Sweetpea: A Delightfully Twisted Dark Comedy Star Turned Up to 11

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Sweetpea: A Delightfully Twisted Dark Comedy Star Turned Up to 11

Here is the rewritten content: What Is 'Sweetpea' About? Rhiannon Lewis (Purnell) is used to being overlooked — by her co-workers, by the cashier

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Here is the rewritten content:

What Is ‘Sweetpea’ About?

Rhiannon Lewis (Purnell) is used to being overlooked — by her co-workers, by the cashier at the food mart (who is never happy to help), even by random strangers on the street carelessly bumping into her. It’s been that way since high school, when she became the target of vicious bullying by a group of her female peers, which was so bad that she ended up pulling most of her hair out. Years later, it’s clear that Rhiannon has never really gotten over that trauma in her adolescence, and even though her hair has grown back, her self-confidence has never truly recovered. She lives a relatively mundane life, taking care of her ailing father and working a thankless front-desk job at the local newspaper, but in her head, she’s constantly cataloging a running list of the people she’d most like to kill.

Initially, there’s no reason to think Rhiannon has real intentions of murdering anyone; who among us hasn’t had similar thoughts in our most dire moments? But then, a sequence of very unfortunate, very damaging events happens, beginning with the death of Rhiannon’s father, which plunges her world into disarray and sets her on a path to making some surprisingly shocking choices. It doesn’t help that her number-one nemesis from high school, Julia Blenkinsopp (Nicôle Lecky), is also back in her life at the exact worst time.

Rhiannon is certainly being pushed to her emotional and mental limits, but when she lashes out against an unsuspecting stranger after a night out, the resulting bloodshed transforms her in ways she never could have imagined. Now, she’s not only speaking up for herself at work, but also arguing her way into a promotion from her boss at the newspaper (Jeremy Swift). Now, she’s the one on public transportation making manspreaders uncomfortable. Rhiannon’s initial choice to murder may have been an act of spontaneity, but it also drives her to make some long-needed changes in her life. However, while she’s truly thriving for the first time, she’s also finally being noticed — and that might not be a good thing for someone who needs to stay ten steps ahead of the police detective (Leah Harvey) investigating the deadly results of Rhiannon’s actions.

The outcome of Rhiannon’s pursuit of twisted justice is yet to be revealed; the cliffhanger that the story leaves off on is equally twisted and shocking, and certainly sets the stage for a bloody finale. While other shows in this vein have had difficulty sticking the landing, Sweetpea does more than enough to inspire confidence that, no matter what happens, it remains an addictive watch through to the very end.

Sweetpea premieres October 10 on Starz in the U.S.

In the new Starz series Sweetpea, Ella Purnell plays a shy, soft-spoken introvert who finds a new lease on life after committing a few murders.

Pros

  • Purnell shows off the full breadth of her talents, playing every emotion from mild to wild.
  • The show strikes a unique tone immediately, with Purnell’s voiceover narration putting us inside her character’s head.
  • The series continually finds ways to surprise, with a shocking late-stage twist leaving the ending completely unpredictable.
Cons

  • Some of the supporting characters and sideplots are less compelling than the main story.

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