‘Industry’: Is Eric Leaving? Myha’la & Ken Leung Explain Shocking Ending

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Industry Season 4 Episode 6, “Dear Henry.”]

Whitney (Max Minghella) has made a mess of everyone’s lives in Industry Season 4. His psychopathic behavior came to a head in Episode 6 (of eight), which aired on Sunday, February 15, on HBO, when it was revealed that the young woman Eric (Ken Leung) had been seeing privately was actually a teenage girl hired by Whitney. The Tender executive has a history of using this kind of thing as blackmail against his business competitors.

The blackmail was revealed after Eric and Harper (Myha’la Herrold) had a major win against Tender, a company they’ve been investigating all season long through their SternTao fund. Harper tried to warn Yasmin (Marisa Abela) about Whitney and the company’s fraudulent activity that Sweetpea (Miriam Petche) and Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh) found evidence of in Ghana in Episode 5. Eric’s best day in finance ever, as he described it in Episode 6, came crashing down after the girl’s true identity was revealed. Leung tells us that he was playing Eric’s relationship with Dolly (Skye Degruttola) as real romantic potential.

“He has a connection with her that he believes is real, maybe for the first time,” Leung says.

After the horrifying Dolly revelation, Eric took legal action to divorce himself from SternTao completely and protect Harper. Leung tells TV Insider that Eric subconsciously sees Harper as more of his daughter than his biological daughters. Myha’la told us that Eric is her father figure, although she denied that to herself for as long as she could. But now, Eric is leaving, and he won’t tell Harper why, leaving her feeling abandoned by another parental figure.

For the first time, Industry featured a character in its end-credits scene. Eric walked down a long, barren road, away from the camera, as the credits rolled on Episode 6. This was Industry‘s goodbye to Eric. Leung tells TV Insider that, to his knowledge, there’s no plan for him to return (the show has not yet been renewed for Season 5, as of the time of publication).

Here, Leung and Myha’la break down this pivotal episode, from filming their final scene after four seasons together to revealing what’s next. Get more insight into the episode from Abela, Kit Karington, Minghella, Myha’la, and Leung in the video above.

Whether you learned in the script or from the show’s creators, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, first, what were both of your reactions to learning the story of this episode for the first time?

Myha’la: I feel like I learned it when I read it, and I was just like, “Damn, that’s devastating.” On the one hand, what a bummer for them [Harper and Eric]. And on the hand that I use all the time to work with, I was like, “How exciting. This is going to be really fun to play.” Yasmin gets to be in her dramatic bag really often. Harper, she’s not like that. So I was looking forward to exploring what that looks like in her body, and selfishly excited, as an actor, to get to go to those places because they’re the most fun.

Ken Leung: We generally don’t know until we get the scripts. Some episodes, you’re like, “Oh, I get to play around in the shallow end.” And then some episodes, you’re like, “Oh, I’m going to have to go deep on this one.” Those are really exciting. This is one of those.

Myha’la, can you define what Harper finds so scary about Whitney?

Myha’la: Harper is scary in terms of her being business savvy, but she thinks Whitney is a true psychopath because of that thing he said about funerals. It’s one thing if you’re like, “Oh, I’m too emotional, I don’t want to go to a funeral. It’s difficult.” But he was like, “I found out a way to monetize death and grief in a way that shrunk my bottom line” or whatever the hell. And he did it without blinking, and she just thought, “That’s so weird.”

Coupled with the extracurriculars that the two of them have gotten into, she just thought, “Oh, wait, maybe now you’re completely manipulating everyone around you in a way that doesn’t seem just business-focused.” Harper, I don’t know that I would call her manipulative. I think I’d say that she’s savvy, but Harper’s not a massively dishonest person with an agenda to trick people. She’s not like that. So she just was like, “Oh, this is brazen and gross, and you’re trying to be sneaky about it, but I’m seeing it, and it’s disgusting.” She thinks he’s f**king creepy, and you don’t know what he’s going to do.

Simon Ridgway / HBO

Harper calls herself a monster on the phone call with Whitney. Does she really think she’s a monster, or is she appeasing Whitney?

Myha’la: Well, people keep telling her that she is. Her whole existence in this show has been people being like, “You’re a monster.” I think she fights really hard against that. She doesn’t think she is, but if the only other person who she genuinely thinks is a monster is calling her on the phone to give his final address, I think she does. There’s a kind of weird intimacy also about being on the phone, especially since she had sex with this guy. They have a level of intimacy that’s kind of weird and dangerous, but it exists.

She definitely, on hard days and in vulnerable moments, asks herself if she is a monster, but I think it’s one of those really depressing, f**ked up ways in which she’s like, “Well, maybe everyone’s right about me, and I just can’t tell.” But she’s surrounded by people who are projecting all kinds of s**t. They’re also horrible. In weak moments and vulnerable moments, she thinks, “Maybe I’m a bad person,” which is sad, because I don’t think she’s a bad person.

Related

'Industry': Myha'la Explains Harper-Eric Relationship After That Major Loss

Eric is the most emotional we’ve ever seen him in that scene with Harper and the lawyer. Did this feel like a goodbye in real life for you both? I wonder how much of your feelings for each other as friends and longtime scene partners informed the emotions in this moment.

Leung: It did for me, because as far as I knew, it was our last scene, which remains. As far as I know, it’s our last scene. So there was that in it. And even though we’re friends and remain friends, and hopefully we’ll be friends forever, to have what we created the past six years come to an endpoint, it’s very poignant. It’s not just sad. There’s celebration in it. It’s everything. It’s beautiful.

Myha’la: I definitely felt it as well, but not in the scene. I wouldn’t be able to do the scene if I were like, “Aw, I’m thinking about Ken.” I just wouldn’t have been able to do it. But I would leave the scene [with the lawyer] and turn around and watch the monitor and watch [Ken] finish. We sat with him for, I don’t know, 30 seconds or something, which is not in the show, but we’re with him. Once I’m out of the scene, I’m just watching my friend do the work, and it feels like I’m watching him suffer. That was really hard for me to do. There was even some point where I was like, “Cut! Let’s move on. I don’t want to watch this anymore. It’s so painful.” I don’t know that I really recognized that it was our last. Was that the day you made that beautiful speech, Ken?

Leung: No.

Myha’la: No, but it’s the last scene that we have in the show between us. Because then I was there on your actual last day, but we weren’t working.

Leung: Right, but we didn’t have a scene together that day.

Myha’la: No, we just came. We just were there.

Simon Ridgway / HBO

So this speech was in the plot, or do you mean you spoke to the cast on set on your last day?

Leung: She’s talking about the day I wrapped. It wasn’t a speech in the show. The day I wrapped the scene between me and Dolly, the “make me feel big” scene. It’s so funny.

Myha’la: What a wild one to end on. [Laughs]

That was your last scene?

Leung: Yeah, that was my last scene.

Oh, no.

Leung: It’s so funny because then the doors opened and everyone was there and we were hugging and everything. Meanwhile, I’m sure nobody thought of this, but underneath my pants, I’m wearing the little modesty thing. [Laughs]

Myha’la: I looked at the schedule, and I knew what you were doing, and I was like, “Are we supposed to be here?” I was turning the other direction. I was like, “I feel like we shouldn’t be here right now! We should give them a minute. Let them put their clothes on,” or whatever it is. [Laughs] I was just like, “Maybe we should wait.” And then I came in two minutes after. I was like, “That’s my father. I have to look away.”

I can’t believe that was your last scene, Ken. That’s crazy.

Myha’la: It’s very Industry of them to do that.

Leung: It is.

Does Harper feel betrayed by Eric’s exit? Does this feel like another familial abandonment?

Myha’la: One-hundred percent, and probably the worst one, because you can’t pick your biological father, but she picks him. He sort of bullies her into being vulnerable, even though she doesn’t want to do it. She knows the imminent dangers of the thing when she finally does it, and he’s like, “I’m out.” She feels insanely betrayed. The worst kind of betrayal. She feels alone in the world. She’s so pissed. She’s also mad at herself for doing the thing that she said we shouldn’t do.

Simon Ridgway / HBO

Does Eric assume Harper will eventually find out what he did? Will they ever speak again?

Leung: I think he shuts that door. He doesn’t think about that. That’s part of the walking away.

Is he in denial?

Leung: On the outside, we look at it as denial. But for him, are you denying something if you need to do it in order to survive? Maybe, but that’s not the highlight of it for him. At the end, he’s not leaving something behind. He’s walking towards something.

What do you think he’s walking towards?

Leung: I don’t know. I think what you think he’s walking towards is just as good an answer. But the way he’s walking is towards, not away from, in my interpretation. As far as Harper, will she find out? Maybe, but that door is closed.

No other Industry character has gotten an end-credits scene dedicated to them. What did that mean to you, Ken?

Leung: I liked that it took a long time to do. I got to walk as Eric, I got to walk as Ken. I got to walk thinking about people I love, this show, things that had nothing to do with the show, what I was going to have for dinner that night. It was a living walk. It was beautiful.

Myha’la: I thought it was sick. I just was like, “Yeah, Ken! You’re awesome.” It feels celebratory in a way that it should. Bittersweet, but also grand, befitting a king, the king that is Ken.

Leung: Awww.

Myha’la: It’s true. It’s bittersweet.

Simon Ridgway / HBO

This season, especially the second half of it, feels like a major evolution for Harper. What does her next evolution look like now that Eric is gone? We’ve never seen her without him, even when they’ve been feuding.

Related

Why Did Rob Leave 'Industry'? Creator Explains Harry Lawtey's Exit Ahead of Season 4

Myha’la: She doesn’t know what it looks like. She’s going to try to figure out, “What does my life, does my work look like without him?”

She thinks, “Oh, we’re fighting. He left the fund, but I’ll call him, and when this is all less emotional, we’ll meet up. I’ll get an explanation.” I don’t think she thinks she’s never going to speak to him again. It’s just a hot moment, right? They’re emotional. They’re going to go cool off, and then maybe figure something out, and then that’s just not what happens, which I think is retraumatizing … She’s like, “Oh, he’s not talking to me. I can’t get ahold of him. Oh, what if I never hear from him again?” And then being like, “What could it have possibly been that he’s never going to speak to me again?” And then you feel like every abandoned child ever, like, “What did I do?” Even though I know she knows on an intellectual level, it wasn’t her fault. Obviously, she didn’t do anything wrong, but she’s going to be like, “Why was I not good enough that he couldn’t stay?”

So, both of you think they’ll never speak again?

Leung: I feel, since Eric’s walking away, that it’s not my province to dictate what he wants. And in that respect, we share in the interpretation. Your take is just as good as mine, just as valid. The audience participates in where he’s going. The way it’s shot, the way it’s presented is telling us that, I think.

Myha’la: Which means whatever they’re saying on Twitter, we agree.

Industry, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO, Streaming on HBO Max