Forget Jon Snow, Kit Harington Gives His Best Performance In An Overlooked HBO Series

This article contains Spoilers For “The Industry”, Season 4, Episode 2, “The Commander and the Gray Lady.”

In 2011, Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, became a hit on HBO and, in the process, introduced a whole host of young actors to the entire world. Among them was Kit Harington, who was cast in his early 20s and became a major star thanks to the role of Jon Snow, a bastard of the northern noble Eddard “Ned” Stark who joined the Night’s Watch in season one. Now, Harington is starring in a TV series. very The HBO show is different – the best one you don’t actually watch – and proves that he’s a very talented actor aside from playing the often cruel Jon Snow.

On “Industry,” the finance bro show created by reformist finance bros Mickey Down and Conrad Kaye, Harington plays Sir Henry Mock, a character first introduced in the show’s third season (which aired in 2024) who links up with our favorite group of toxic finance bros (and gals) as the CEO of an eco-friendly reserve group called Lumi. To describe Henry as eccentric and mercurial is an understatement. Throughout his “Industry” debut, Henry verbally tortures his relationship with Pierpoint and Robert Spearing (Harry Lawty), acting like an absolute idiot before concluding the season engaged to Robert’s dream girl Yasmine Cara Hanani (the amazing Marisa Abella) as the two realize they need to link their rich bloodlines to stave off personal ruin. Lawtey’s Robert is no longer on “Industry,” but thanks to Jasmine, Henry became a bigger character in Season 4 — and now he great To see Harington showing off his extensive collection.

When Jon Snow joins the aforementioned Night’s Watch — an organization that guards the kingdom of Westeros from the horrors far north, inhabiting Castle Black, and made up mostly of criminals and unwanted noble scoundrels condemned to serve there — in the first season of Game of Thrones, he rises through the ranks and makes inroads with the northern savages. He later left the organization after dealing with personal drama: his men rebelled against him and killed him, and he was brought back to life by the Red Priestess Melisandre (Carice Van Houten).

Remember how I said John was a supposed bastard? Well, as we learned with him on Game of Thrones, he’s actually heir to the Targaryen line thanks to his father, Rhaegar Targaryen, the older brother of Jon’s new lover, Daenerys (Emilia Clarke). This doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things because the show likes to throw plots in the trash when it’s over, but my point is this: A lot happens to Jon in “Game of Thrones,” and he mostly sulks and mumbles through it. This is not a knock on Harington himself. He does the best he can with what he’s given, and John’s tryst with the feral Ygritte (Rose Leslie, who becomes Harrington’s real-life wife) is a real highlight. However, he never got to display his full, frankly hilarious range on “Game of Thrones,” so thank goodness for his role in “Industry.”

Let’s go back to Kit Harington’s role in “Industry,” which, in the second episode of the highly anticipated fourth season, gives the actor a stunning playground in the form of the Muck family’s oppressive mansion. Hiding out at home with his wife Jasmine, their servants, occasional student tour groups (at which Henry utters unwelcome profanity), and the ghost of his late father, Henry prepares to celebrate his fortieth birthday, knowing that his father died by suicide at the age of forty. Despite Jasmine’s best efforts to perform her obvious function as Henry’s wife, which is to throw a huge Versailles-style party, Henry ends up hiding away. In his suite with a combination of drugs and alcohol to avoid partying altogether. This gives viewers an absolutely fiery scene between Yasmine and Henry as the couple’s argument, filmed in seemingly continuous shot, shows us the deepest cracks in their borderline strategic arranged marriage. (It’s also a nice Emmy win for Harington and Marissa Abella, who deliver two of the best performances of 2026 in the first month of the new year.)

Even before the startling revelation that Henry’s new friend “The Commander” (Jack Farthing) is merely the hallucinatory ghost of his father, Harington efficiently and brilliantly drives the entirety of The Commander and the Gray Lady, allowing talented actors like Abella to run off his manic energy as he goes on a nocturnal journey that ends in bloodshed and a sunrise sexual encounter with Jasmine. Harington is an exceptional actor, and if you didn’t believe it when he played Jon Snow, you know it now thanks to “The Industry.”