Blimey, where to start? Industry doesn't often indulge in episodes like "The Commander and the Grey Lady," often too firmly rooted in the grim corners of reality to entertain visions and metaphors. On that level, Season 4 makes a bold choice to deliver an hour like this so early. But the absurd aristocratic life of Henry Muck seems like a fitting excuse for this kind of playfulness, even though, to be clear, Episode 2 is exceptionally grim and, aside from formally, there's very little about it that could truly be considered "playful." Buckle up – that's all I'm saying.
After the premiere neglected Yas, it's nice to see her present circumstances get a proper examination. Marisa Abela and Kit Harrington are both superb here, which is worth mentioning right away rather than constantly repeating, though I'll return to this subject briefly later when we discuss an argument between the two filmed with dizzying finesse. But although it's Yas who's the legacy character, it's really Henry who gets the bulk of the focus, with his 40th birthday party forcing him to reckon with the death of his father and his current suicidal ideation and sense of purposelessness.
When we briefly glimpsed Henry in the premiere, he was crushing pills with a boot heel on top of a grand piano, and we eventually return to that moment here. But "The Commander and the Grey Lady" also gives him some establishing context for how he got there. In short, Henry was running as the Conservative MP for Wakefield and almost nabbed the seat but was pipped by Labour’s Jennifer Bevan. He took the loss badly, resorting to drugs and isolation and leaving Yasmin to run a sexless household while wondering why she bothered marrying him in the first place. Side note: Is anyone else noticing Yas affecting a posher accent around the household staff?
Anyway, Henry's 40th birthday is coming up, and it's a date with special significance for him, as we'll see later. Yas is trying to get him up and out of bed to keep up appearances, since the guest list includes a lot of swanky clientele, including Jenni Bevan and Whitney, the latter of whom has a proposition.
As if Henry's troubles weren't already deep enough, Yasmin's gift to him sent him into a tailspin. She found a wristwatch in his father's credenza and had it serviced, which would seem like a nice gesture, but Henry is particularly sensitive about his father. He retreats even further into drugs, can't get it up for Yasmin when she tries to get him going, and is too skeptical of Whitney's offer for him to become Tender CEO to treat it with any seriousness.
The more depressed Henry becomes, and the more drugs he takes, the more the world around him becomes a quasi-psychedelic dream, an effect exacerbated by the extravagant costuming. When Yas finds him upstairs, undressed and snorting blow, she goes ballistic. It'd be fair if both actors won something for this scene. Either way, it doesn't have the desired effect on Henry, who pops some acid – surely the worst drug to have in this context – and makes a terrible fool of himself, swaggering into the party like Jack Sparrow and forcing a kiss on Jennifer Bevan in front of everyone.
Luckily, someone Henry knows turns up rather suddenly and unexpectedly and, with a bit of a homoerotic contour, leads him off to a local pub for drinks, leaving Yas – once again – to handle the party. And, predictably, this doesn't go especially well.
To be fair to Yas, most of the attendees seem to have a pretty nice time. She and Harper sneak upstairs to have a few lines and end up falling out a bit, but Harper consoles herself by learning a bit more about Whitney, who, it turns out, grew up poor and found initial success with a cremation-only funeral business, capitalizing on the general sense of antipathy people have for their loved ones. He's a lovely chap.
No, Yas's real problem comes from her own family – her aunt on her father's side, who is dating a younger man and is full of seemingly sage advice for Yasmin about getting out of the marriage with Henry as soon as possible, rather than spending the rest of her life as a glorified employee. But Yas later sees her aunt giving one of the guests a blowjob, leading to an argument and a few more uncomfortable revelations about Charlie.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting this conversation, but I'm pretty sure the implication of the "Bohemian childhood" line is that Charlie was sexually intimate with his own sister or at the very least that she was aware of – and perhaps enabled – his sexual peccadilloes. "Peccadilloes" in this context means "underage girls." As a final parting shot, Yas's aunt tells her that he planned to terminate her but decided against it when he learned she was a girl. I think we all know what the implications of that particular barb are.
As Henry spends more time with "The Commander," the identity of whom becomes clearly a vision of his father at the age he was when he took his own life, the title of Industry Season 4, Episode 2 becomes more evident. The character's words about Henry's relationship with his father are deliberately ambiguous, flirty, and sinister, fitting the archetype of the "devil on the shoulder" who urges Henry to drink more, cavort with the household help, and eventually viciously attack a man named George for his uncouth remarks about Yasmin.
Henry is convinced that he's going to die, as his father committed suicide, and the vision seems to compel him to do the same. He shows Henry the lingering injuries from the hanging and tells him they'll see each other again soon. Believing this to be his inevitable destiny, Henry gets into his classic convertible and leaves the engine running in an effort to take his own life. As he passes out, he has a flashback to his childhood, to his father on the morning of his 40th birthday, telling him to shine his shoes and walking to a large tree outside with a length of rope slung over his shoulder.
But the consoling words of the Irish priest who buried his father and Yasmin play through Henry's mind, and he snaps awake and bursts out of the garage. He races the car to Yasmin, and they make friends on the bonnet while Alexander watches excitedly from the window. Henry tells Yas about his father's suicide, and she points out that he has beaten it. She also kisses his bloody hand, getting blood on her lips and teeth, which is surely a metaphor for something or other.
Henry's determination to become the Tender CEO remains unchanged. He even suggests they consider having a child. The scene is filled with tension and emotion, as Henry struggles with his past and the influence of "The Commander," ultimately finding renewed strength in the words of those who care for him.
