Industry season 4 episode 6 "Dear Henry": Ken Leung and Myha’la on Eric Tao’s shocking fall and an edited Trump detail
Industry’s sixth episode of Season 4, "Dear Henry, " pulled no punches — delivering what many viewers will see as the decisive collapse of Eric Tao’s world and an apparent end to SternTao. In interviews conducted just days before the episode aired, Ken Leung (Eric) and Myha’la (Harper) unpacked the fallout onscreen, their surprise at the writers’ choices, and a Trump-related element that was ultimately cut from the episode in post-production.
How the twist lands: blackmail, confession and a devastating exit
The central blow in "Dear Henry" comes when Eric is confronted with the revelation that a woman he’d been sleeping with, Dolly, is 14. That revelation detonates the remainder of his arc: a national television confession intended to protect the firm, an emotional dissolution of his partnership with Harper, and a final walk offstage underscored by Judy Collins’ "Both Sides Now. " The scenes were designed to be the culmination of a long descent — a character driven to a public, irreversible fall.
Leung discussed the work that went into making that fall register. Rather than treating Dolly as just another fling on the page, he developed internal logic for Eric’s behavior that tied back to his attempt to reclaim something like humanity and mentor-figure status. Creators aimed to set him up as someone trying to be better, only for the show’s machinery to deliver the most catastrophic fall possible.
Myha’la, who plays Harper, described her own reaction when reading the script: an immediate, visceral shock and grief at the prospect of losing Eric — and with him, the fund and the partnership they’d built over four seasons. Their on-screen break marks not only a business collapse but the apparent end of a long-running creative and emotional partnership.
Behind the scenes: surprises, scene work and an edited Trump detail
One hallmark of the production is how little the cast sees of the season in advance. Scripts are tightly held, meaning even long-running duos like Leung and Myha’la were blindsided by the decision. That secrecy, they said, keeps reactions raw and moment-to-moment honest, but it also produced candid frustration: "damn, they killed my bro, " was Myha’la’s immediate response when she read the episode.
The actors also offered a glimpse of their off-camera chemistry and the practicalities of making Industry’s luxe world feel lived-in — including a bit of comic relief about the ostentatious hotel suite the SternTao team uses as an office. Those moments help explain why the personal stakes in the fall feel so vivid.
Less visible in the final cut was a small, pointed detail involving a Trump reference that the cast confirmed had been filmed but later removed in editing. Details of that cut beat were not expanded on, but its excision underscores how fluid the storytelling can be late in the process: scenes and touches that once existed can vanish if they disrupt tone or clarity in the final episode.
What this means for SternTao and the series going forward
On the surface, Eric’s departure appears to spell the end of SternTao and the long-running creative partnership at the center of the show. Yet the episode’s final images — and the deliberate crafting of Eric’s downfall as both moral reckoning and dramatic catastrophe — leave room for interpretation about whether this is a definitive exit or a high-stakes pivot.
For viewers, "Dear Henry" functions as a turning point: it closes a particular arc in uncompromising fashion while forcing remaining characters to reckon with the ruins. For the actors, it marks the culmination of four seasons of scene work and a testing moment for how the series balances human consequence with its signature finance-driven brutality.
Whether the episode represents an ending or a new, bleaker beginning, its impact is immediate and brutal — and it confirms that, on this show, redemption almost always comes at a price.
