Industry 4x05 Review: Tender Secrets, Shocking Attacks & Emotional Breakdowns

Episode 5 of Industry was absolutely insane (as per usual)! We got to see the depth of the Tender cover-up, some more focus on Sweetpea & Kwabena, Harper and Eric confronting their demons (a little), and a big push as we inch closer to the end of Season 4. 

We open the episode with Eric in a car arguing with his ex-wife about one of their children causing trouble and school. She tells him that he’s absent in the girl’s lives and he gives them everything they want but not what they need. You can see this struck a chord with Eric because he’s slowly realizing how much his career and the way he views people is tied into his emotions to the job. He talks deeply with Harper and sees relationships and people as transactional. It was truly sad to see that realization in his eyes and he knows how bad what he’s saying is, but even with that, you can tell there’s some care there. He even decides that he doesn’t want to talk to the escort he’s been seeing after this. Towards the end of the episode, we think that he is finally turning over a somewhat new leaf and wants to be better; but, of course, Eric winds up meeting with the escort and hooking up with her. 

Tying into Eric’s story, we have Harper struggling with something similar. We find out a little before the midway point of the episode that her brother called to let her know that her mom passed away. Even though we’ve never seen Harper’s mom on our screens, we have a pretty clear view of who she is and how she acts based on Harper and her brother’s conversations about their mom and how she tore their relationship apart with her toxicity. In Harper’s convo with Eric, she confesses that she really doesn’t know how to feel about her mom’s death. Obviously, we can tell she is a bit shocked and she also is grieving in her own way. But it’s clear that those emotions regarding that relationship are very traumatic and heavy for Harper to deal with. It was nice to see this side of her and to finally get some more context about her life and what helped her to become who she is today. 

On top of this, SternTao is really going through it at the moment. Due to the lack of momentum the venture is making, Kenny calls and lets them know that they will start liquifying all of the assets SternTao has if they’re unable to build and grow in their company and secure some more interest, equity, and investments into their business. This obviously has every single character going through it for different reasons: Harper and Eric are scared to see it go under and they take it out on each other a little bit, Sweetpea is even more amped up to expose Tender so that the info’s out there and it’ll bring more people over to them, and Kwabena is upset about his stocks being liquidated. 

Speaking of Kwabena and Sweetpea, we have a majority focus on them this week. I honestly think that this was the perfect move story wise to progress the Tender plot further and push us into the trip with them to see how things will go. They’re able to nail down the alleged CEO at Tender in Accra, but he seems privy of something they don’t know and/or he suspects that Sweetpea and Kwabena are trying to get info out of him. He then calls Sweetpea to confront her about the lies and he tells her the beach that they’re at it’s dangerous at night. Well of course, in true industry fashion, that means that something terrible is about to happen.

Sweetpea ends up getting attacked and almost assaulted in the bathroom at the beach.  That scene was really hard to watch and I felt so bad for Sweetpea, especially after everything that happened with her getting exposed for the sex work she did. This leads to some conversations with Kwabena that are a little “chem-testy” and they wind up hooking up while on the trip. I wasn’t terribly surprised by this move, but I definitely did see the chemistry between them even if it becomes nothing. 

Overall, a very strong but slower paced episode this week. I’m curious to see how the Tender exposé is going to go and who is going to be in the line of fire when they’re taken down (hopefully). I would give this episode a 4.5/5.

What did you think?

Change Image

• Loved it
• Hated it
• So/So