@megsokay Published March 1, 2026, 9:00 p.m. ET Where to Stream: Industry Powered by Reelgood More On: Industry ‘Industry’ Season 4 Ending Explained: Is Yasmin The New Ghislaine Maxwell? HBO Shifts ‘Industry’ Season 4 Finale To An Earlier Start Time HBO Renews ‘Industry’ For Fifth And Final Season, Series Creators Say: “We Know When To Leave A Party” ‘Industry’ Season 4 Episode 7 Recap: The Takedown Industry Season 4 Episode 8 “Both, And” marks not just the end of the HBO show’s penultimate season, but also the start of a dark new chapter for Yasmin (Marisa Abela).
**Spoilers for Industry Season 4 Episode 8 “Both, And,” now streaming on HBO Max**
In the wake of Tender’s free fall and the utter dissolution of her marriage to Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington), Yasmin has discovered, as always, a vicious way to survive. However, instead of denying her heart or leaving her abusive father out at sea, Yasmin embarks on a career that transforms her into a modern day supervillain. With Hayley’s (Kiernan Shipka) help, she takes over the ruined Whitney Halberstram’s (Max Minghella) sex-trafficking, kompromat-creating machine.
In Industry Season 4 Episode 8, Harper (Myha’la) joins Yasmin at a fancy soiree in Paris, which Harp quickly figures out is a meeting of fascist minds. The literal Nazis from Episode 3 are there, along with rising right-wing British politician Sebastian Stefanowicz (Edward Holcraft). Harper becomes even more horrified when she realizes that after the party, Yasmin has supplied the room of lecherous old men with pretty (and underage!) escorts for their pleasure. One of whom is none other than the maid she recruited from the Muck estate.
What does this mean for Yasmin’s arc heading into the upcoming fifth and final season? Has Yasmin been a stand in for Ghislaine Maxwell this whole time? Is there hope for our girl? Here’s what you need to know about Yas’s crazy Season 4 heel turn…
“So, yeah, I mean I wouldn’t want to say that it’s exactly a ‘like for like’ retelling because, obviously, it isn’t and the show is going to go in different directions,” Industry co-showrunner Mickey Down told DECIDER. “But there were just so many interesting psychological characteristics about that story that we thought it would be interesting to explore them within our universe.”
Some Industry fans have already clocked that in Season 3, Yasmin’s father’s yacht is called the Lady Yasmin and he dies under mysterious circumstances at sea, much like how Ghislaine Maxwell’s own wealthy father, Robert Maxwell, mysteriously fell overboard from his ship, the Lady Ghislaine in 1991. Down admitted that that those details were intentional, but those details are not what interested him and co-showrunner Konrad Kay about the Ghislaine Maxwell saga.
“What we were really interested in and what really felt like it was kind of linked to our show — and this is one of the central features of our show — is the justifications you make for bad behavior,” Down said. “The fact that no one considers themselves to be a villain. You can act impulsively, you can act irrationally, but there is always a way of justifying or rationalizing bad behavior to yourself.”
“I feel like when we were in the writers room, we did talk about Ghislaine Maxwell,” Down said. “We talked about the idea, like when she was going through these things — whether she was traumatized or not or she had trauma in her background — there’s no way that she thought she was a bad person. She could justify this.”
Down pointed out that if you read about her case, there’s “a constant coherent internal morality or logic to the way that she operated,” much like Yas.
“I feel like Yasmin, she’s not a transplant for that character, but Yasmin has a coherent internal logic for the way she operates at the end,” Down said. “She’s like, ‘I’m giving people access. I’m giving them opportunity. It is not exploitation or it is, but it’s also opportunity.'”
The very first time we meet Yasmin in Industry, she’s interviewing for Pierpoint and explaining how important it is for her to have a voice at the table. A key theme for her is the need to feel “necessary.” Because of this, Yasmin has been willing to make moral compromises from the start for opportunities.
As Down put it: “She sits down on the trading floor, she sits next to [Conor MacNeill’s ] Kenny, and she realizes that if I just acquiesce to his sort of bravado and the way that he’s almost sadistic with me, if I allow myself to be treated like this, be exploited, then I will find opportunities. And that’s kind of the sort of tragedy of her character.”
“You know, I think if she had therapy, she would find lots of ways to feel necessary,” Industry star Marisa Abela told DECIDER. “But I think that Yasmin has been burnt many times by being lured into a false sense of security and then being sort of spat out.”
“So she’s made herself a sort of agent of chaos, I guess, to forge an alliance with powerful people. You know, if you can’t beat them, join them,” Abela said. “Or in her case, like if they don’t love you, try and get them to love something that only you can offer them, you know?”
Of course, what Yasmin is offering these powerful men is other women. As Yasmin’s connection to this underworld, former escort/honeypot/corporate assistant Hayley now has the power he coveted, but is that enough? When we asked Kiernan Shipka if there’s hope for her character, she wasn’t sure.
“I think it’s to be determined whether or not there’s hope for Hayley or not, because you’re right, she does end in a really dark situation,” Shipka said. “Throughout the season, and I think throughout her life, all she’s wanted is this access and power and status in the world. I feel like her hunger for more is probably a pretty integral part of her that will keep that engine revving and maybe push her to some some dark places like she already is going.”
“I mean, the Kiernan part of me is like, ‘Girl get going! Girl, run!” But knowing her, I don’t know to what end she will go because she has all these things now that she says that she wanted. When will the human part of her come in? If we see more of her… I really don’t know.”
Industry has been renewed for a fifth and final season, which means there may yet be time for Yasmin or Hayley.
