If there’s one thing the creators of Industry know how to do, it’s write a difficult woman. Enter: Sweetpea Golightly. Like most of Industry‘s female characters, she’s not difficult in the way a misogynist might label a female colleague – you know, bossy and unwilling to pander. Over the course of the show’s four seasons, we’ve seen the show’s women plot elaborate takeovers of multinational corporations, dominate men on the trading room floor and in the bedroom, and commit betrayals so cold they make Judas look tame.

It’s plotlines like this that made stars out of Marisa Abela and Myha’la Herrold, thanks to their respective portrayals of Yasmin and Harper. And it’s Sweetpea Golightly, played with precision by Miriam Petche, who is quietly becoming the next star. The character first joined the show’s line-up of powerful women in series three, where she was the Gen Z new hire at the now-defunct bank Pierpoint. She vlogged day-in-the-life videos for her 50,000 TikTok followers and posted more NSFW content on the show’s version of OnlyFans, Siren. It’s like the show’s writers were daring us to underestimate her. And obviously, most of the male characters did just that – along with some of the women.

Big mistake. Although Sweetpea wasn’t a main character in the last series, it was she who spotted the financial pressure point that ultimately led to Pierpoint’s demise. Now, she’s being rewarded in series four with a full and robust storyline that gives us deeper insight into her character. Five episodes in, it’s become clear that Sweetpea is the emotional anchor of the season, an unexpected MVP that tackles the complications of sharing everything online with nuance.

PHOTOGRAPHER:,Marc Hom

To recap: in season three, the character had a healthy side hustle as an online sex worker. She also had an affair with her older colleague Rishi, who we know also subscribed to her page. When, at the start of series four, it’s revealed that the nudes from her page have been leaked, he’s the prime suspect. This, of course, has serious career ramifications. No one in the industry takes her seriously anymore, and we can be fairly confident that every man in the room has seen her naked. The only person in Sweetpea’s corner is Harper, who’s convinced her to take a job at her new company SternTao, co-founded with fellow ex-Pierpoint shark, Eric. In episode six, we see Eric scrolling through Sweetpea’s nudes.