The entirety of the 2nd episode of the 4th season of HBO’s finance thriller drama show Industry plays out like a prolonged essay on the decadence of the British aristocracy, with an excess of drugs and sexual exploits at its core. After having introduced us to new characters like James Dycker and an entirely new company in the form of Tender back in the season premiere last week, the series completely shifts its focus to the even more controversial Sir Henry Muck, his new wife, Yasmin Kara-Hanani, and his billionaire media tycoon uncle, Viscount Alexander Norton. There are, of course, overlaps between the two starkly different worlds in Industry season 4 episode 2, as characters like Harper Stern and Whitney Halberstram visit the estate to join the grand party celebrating Henry Muck’s 40th birthday, but it mostly focuses on developments in Henry and Yasmin’s lives.
Spoiler Alert
What is the reason behind Henry Muck’s erratic behavior?
Industry season 4 episode 2 begins a few days before the events of the first episode, at a public event where the results of the general by-election are being announced. We are specifically in the constituency of Wakefield, where a couple of familiar faces are seen among the hopeful candidates. First is, of course, Jennifer Bevan (whom we met in the previous episode as the young new MP), representing the Labour Party, while the other is slightly more unexpected, as it happens to be Sir Henry Muck, who has been representing the Conservative Party. Yasmin is naturally in attendance to support her husband’s campaign, and it almost seems like the couple is expecting an easy win. As revealed later, Wakefield has been voting Conservative for decades now, with Henry’s uncle, Viscount Alexander Norton, and the latter’s close friend, Otto Mostyn, having been heavily involved in the region’s political scene as well.
Henry seems to have banked on this overwhelming support for the Conservative Party, and also relied on the influence of his uncle and his associates, hoping to become a MP just for the benefits that the role brings, without any serious interest in public service. In fact, he had already been an MP for 6 months, and now only needed to win the by-election to stay in the position. But things do not go to plan, as he is announced to have secured the second-highest number of votes, with the most going to the promising Jennifer Bevan, meaning that she becomes the new member of parliament from Wakefield. Henry Muck, on the other hand, becomes the first candidate in almost a generation to make the Conservative Party lose at Wakefield. Although we do not see him face any serious repercussions from the party because of this loss, definitely because of his aristocratic roots, Henry is internally bogged down by this failure, and this becomes one of the primary reasons for his crippling depression.
Despite Yasmin’s best efforts to encourage him to get up and do something, to fight back against the desire to simply give up on everything, Henry goes down a spiral of apathy and self-doubt. Some of it actually appears to be enforced, though, as it is difficult to completely figure out a character like Henry Muck, who has often done things or been in self-created adverse situations in the past simply because he has wanted to experience how they feel. Similarly, his act of spending days at a stretch in his bed and heavily using alcohol and drugs to deal with his emotional pain does sometimes appear to be slightly exaggerated. This also gives him a chance to grow detached from Yasmin and totally avoid any acts of intimacy with his wife, for he also seemingly has doubts over her loyalty, even though she has not done anything wrong. Either way, Henry simply cannot perform, or has no interest whenever Yasmin tries to get close to him.
Something more significant that pushes Henry Muck to a worse mental state happens on the morning of his 40th birthday, when Yasmin gifts him an expensive watch. The watch is not a new one, though, as she admits to having found it in the house of Henry’s father and had it repaired, as she believed it would be a precious present for him. But Henry is evidently upset at seeing the watch and the inscription ‘RM’ on its back, which makes him act even more erratically. He has a drug-fueled rampage in the house, playing a decorative piano in just his robes, which was incidentally the only scene of the man in the previous episode. Since a part of the estate is opened up to visitors, a group of school children are guided through the house at this very time, and Henry has a meltdown in front of them, which might actually cause public controversy.
Although the situation is brought under control by the guide, who immediately takes the children away from the spot, Henry’s condition only worsens. He becomes more reliant on the antidepressants that he has been taking, along with snorting more cocaine and taking other drugs. This soon makes him have a disgraceful episode at his birthday party that evening as well, as Henry forcefully plants a kiss on Jennifer Bevan, enraged and embarrassed at her having been invited to his party. It is revealed much later in the episode that Henry Muck is actually distressed about a very personal matter, for his father had committed suicide on the morning of his 40th birthday. While the memory of having seen his father take his own life had already been haunting him, Yasmin innocently gifting him his father’s watch did not help the situation, and he got even more drawn into the thought, and the fear, of his internal demons and the uncontrollable desire to end his failure of a life, as he considers it.
Why does Whitney Halberstram attend the party?
Unlike the other guests at the grand birthday celebrations, Whitney Halberstram actually arrives at the estate at noon, many hours before the party, solely in order to discuss certain things with Henry Muck. It was already revealed in the previous episode that the Tender CFO had established communications with Yasmin and had managed to grow close to the aristocratic family in order to gain some benefit from them. As he meets Henry in this episode, Whitney leaves no stone unturned in trying to impress the man, starting with the claim that he had not lost the election because of any fault of his own. After all, Henry had had quite a high approval rating and was believed to be doing quite well, but things supposedly went wrong for him when the prime minister announced an early election and his chances were ruined.
In spite of Henry’s self-deprecating statements about how he is a fraud only pretending to be successful in politics and life, Whitney keeps claiming there are still many more opportunities left for him to turn the narrative around. The businessman does not waste a moment to state that Henry is actually a successful individual who believes himself to be a fraud, clearly sucking up to the aristocrat for his own reasons. As he reveals later during the party, Whitney wants Henry Muck to be a board member at Tender, where he had initially been offering a small part-time non-executive role to the man. However, now with the old CEO, Jonah Atterbury, out of the way, Whitney seems to be prepared to even make Henry the new CEO of the company.
The reason for him being so desperate to bring Henry on board is also quite clear, as he himself admits that the only way to assure a company’s longevity in the British market is to have access to people belonging to every stratum of society, starting from the working class to the very top of the aristocracy. Through his short experience as a politician and public servant, his uncle’s influence as the owner of a tabloid media house, and him directly belonging to one of the most renowned families in the country, Sir Henry has access to every stratum of society indeed. Therefore, he would be a massive asset to Whitney and Tender, and so he wants Henry to partner with him at the payment processing company. It is only to court and convince Henry to join Tender that Whitney attends the party, and in turn gets to know another guest, Harper Stern, for the first time. Although they do not converse for long at the party, the introduction does become crucial in their later run-ins, as seen in episode 1.
Who is Sir Henry’s unexpected visitor?
When Sir Henry finally makes an appearance during dinner at his birthday party, he is heavily under the influence of drugs, and this is when a visitor suddenly appears beside him, and the two start to spend time by themselves. The visitor seems like a very good friend whom Henry has not met in a long time, but other characters, especially Yasmin, do not ask to be introduced to him. The two men soon leave the party and visit a local pub in the village, where they share drinks and sit down with some of the villagers. Henry’s friend does not attract any attention here either, although he should, being someone not from around the area. In some time, one of the locals talks about some nasty rumors about Yasmin, which infuriates Henry. This leads to an extreme reaction from Henry, as he beats up the man horribly, leaving him unconscious on the floor. But his friend does not join in the action or even try to stop him, and the reason behind his unusual actions is eventually revealed. The visitor who appears to Henry is not real, but part of his imagination, and he is actually his father. Based on this revelation, it might be that all of Henry’s interactions in this case, like the fight at the pub, were not real either. The hallucination is clearly an effect of the growing depression in Henry’s mind, which is linked to his fear that he will end up like his father on his 40th birthday.
Why does Yasmin have her aunt expelled from the estate?
The only guest at the party from Yasmin’s side of the family is her aunt, Cordelia Hanani-Spryka, a public relations executive by profession. While it seems certain that Yasmin must have some reason for being in touch with her aunt, for she does not have connections with any of her other family members, the two are extremely friendly at the beginning of the party. Cordelia even shares how she has found a secret lover, much younger than her, and is absolutely loving the attention and action that she has been getting. But this friendly relation between aunt and niece does not last very long, as Yasmin stumbles upon Cordelia in a rather intimate position with Otto Mostyn, making it evident that she had actually attended the party to establish such relations with the influential men supposed to be at the place, and not for Yasmin.
Even more shocking revelations about the Hanani family are made, as Yasmin overhears Otto say something unbelievably scandalous. As she confronts her aunt about the matter, it is finally confirmed that Yasmin’s father, Charles Hanani, and his sister, Cordelia, had actually indulged in sexual relations numerous times. In order to avoid difficult questions about the matter, Cordelia had avoided attending the funeral of Charles, choosing to ignore the family in a time of mourning, especially letting down Yasmin, who would have appreciated the support from her aunt.
As Yasmin now orders all of Cordelia’s bags to be hauled out of her house, in an effort to expel her from the place, Cordelia only talks about how her brother did not abide by societal norms. Furious at being forced to leave the estate in the middle of the night in such an embarrassing manner, Cordelia drops another bomb, stating that Charles had decided to let his wife give birth only after learning that the baby was a girl, suggesting that the vile man might have planned on grooming his own daughter into sleeping with him someday. While the claim might be just a vengeful statement by Cordelia, an uneasiness with regard to how Charles conducted himself around Yasmin was indeed felt in the previous seasons.
How does Henry recover from his depression?
After going through extensive hallucinations of his dead father, Henry Muck finds it all the more difficult to live with his suicidal thoughts and finally decides to end his life on the very night of his 40th birthday. Walking into the garage alone, he shuts off all the vents and then sits inside his favorite car, turning on the ignition and waiting for the exhaust fumes to engulf the entire garage. Henry is almost successful in killing himself and seems to lose consciousness for some time as well before a voice calls out his name and immediately pulls him out of his depression-stricken daze. Interestingly, the voice is that of Yasmin, and it is totally imaginary, for she is nowhere close to the garage at the time.
To Henry, this is like a divine sign that he needs to start paying more attention to his wife’s advice and follow her suggestions. Perhaps Henry hearing Yasmin’s voice in the most vulnerable of times is indicative of how he genuinely loves her but has been avoiding her in recent times because of his struggles with depression. But once he pulls himself back from the clutches of death and runs out of the garage, Henry Muck is a different man, driven by purpose and his love for Yasmin. He drives the car back to the house, calls out to his dear wife, and immediately makes love to her to make up for all the times he had let her down. Finally, at the end of Industry season 4 episode 2, Henry also tells Yasmin that he wants them to start trying to have a child together, which is exactly what the aristocratic Alexander Norton, and even seemingly Yasmin herself, has always wanted since their marriage.
