‘Industry’ Star Miriam Petche Unpacks Sweetpea’s Shocking Episode 5 Work Trip: ‘Nervous System Is Flooded’

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Industry” Season 4, Episode 5.

While “Industry” Season 3 first introduced Miriam Petche’s Sweetpea Golightly as another personality in Pierpoint’s chaos-filled trading floor, the newcomer to HBO financial drama is given a chance to shine this season as she proves herself to her new employer, Harper (Myha’la).

Similar to Season 3’s standalone episode centering on Sagar Radia’s Rishi, Sweetpea steps into the spotlight in Season 4, Episode 5, as she and Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh) head to Ghana to investigate Tender. The episode, which features a horrifying, politically-motivated attack on Sweetpea as well as an emotional breakdown (more on that below), gave Petche a chance to explore Sweetpea’s mindset in quieter moments that happen when no one is around.

“It’s such a blessing as an actor, because you are given more time to convey the information that you want to playing the character — you’re given that space, that breathing space to see this person in completely different circumstances that we’ve ever seen her before, like in her own home [or] across the globe,” Petche told TheWrap. “What I like as an actor is when those traits start to make sense, and when the choices and the way she approaches herself and the way she approaches others starts to make sense.”

Things are different for Sweetpea right from the jump in Season 4, when there’s mention of a leaked nude photo that she had uploaded to OnlyFans stand-in Siren, which also sets the stage for the investigation into Siren payment processor Tender. While Sweetpea doesn’t let her colleagues see her sweat, Petche revealed the leak both prompts a flood of internalized shame while also compromising her own safety.

“What she believes she should be, which is in control — that doesn’t equate to safety within herself. It doesn’t equate to, physically, the situation she’s putting herself in,” Petche said. “I think she’s believed that managing her circumstances and being in control is the way she gets through life, and she works hard, she prepares, she stays sharp, she anticipates threats, but none of that actually makes her feel safe within her own body and her own nervous system.”

Sweetpea stands up for her safety when she sees Rishi early in Season 4, and by Episode 5, the reason is clear: she suspects he is behind the leak. “She feels pretty much that that is a finished relationship on her end,” Petche said, pointing to Sweetpea’s Episode 5 line, “he got his, in his own way.”

The start of Season 4 set the scene for Sweetpea’s emotionally heavy spotlight episode, a needle that Petche made sure to thread from the start. “I knew this moment was coming, and I wanted it to make sense with how she is earlier and what stage she’s in,” Petche said. “As the episode got closer, that was when it became more of unpacking emotionally, what it is for her, physically, what it is for her, and just dropping the line whenever I needed to.”

Sweetpea’s trip to Ghana in Episode 5 comes to a head after a day of investigating brings her and Kwabena to a local watering hole, where she receives a call from Tender’s Ghana head Tony Day (Stephen Campbell Moore) with a threatening undertone. Sure enough, minutes later Sweetpea fights through a brutal and disturbing attack in the bathroom that leaves her bloody and beaten with a more-than-likely broken nose.

The stunt of this depth was a first for Petche, whose past credits include “The Worst Witch” and “Zombies Next Door,” but, with the support of stunt coordinators ensuring her safety, she was determined to “fully commit.” “I wanted the moment to feel as much of a shock to her nervous system.”

“That moment isn’t about shock — it’s about this loss of agency, and then everything she does afterwards is her trying to recover a sense of control, and what happens when that lid that she has so tightly screwed on becomes loose,” Petche said, noting we see a “completely different” version of her character following the attack. “She’s more direct, she’s more aggressive, she’s less filtered, she’s running on survival energy.”

As the dust settles from the attack, Sweetpea makes a move on Kwabena and the pair hook up, despite Kwabena’s ongoing relationship with Harper. But for Petche, the moment is more about agency than intimacy. “I saw that as her trying to reconnect with her body on her own terms, after feeling disconnected from it,” she explained.

All her work is not for naught, with Sweetpea and Kwabena, who have since agreed not to mention their hookup, soon discovering the facade that is Tender, rejoicing over a phone call with Harper and Eric (Ken Leung) that their bets were right and, now, corroborated.

While the moment of elation marks a high for Sweetpea after the night she’s had, Petche notes her body is still in shock, and doesn’t quite tie everything into a neat little bow. It does, however, give her the gumption to march back into Tony Day’s office and shatter his lies.

“She’s a woman possessed in this episode, and she will see it through from the beginning,” Petche said. “She knows that Tony day probably orchestrated her attack, and, so in her way, she’s saying, I might not necessarily fight back with violence, but I will fight back with … my information.”

By the time Sweetpea has returned from her trip, drained and bruised, she finds Harper ready to support and comfort her, but immediately reverts to her old patterns as she turns her away — even telling her about Kwabena — in a moment that Petche calls “heartbreaking.”

“Sweetpea is about to cry the whole time, and she’s got it really, really pushed down in the bottom of her belly,” Petche said, adding that from an outside perspective she was “screaming” for Sweetpea to let Harper help her. “She doesn’t believe that she deserves safety with other people unless she’s exceptional and working unbelievably hard … she believes that safety and care has to be earned, so when someone offers that, when she feels she hasn’t done anything to earn it, she doesn’t believe it’s sincere.”

Once Harper leaves, Sweetpea finally lets herself feel those pent up emotions in a tear-filled breakdown that Petche likens to an “emotional bill that she’s been running up this whole season.”

“It’s everything that she’s been holding together finally letting go — it’s the emotional cost of staying composed for as long as she has,” Petche said. “I don’t even think it’s necessarily about the events of this episode. I wonder if it’s the last 23 years of her life. I wonder if it’s a real release and purge with herself and touching those parts of yourself emotionally that you don’t normally.”

The events of Episode 5 indelibly alter Sweetpea’s approach to work, per Petche, who noted, “she’s more direct, she’s more upfront with what she what she wants and what she deserves … there’s definitely a shift within her behavior towards others.”

Petche teased that the rest of the Season 4 is “insane,” but remained tight-lipped about the possibility for the drama series to continue into Season 5.”I’m not a part of those conversations,” Petche said. “I think this is a brilliant show and I hope that it gets to go again, so fingers crossed.”

“Industry” airs Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.

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