Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Season 4 finale of .
We knew heading into the Season 4 finale of Industry that the HBO finance drama had already been , ensuring we’d get an expected eight more episodes of bickering, struggling, reconciling, and scheming. But for now, we’ll definitely be wondering where Yasmin’s story goes next—now that she seems to have fully become a enabler of ultra-wealthy, powerful men.
After both her marriage to old-money aristocrat Henry Muck (Kit Harrington) and her partnership with fraudulent fintech company Tender collapse, Yasmin is left to piece her life back together and decide her next move. In the finale, her method of climbing the upper-class ladder is revealed: procuring young women to fraternize (and more) with a rotating cast of shady dinner-party guests—and apparently recording these illegal interactions. Even as Harper objects to Yasmin associating with Nazis and exploiting underage girls, Yasmin insists this new path is her calling.
“‘The world’s showing you what it is.’ You said that to me,” she tells Harper. “So, you metabolize hard feelings. You become someone. I feel important here. Do you see that? I’m necessary. I feel new. I feel less pain. That’s it.”
The scene is gut-wrenching for multiple reasons, not least because it directly evokes the ongoing case around disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his key conspirator Maxwell, and the documentation of their alleged crimes (and those of their many associates) in the Epstein Files. In 2021, Maxwell was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other related charges, with prosecutors proving she used her status as a British socialite to facilitate the recruitment and grooming of young girls for sexual abuse. If the Season 4 finale is any sign, Yasmin could well face a similar reckoning.
This isn’t the first time people have drawn parallels between Yasmin and Maxwell. Industry has leaned into their similar life paths since the start of Season 3—especially regarding the mysterious death of Yasmin’s father, publishing magnate Charles Hanani (Adam Levy). Just as Charles died after falling overboard from a luxury yacht named for his daughter, the Lady Yasmin, Maxwell’s father, media tycoon Robert Maxwell, died after falling from his own yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. And while there’s no evidence Ghislaine secretly witnessed her father’s drowning like Yasmin did on the show, Robert’s death did spark speculation and conspiracy theories about the true nature of his demise.
The similarities don’t stop there. Yasmin’s personal and financial spiral following Charles’ sudden death—and the subsequent scandal of him being exposed as a scammer who embezzled millions from his own company—also mirrors aspects of Maxwell’s life. On Industry, these events have led Yasmin to increasingly show manipulative, predatory behavior as she fights to secure her position. In real life, Ghislaine met Epstein shortly after Robert’s death and the Maxwell family’s reputation and fortune collapsed.
The Season 4 finale portrays Yasmin as still trapped under the thrall of her physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive father. Unable to break his hold, she spends the morning after her fight with Harper repeatedly listening to a voicemail from Charles inviting her on the yacht voyage where he’d ultimately die. Similarly, , Maxwell’s defense team argued the severe physical and emotional abuse she endured from her father as a child traumatized her, leaving her vulnerable to Epstein.
When asked by about Yasmin being compared to Maxwell in her Season 4 dealings with Tender founder and CFO Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella)—an Epstein-like figure—Abela confirmed her character was at least “loosely inspired” by Maxwell. “The fact that Yasmin’s father was a publishing tycoon and died on a boat called the Lady Yasmin—all of these things are [part of it],” she said. “We’re looking at a young woman who’s never been able to grasp the feeling of safety, power, usefulness, necessity, belonging, or love. Then she suddenly has intense proximity to power. What does that look like? Does it corrupt her? Does she fall into it? That’s the core.”
At the same time, Abela said she’s tried to keep some distance between Yasmin and Maxwell. “Things were unfolding with the files even as we were filming,” she noted. “But especially now, the whole topic is horrifying, disgusting, and very real—so I’m glad I didn’t draw too close a parallel.”
Maybe a hint of what’s next for Yasmin in Season 5 lies in Maxwell’s current 20-year prison sentence for her crimes—though Maxwell’s fall from grace took decades. Maybe not. Either way, it’s hard to believe the Season 4 finale didn’t mark a point of no return for the newly self-styled Miss Hanani.
