@media_marshall Published March 3, 2026, 12:00 p.m. ET Photos: Everett Collection, HBO MAX ; Illustration: Dillen phelps Where to Stream: The Master Powered by Reelgood More On: Industry How Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘The Master’ Explains ‘Industry’s Season 4 Finale Will There Be an ‘Industry’ Season 5? Who is Sebastian Stefanowicz on ‘Industry’? Edward Holcroft’s Dangerous Right-Wing Politician Is In Line For A Season 5 Villain Arc ‘Industry’ Season 4 Episode 8 Recap: Tomorrow Belongs to She Industry showrunners Konrad Kay and Mickey Down are serious cinephiles. (Otherwise, why else would you sneak a niche joke about catching the latest Park Chan-wook film on MUBI into some throwaway text exchanges?) And look no further than the needle-drops littered throughout Season 4 – for which music supervisor Ollie White also deserves credit – as proof.
Some of these are clearly intentional allusions, such as the double-whammy of Kubrick nods with composer Nathan Micay doing Industry’s own synthesized version of “The Funeral of Queen Mary” (recognizable from the prologue of A Clockwork Orange) and the Shostakovich waltz that underscores the opening scene of Eyes Wide Shut. Others are likelier pure coincidence, like the Safdie-esque saga of Rishi concluding with the sounds of Alphaville’s “Forever Young” mere months after they indelibly graced Marty Supreme.
But given how heavily Industry’s soundscape relies on sleek electronic tunes to drive its propulsive narrative, the season finale notably takes a slower, somber approach to some pivotal emotional moments. It hardly seems an accident that these derive from The Master, the much-heralded yet still misunderstood masterpiece by visionary filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. One is a happy accident, but two shared musical cues that feel largely dissonant with the show’s aural palette merit more serious consideration.
Ask a million people what The Master means, and you’d get as many answers. Some see a veiled allegory on the founding of Scientology, with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd standing in for L. Ron Hubbard. Others might fixate on the reintegration of service members like Joaquin Phoenix’s Freddie Quell, clearly suffering from PTSD, into American society after World War II. But, at its core, the best explanation may be the simplest one. As Paul Thomas Anderson often described the film (with little expounding detail), this is a love story.
Both callbacks to The Master in the episode correlate Marisa Abela’s Yasmin with Phoenix’s floundering Freddie. The easier connection to understand comes later in the episode during a tense tête-à-tête with Kiernan Shipka’s Hayley Clay. This executive assistant to Tender’s mercurial co-founder, Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), initially appears like an easy pawn for the wily Yasmin to exploit for her benefit. Her manipulative ways prominently emerge in a salacious three-way she orchestrates with Hayley and her husband, Henry Muck (Kit Harrington), to flex her powers in both the bedroom and the boardroom.
But what Yasmin fails to see coming is that Hayley goes one step further in instrumentalizing her sensuous wiles for her own benefit. Whitney hires all his assistants from a background in sex work so they can draw on that particular set of skills to extract leverage from businessmen, and taping the acts for potential blackmail. The potential for such a video of their wild night hangs over this scene as Ella Fitzgerald begins softly crooning “Get Thee Behind Me, Satan” from the Irving Berlin songbook.
That same tune plays over the first glimpse Anderson provides of Freddie trying to readjust to civilian life following his deployment on the Pacific Front. He fights on a different frontline now, spreading the soft power of American consumerism as a salve for all ails rather than the country’s hard military power. In his job at a department store, he mans the camera for staged photos against a plain backdrop. Freddie sells the illusion of placidity and comfort masquerading as reality.
But Anderson’s camera soon leaves Freddie behind as the focus of the scene, gently tracking a model as she gracefully traipses the store floor. Decked out in a snazzy gown, she approaches customers to pique their interest. Once intrigued, she lets them know that such elegance is available to them … with a price tag. Finally, her route leads her to pass by Freddie, who’s instantly enraptured and propositions her for some break-room hanky-panky.
In case the song itself did not immediately conjure up The Master for PTA heads, Industry goes a step further by accompanying the tune with the image of Hayley flaunting a dress she’s borrowed from Yasmin. Unlike Freddie, who’s blinded by the pent-up libidinous energy coursing through his veins, she knows exactly the nature of the temptress before her. But Yasmin is not above trying to appease the manifestation of desire’s commodification, at least so long as she thinks Hayley might hold compromising video of her sexual activities.
Whether correct or not, Yasmin desperately clings to the idea that she’s better than Hayley. This ambitious, unscrupulous corporate climber reflects Yasmin’s worst fear about her own identity: she’s all sell, no soul. As she’s forced to stoop to the level of an exploitative trickster, the emerging power broker must confront the limits of her own power.
Subtly but assuredly throughout The Master, Anderson exposes the emptiness of consumerism as an answer to a broader societal malaise. One cannot buy their way out of an ache for the soul, and attempting to assuage the pain simply through purchasing goods and services can only delay – not remove – an inevitable confrontation with the void. Yasmin occupies a more elevated social stratum than salt-of-the-earth Freddie, yet they’re humming a remarkably similar tune in their failure to ward off the anesthetizing embodiments of a soulless capitalism.
Yasmin does end up placating Hayley and taming the threat of exposing her activity behind closed doors. Freddie, on the other hand, manages to muck up (pun fully intended) his employment situation following his tryst with the model. This sets off a chain of episodes stumbling his way down the economic ladder, eventually ending up as a stowaway on the boat of Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd. The unusual kinship that grows between these two men occupies the majority of The Master’s story. As Dodd begins to proselytize his new religious movement known as “The Cause,” the leader finds no more loyal foot soldier and friend than the pugilistic Freddie.
Lancaster shelters and rehabilitates Freddie, even when his cadre of believers pleads that keeping such a wild card around puts The Cause at risk. Why he persists in protecting his ally is an open question, and Anderson’s film leaves the reason tantalizingly open to interpretation. (Watch The Master again and find a new justification, truly.)
Yet The Cause cannot quell — again, pun intended — the restlessness bubbling up inside Freddie. It’s just another quick fix for a deeper internal rot. The creeping doubts that he’s been following a convincing charlatan gnaw away at his unwavering loyalty, coming to a head in a desert scene late in the film. Lancaster suggests they play a game called “Pick a Point” and ride a motorcycle toward some distant spot on the horizon. He starts and then doubles back so Freddie can follow.
As Lancaster and his family amble on in Freddie’s absence, the dulcet tones of Jo Stafford’s “No Other Love” accompany their wandering. The lyrics speak of an unbreakable bond between lovers at, ironically, the moment that their connection first severs. The disconnect between the heartwarming content of the song and Stafford’s haunting delivery makes the somewhat inscrutable moment all the more loaded with complicated meaning.
It’s fitting, then, that Kay and Down first employ the song at the very moment that Yasmin delivers the news to Henry that she intends to divorce. Once again, it’s a more direct situation in the fast-paced Industry, but the sentiment remains largely transferable. Yasmin can hold in her heart appreciation for what their partnership — in life and business — provided as she steered herself toward prosperity. But she can no longer deny that she’s being pulled in a different direction. She’s picked a point that’s outside the bounds of their union for her future, especially as Henry’s good standing craters in the wake of Tender’s collapse.
But the song accompanies more than just the seeds of destruction in each work. More in line with the quivering vibrato of Stafford’s voice, there’s a sense of longing expressed by both Freddie and Yasmin as “No Other Love” softly plays behind their travails. Each character realizes that what might soothe their woes is reconnecting with a lost love, a relationship rooted in genuine affection rather than transactional value.
The sequence in The Master picks up with Freddie, presumptively following his flight from the desert, as he tries to track down Doris, his hometown sweetheart from before the war. Her mother answers the door and reveals she’s moved away with her now-husband and two kids. A forlorn Freddie manages to avoid an outburst, which might count as some progress. But the disappointment that he missed his window to recapture a former flame and return to a more innocent time lingers over him like a dark cloud.
“No Other Love” returns a second time in Industry as the season finale draws to a close. It begins as a quiet accompaniment underneath Yasmin while she listens to the final voicemail left by her late father. The song swells as she’s overcome with emotion, processing that his unrequited paternal affection is now relegated to memory and archive. (Of course, Yasmin has only herself to blame here after letting him drown in the third season.)
The music continues as Henry enters the office of his uncle, Viscount Alexander Norton. The scion’s fall from grace in every aspect of his life becomes complete in this moment. He hits rock bottom in his family member’s arms, collapsing in shambles and accepting that he cannot outrun the consequences of his bad decisions. Yet Henry has a benefit lurking in his blood, and he’ll have the opportunity to rise again based on a privilege that he inherited rather than earned.
Such are the unfair spoils of the class system in the United Kingdom that Kay and Down look upon with healthy disdain. This backstop against complete personal oblivion is not available to Yasmin or Freddie, two hopelessly inquisitive individuals left to fend for themselves in their respective ages of rugged individualism. They’ve each foreclosed upon the future for which they belatedly yearn, both by the accidents of their birth and the faults of their own folly.
There’s a full final season of Industry left to resolve this newfound tension within Yasmin’s psyche. But Freddie’s ultimate fate might offer some clues as to where the character will go next. Freddie does manage to bed another woman, and he seems to find some satisfaction in their carnal connection.
Yet the last shot of The Master finds his ultimate succor with a woman of an entirely different makeup: a female-shaped sandcastle on the beach during his time in the military. (A highly sexualized one, to boot, with voluptuous breasts and full anatomy.) Inner peace is achievable, Anderson’s film argues, but it may require giving oneself over fully to imagination. Yasmin may soon find she has no refuge but inside her fantasies, too.
Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.
