenix) a public platform.
Snappy observations about Moritiz come thick and fast in a script by returning Industry writer Joseph Charlton. Whitney calls him an “Alpine fuckboy with an outsized sense of his own relevance and recourse,” and later, Henry is blunter: “No, no, no, he’s a fucking fascist.” These comments double as proof that Yas is necessary: Whitney is too American to bow down to European royalty, and Henry is too blue-blooded to do the same. Coming from new money means Yas is pliable. She knows that to win over Moritz’s heart, she needs to appease his ego, no matter how anti-Semitic his views are.
While Henry and Whitney can’t help but snicker at Moritz’s choice political hero (King Louis XIV, a.k.a. The Sun King), Yas works her charms. (“I read your Substack.”) Yas will go far because she knows how to manipulate powerful men and get their mothers on board. All it takes for the Bauers to stop agitating is a column in the opinion page of a British legacy newspaper. “The case for a benevolent dictatorship” reads the headline.
Wielding the national press is a recurring motif in “Habseligkeiten.” In the meeting with the government regulator, a newspaper suggesting Jenny is “Labour’s Next Leader in Waiting” speaks volumes. It also proves her trip to Muck Manor for Henry’s party was worthwhile. On the other end of the scale, Jim Dyker’s (Charlie Heaton) Tender exposé is gutted by the FinDigest legal department. He has to choose between killing the investigative piece and publishing a watered-down version. The story isn’t entirely dead in the water, as Jim mentions a source he is trying to land, but the online publication doesn’t have the budget to send him to Accra. The latter is an important detail, as it speaks to the extent of the Norton group’s power over newer publications like FinDigest. Whereas creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay got their start in finance, Charlton (who wrote this episode) began his career as a journalist, adding authenticity to this depiction of the U.K. press.
There is no splashy headline against Tender or an instant drop in share prices. But while the pacing of these episodes is fast, Harper takes great pains to mention how it is going to take “labor and sweat and turning stones and fucking time” to pull back the curtain on the overvalued company. It is not a one-episode-and-done setup. Instead, Harper and Eric (Ken Leung) are getting the team together for a somewhat muted start at SternTao, running out of a fancy hotel suite doubling as Eric’s temporary abode. The blurring between professional and personal is impossible to avoid in this setting, whether it is Eric’s daughter stopping by for lunch or the sound of a flushing toilet during Harper’s meeting with Sweetpea (Miriam Petche), with Eric casually moving from his private space to the communal area.
Teething problems are expected, but they end the week with more transparent communication, even if Harper still holds Eric at a distance. Eric’s ability to speak to Harper’s ambition is part of his storytelling skill set, using phrases like anti-status quo, anti-establishment, and anti-power. If it were any other duo in this series, this would be foreplay leading to a scene like the one in Yas and Henry’s Austrian castle bedroom. However, the only heated undressing Harper and Eric engage in is verbal.
Despite all this history, it is notable how little Eric knows about his protégé-turned-partner. Until this week, he didn’t even know she had any siblings, let alone a twin. Not even $10 million is enough for Harper to agree to Eric’s getting-to-know-you terms. Wearing a bathrobe in the workspace is fine, but Harper draws the line at sharing personal details. “Habseligkeiten” is another opportunity for Leung and Myha’la to dig into what drives their characters and highlight how this relationship has evolved. Later, Sweetpea mentions Harper’s tendency to leave companies; in the past, an argument like the one with Eric would have ended in another walkout. Now, Harper even lets Eric’s second “sounds like you’re a little triggered” comment slide with a flash of a teasing smile, showing growth.
The strongest reaction comes when Sweetpea and Rishi’s (Sagar Radia) paths cross. Last season, Rishi taunted Sweetpea about her racy online content, but this is about more than this violation. “I have read every single detail,” she spits at Rishi. So far, this is the closest we have got to hearing more about the aftermath of his wife’s violent death, and Rishi doesn’t take kindly to being called a murderer. Of the two ex-Pierpoint employees, Sweetpea shows her value in the amount of digging into Tender she has already done without an envelope of cash as an incentive, earning a spot on the road trip to Sunderland with Harper. Here, the duo uncover part of Tender’s dubious operation, and it is exhilarating.
There is zero gameplay between Harper and Sweetpea; they are both upfront about expectations. Support in the cutthroat financial sector is hardly forthcoming or part of a scheme, but everything Harper tells Sweetpea comes from a genuine place; it is incredibly refreshing without leaning into girlboss platitudes. Harper emphatically tells Sweetpea that the Siren leak is not her fault (“You did something for you, and some asshole made it not for you”) and that she will never put Sweetpea in a room with Rishi again.
A murkier power dynamic is taking shape at Tender between Yas and Hayley (Kiernan Shipka). At no point does Hayley do anything without giving her consent, but the boss-employee line is crossed in Austria. Yas is at risk of treading a similar path as her father and repeating cycles of abuse. There is something insidious about Hayley sharing a secret and then Yas referencing that conversation while instructing Hayley and Henry as sexual playthings. Much of this sex scene shows Yasmin giving orders, emphasized by Hayley’s upside-down POV of a smoking Yas calling the shots. The quick cut from Yas about to go down on Hayley to her slurping an oyster at breakfast is purposeful on-the-nose symbolism (followed by Yasmin’s belch), highlighting the transactions taking place.
The reality of the situation comes to a head at the end of the episode, when Henry tells Yasmin that the bedroom antics felt like “enabler behavior.” To this, Yas invites Hayley for round two, which Henry quickly puts a stop to. Henry’s struggle to reconcile this version of Yas in command, and her enjoyment in this role, means that of the many mountains to come, a happily married future might be the steepest challenge.
Stray observations
- • Last week, it was Turner; this week’s art reference comes from none other than Adolf Hitler. The painting that makes Yasmin’s jaw drop is based on an original by Hitler. It confirms that this Austrian family still takes pride in their connection to the Third Reich. Princess Johanna (Susanne Wuest) tells Yas that this room is her favorite in the castle as it is full of their “Habseligkeiten.” The episode takes its name from this German word meaning “possessions closest to your soul.”
- • “Who, what, or where is Sunderland?” asks Harper. Eric says it sounds cold. For those not in the know, Sunderland is in the North East of England, and Eric is spot on. (Charlton, who wrote this episode, is from this region.)
- • Harper is back wearing the gray tailored suit from the premiere (this time switching the skirt for pants). This ensemble doubles as armor, and the rewear is notable for showing how Harper and Yas operate, since Yas is not one to repeat a look for an important meeting—or ever. Harper’s upbringing means she isn’t going to spend all this money on a fancy suit only to wear it once.
- • Eric is nervous about seeing Kenny (Conor MacNeill), but I am thrilled about this return. The last time Eric saw Kenny was in the third-season premiere, when a hungover Eric fired him. Since then, Kenny has moved from Goldman to Deutsche, and he bears no bad feelings toward Eric. “Well, it’s not the worst thing anyone’s ever done,” says Kenny. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
- • “Support scaffold for delusions of his own grandeur,” says Henry about Moritz. He then jokes that this is the working title for his biography. Only Yas laughs at Henry’s mid-joke, showing just how supportive she is in the boardroom.
Emma Fraser is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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