Kit Harington has stared down a charging cavalry and come face to face with armies of the dead, but his most daring on-screen battle takes place far from Westeros.
It is only the second episode of Industry’s thrilling fourth season on HBO, and the British actor already has an Emmy-worthy performance ready to submit.
There’s nothing quite like a milestone birthday to make Harington’s Sir Henry Muck want to blast his way into chemical and social oblivion. Given his already fragile mental state, his wife, Yasmin’s (Marisa Abela) attempt to pull him out of his deep depression by throwing a lavish 18th-century France-themed costume party to celebrate Henry’s 40th is misguided from the start. It isn’t like Industry’s resident failson needs another excuse to dip his hands in his not-so-secret drug stash.
What follows is a night of mixing narcotics that almost ends in actual oblivion for the spiralling aristocrat as reality bumps up against literal ghosts from Henry’s past. Is he about to become a self-fulfilling prophecy while dressed like King Louis XVI? Henry thinks he looks more like Elton John, but this ensemble has nothing on what the iconic singer wore to his 50th birthday shindig.
Using a psychedelic trip to reveal a character’s state of mind is a prestige go-to. Henry follows in Tony Soprano and Don Draper’s esteemed footsteps. Drugs are part of Industry’s storytelling arsenal, and these insightful, otherworldly, trippy encounters are used sparingly to build on a pre-existing trauma as Industry’s Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey) learned last season.
Henry was absent from the Season 4 premiere except for a brief appearance at the end, teasing his slump into drug addiction and annihilation. The roped off antique harpsichord in one of his ancestral home’s many sizable rooms is his current favorite place to crush up his pills. It is like he has become part of the furniture as he slips further into the abyss.
Early in their relationship, Henry told Yasmin about his father’s suicide and that lacking purpose led to his own suicidal ideation. The latter is recurring, but it is also worth noting that the version of events Henry told Yasmin about the day his father died is a construction that avoids the grim reality that made young Henry a direct observer of Reggie Muck’s death by suicide.
“F--- my father and his genetic inheritance,” Sir Henry spits. His uncle, Viscount Alexander Norton (Andrew Havill), is on the receiving end of this missive. It only goes downhill from there, but first, a flashback to a political defeat highlights why Henry has become so nihilistic.
After the catastrophic failure of his green-tech energy company, Lumi, Henry became a Tory MP, but lost the seat six months later when a general election was called, and Labour won in a landslide. Since then, he has slipped further into the abyss, continuing to inject heroin and losing his libido.
The fact that Henry’s father died by suicide on the morning of his 40th birthday on the grounds of the same stately home as this party offers additional insight into why Henry is a ticking time bomb. Having successfully made polite chit-chat with Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), or at least not sabotaged the job opportunity Yas is trying to make happen, it is downhill from there.
By the time he joins the rest of the guests clad in Versailles-inspired finery, it is impossible to know how many different uppers, downers, and hallucinogens are in his system. Given this heady mix, Henry’s quest for self-destruction is even more pronounced as he stumbles around the dining table.
Last season, Harington showcased an array of Henry’s inebriated states; now, he runs through the hits from belligerent slurring to bursts of exuberance. It would be easy to overplay any of these and go full shambolic. Harington doesn’t fall into this trap; his unstable physical state never comes across as inauthentic.
Ditching an exclusive party for the local pub where some of Henry’s house staff are drinking adds another layer to how far Henry can push it. Only his employees and an old friend whom Henry calls the Commander (Jack Farthing) are worthy to celebrate with, but tension quickly flares.
Henry chugs back pints of beer, but he no longer resembles a teetering lush. Instead, his somber mood morphs into substance-fueled anger when a local man suggests Yas has been f---ing horses (she might be dressed like Marie Antoinette, but gets the same gossip smears as Catherine the Great).
Alcohol is a depressant, and Henry’s mental state isn’t improved by his friend goading him toward annihilation.
“I bet that’s the best you’ve felt in ages,” whispers the Commander after Henry beats that man to a pulp. Henry doesn’t deny it. At this point, I hadn’t guessed that the Commander was a hallucination of Henry’s dead father. I don’t think Industry is suggesting something spiritual is happening, especially as Henry has enough substances in his body to see God.
It is only when the Commander disappears at the bar that my sixth sense pricked up that literally no one else has talked to Henry’s old chum. Outside, a dishelved Henry tells his companion to get lost: “I could do with never seeing you again.”
The Commander ominously says the opposite is going to happen, and the music turns foreboding when this specter of Henry’s worst moment reveals a gruesome neck wound. Definitely time to lay off the drugs!
However, Industry hasn’t finished putting Henry through the wringer as the drug-fueled tour of his psyche nears its end.
The Jaguar E-Type convertible is a timeless symbol of cool, but for Henry, it is inextricably linked to his father’s demise. Through Henry’s mental fog, this core childhood memory is the “unimaginable horror” that his uncle referenced earlier. Adult Henry takes his younger counterpart’s place at the window to witness it all go down, but he is pulled back from the brink by the sound of Yasmin in his head; he exits the carbon monoxide-filled garage before it’s too late.
The tour de force doesn’t end with death but a rebirth. Henry turns the classic car into a symbol of life when he bangs Yas on the hood in full view of the spot where his father died.
For all the hedonistic ecstasy, the bleak descent into hell is an equal part of the HBO financial drama tapestry. It is in this reality-bending journey, followed by renewed vigor, that Harington makes it clear that while Jon Snow was his breakout role, Sir Henry Muck is his most revelatory.
