The episode sets the stage for a huge shocker at Henry’s birthday party. After taking a dab of LSD and making a fool of himself at his very formal event, Henry is gobsmacked to see an old friend has arrived. He blows off the rest of his guests to go on a pub crawl with the guy, who apparently is the only guest Henry’s actually excited to see. However, after brutally attacking a man at the pub and speaking with a priest who presided over his dad’s funeral, Henry comes to realize that his drinking buddy is none other than a hallucination of his dead dad. “I could do with never seeing you again,” Henry tells his imaginary pops right before the commander shows him marks on his neck made by the rope he used to hang himself.
“He’s never gotten past it,” Harington says of his character’s trauma. “We learned from the previous season that he has suicidal ideation, but I think this is the moment in his life for him to deal with it. He’s the same age as his father. He’s going through this, essentially his lowest ebb, his breaking point. And it’s around his 40th birthday when his father killed himself. There’s something about being the same age as your parent when something happened, or being the same age as your parent when they died, which is a huge thing for anyone, but especially if that parent [died by] suicide. And I think it goes a long way to explaining who he is to us. I think it’s a very emotional thing when you get a chance to do that, like in the film ‘All of Us Strangers,’ when you see someone meet their parent at their same age. It’s a kind of mind f—k for all of us, but an amazing thing.”
As he’s trying to kill himself with carbon monoxide in the garage, he hears Yasmin’s voice in his head and it makes him come to. He narrowly escapes the attempt, but when he does, it’s as if a veil has lifted. He hops in his car and races to find his wife. He tells her he’ll take the job with Whitney, “if it’s what’s best for us.” But not before they have sex on top of his car, outside, with Uncle Alex watching on in approval. (A weird moment for any other show, but par for the course for “Industry.”)
Is their marriage real, true love? Is there hope for Yas and Henry after all? According to Abela, it’s a “marriage of convenience,” albeit, one with some serious chemistry.
“I don’t think she’s truly in love with Henry in a way that an audience wants to understand,” she says. “I think people understand that it’s a marriage of convenience. I think that they really get on, and I do think that you see that. I think that Kit [Harington] and I found a really great way of exploring a partnership that is built on, yes, some chemistry, but not dynamic, intense, incredible, all-consuming, kind, wonderful love. It’s obviously not that, but at the same time, she is still there. She is still trying. She is still caring for him when he’s down and out. The truth is if she just wanted an easy, privileged life with lots of money, it would be better for her if he died. If he drank himself into oblivion. She’s his wife, she would get everything, [but] she wants him to get better. She wants a life with Henry.”
Thoughts on this week’s big Henry spotlight on “Industry”? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!