Industry's Sweetpea finally gets her deserved spotlight – and her complex arc is one of the best of the season

*Warning: This article contains spoilers for Industry season 4 episode 5, Eyes Without a Face.*

As soon as Sweetpea Golightly came onto our screens in Industry season 3 as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed graduate, it marked one of those moments when viewers just knew she'd be around for a long time.

Coming into the office early ahead of her team at Pierpoint to film social media videos is one especially brazen move, but she never let her 50,000 online followers go to her head and remained committed to her full-time job, thinking on her feet, moving at a few steps ahead of others and not letting other people's demeaning comments get her down. At least, not too much.

"Respectfully, you make it hard to give a f**k," was one particularly cutting – but excellent – line she delivered to Rishi (Sagar Radia) in the season 3 finale.

All season long, she'd been underestimated by those around her and made to endure the diatribe that came from Rishi's mouth in regards to her side-hustle on Siren, an OnlyFans-style app. It would've been far too easy to dismiss her as an excitable Gen Z addition to the cast and thankfully, the show didn't. Instead, it marked her as one of the main players to come out on top in a season that didn't see many winners.

So, it's quite the stark contrast to be confronted with the Sweetpea of season 4 who is markedly different to when we last saw her – but in this fifth episode, the character (and Miriam Petche herself, of course) comes into her own in an unexpected and welcomely nuanced way.

While Sweetpea enters this fourth season still armed with a legion of smart quips, loyalty to Harper (Myha'la) and an undeniable work ethic, there also seems to be a metaphorical weight to her that is hard to shake off.

We gain clarity on the deeper levels of that as the series takes us to Accra, Ghana, following Sweetpea as she reaches a new level of intent, trying to discover what the hell is going on at Tender.

We've already seen how important taking down Whitney's company is to her, but it's in this episode that we come to understand just why that is. She unexpectedly confides in Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh) about the fact that this is something she's put all her resources into.

Before accepting the job with Harper, she'd been interviewing for other roles at different companies but got nowhere. With her nude photos leaked online, she's seen as a risky hire for the industry, it seems. Sweetpea is just focused on letting her work speak for itself and allowing enough time to elapse in the hopes that her pictures will become yesterday's news. As we also come to find out in this episode, Sweetpea suspects that it was Rishi who was the person to leak her photos, something that seems very in-keeping with the kind of man he is. I mean seriously, how bad can that guy get?

But you never know how much all of that background noise is impacting Sweetpea until she speaks out. Perhaps our understanding of her as the smart-mouthed grad has impacted our ability to see her as any other human being with emotions, but it's a rare instance that we see those vignettes of vulnerability in a show like Industry. Usually, when we do, it's when these characters are at their lowest and feel as though they have nothing less to lose so they may as well throw us a scrap of emotion to paw over.

Sweetpea, in many ways, represents how it feels to navigate a working world that thrives on overconsumption and burnout, deprioritising one's own need for workplace boundaries or space for personal wellbeing to flourish. Asking your colleague if they've seen a picture of your breasts shouldn't be a thought that crosses any employee's mind and while Sweetpea very much revels in how awkward it is for Kwabena to answer that, it's clearly still something she has to consider when meeting any man in the industry she works in.

Eerily proving that very point later in the episode is Eric (Ken Leung), looking at Sweetpea's nude photos while wrapped in a bathrobe. As he scrolls upwards, we find out that the forwarded email chain has the derogatory subject line of "City Tart" along with Sweetpea's professional headshot. Industry continues to pull off its stomach-churning snapshot moments and this is certainly one of them. Not only has her colleague seen these pictures, but now the viewer knows that Sweetpea's new employer has too.

The low points just keep coming for Sweetpea this episode, though. She's made this long-haul trip all to be ignored by Tender employee Tony Day (Stephen Campbell Moore). The very same man who appears to flirt with her on the phone, switches and issues some sort of veiled threat, which then results in Sweetpea being viciously assaulted in a public bathroom. That scene in particular will leave anyone with chills but in this new way we've come to expect of Sweetpea now, she picks herself up and carries on – potentially broken nose and all.

Some viewers may agree or disagree with what happens next with Kwabena but I guess when Industry takes us to a new location, there's always going to be some sort of sexual dalliance in the equation too. I would hope that being equated to Kwabena's problematic porn preference of "premium calcium" would lead any woman to want to leave the conversation, but it seems to be the spark needed for the pair to act on their impulses.

I personally think that getting consumed by that dynamic in question loses the wider meaning of what's going on here with Sweetpea and that is that she's a woman who is desperately trying to reclaim her power in any way she can. She's plowing her energy into work, but knowingly sleeping with the same person her boss is only underlines that Sweetpea is out for herself too – and hell, it's about time, seeing as that is literally what Industry (and this season in particular) is all about.

Perhaps the most stark part of the episode comes fittingly at the end when Sweetpea, seemingly on a high having finally proven that Tender is fraudulent, returns to London appearing defeated. Her reaction to finding Harper in the lobby of her apartment building is surprising, especially seeing as the pair have always appeared to be pally. Perhaps it's because Harper has just gone through personal trauma of her own — and is clearly in need of a friendly face — that it strikes a defensive chord within me, but similarly, the scene does superbly capture the dichotomy of Gen Z versus millennial attitudes towards work.

The generational camp that Sweetpea finds herself in deprioritises work and a constant switch-on culture, placing firmer boundaries on work-life balance and are not as inclined to want to become friends with their colleagues. And while I think Sweetpea has reached that point of needing to underline those employee-boss dynamics – making it plain by asking to be paid for her hard work – she is clearly also just in need of some time to herself.

When we finally see her in her apartment, fresh out of the bath and sobbing, it's a side to Sweetpea that we've never been allowed to see. She's remained like an impenetrable forcefield in the short while we've known her and even then, fans have loved her for it. We don't know anything about her personal life, her family or struggles but by giving us an episode dedicated to unearthing a little more of Sweetpea, Industry continues to prove why its character development and knack for finding rising talent really is unparalleled.

Petche is already a name to watch but this episode highlights her star power even further and should Industry continue past this season, fans can only hope for more Sweetpea scene-stealing moments – I know I am.

Industry seasons 1-3 are available to stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK, and season 4 continues every Monday on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. The drama airs on HBO in the US.

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