Life’s not exactly rosy for Rhiannon.
She’s working a dull dead-end job, ignored by shop assistants, battling pulic transport in the rain and suddenly facing the death of her father.
Dad had one parting piece of advice for his daughter before expiring: “You need to learn to stand up for yourself.. don’t let people walk all over you. Make them see how special you are.”
But life gets more complicated when sister Seren (Alexandra Dowling) decides she wants to sell the family home from underneath Rhiannon, with former school bully-turned-estate agent Julia (Nicôle Lecky) appointed as sales agent.
Julia represents all that Rhiannon is lacking: success, glamour, a circle of friends. So when Rhiannon’s only remaining companion, her pet chihuahua Tink is killed by a car -in front of a billboard for Julia’s agency- something in Rhiannon snaps.
From this point forward Sweetpea charts a path of revenge, gore, dark humour and malevolence. Along with it comes an invigorating if toxic coming-of-age path for our hero seemingly justified in her quest to act out her deepest, darkest thoughts.
I won’t spoil her first kill, but suffice to say it is unexpected, car-crash viewing. You’re at once shocked and cheering the TV at the same time. What has come over me in the last hour of viewing?
The answer is the magnificent Ella Purnell and the twisted, skilful writing of Kirstie Swain whose story never lets up, contrasting heightened kills with bland, working class Britain. If this isn’t escapism for Rhiannon, it sure is for us.
By episode two when it becomes clear her workplace is the local Gazette newspaper, Rhiannon is at the centre of dishevelled journalists trying to investigate her very crimes. If this feels a lot like Dexter Morgan -the blood spatter analyst killing under the very noses of the Miami Police Dept- you’re right. But this time it’s through a female lens in a deliberately drab British setting, not sun-kissed Florida.
Purnell is captivating in the title role, deftly juggling all the oppression, vulnerability and hunger essential to pull this off. None of it would work without winning us over to the dark side, however conflicted.
Special mention goes to some of the supporting male cast including misogynist boss Norman (Jeremy Swift), so condescending of his employee he constantly asks for “Coffees please, Sweetpea?” and new cadet AJ (Calam Lynch), who swoops onto a journo position she harboured, but demonstrates some empathy where so many had not.
Writer Kirstie Swain and director Ella Jones have denied Rhiannon any female pals, to the point of not even having workplace colleagues who befriend her. It’s a little far-fetched but part of the need to isolate the character in order to justify her extreme rise to new-found power.
All of the plot twists and turns are intoxicating, and like Michael C. Hall’s anti-hero hit, Sweetpea becomes deliciously satisfying very quickly, despite the fact she is a one-woman killing machine. Hey, it worked for Killing Eve, so why not here?
Ella Purnell is out for blood.
Sweetpea is now screening on Binge / Showcase.
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