It’s not usually I discover myself questioning if somebody’s life might’ve really been improved by spending time among the many cannibalistic woman gangs of Yellowjackets.

However Sweetpea protagonist Rhiannon Lewis, performed by none apart from Yellowjackets alum Ella Purnell, is likely to be a uncommon exception. Possibly then, she would have had the possibility to confront her teenage angst head-on, quite than letting it metastasize to the purpose that serial killing begins to appear like the one launch valve potent sufficient for her all-consuming rage.

In Rhiannon’s protection, the Starz drama does make it look enjoyable — to a degree. Her path of destruction usually performs as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for anybody who’s ever dreamt of getting again at a childhood tormenter, a impolite stranger, an obnoxious co-worker. (Be aware to my THR colleagues: Not any of you, I promise.) However what makes the British collection extra unsettling and finally extra compelling is its willingness to take a seat within the murky center floor separating vengeance and cruelty, sufferer and perpetrator.

At 26, Rhiannon spends her days as a low-level assistant to a small-town newspaper editor (Ted Lasso’s Jeremy Swift) who all however laughs her out of the room when she asks for a promotion. In her downtime, she texts a former hookup (Jon Pointing) who can barely be bothered to shoot again an emoji in response.

Eternally missed and underappreciated, Rhiannon traces her present troubles again to her adolescence, when a mean-girl classmate, Julia (Nicôle Lecky), drove her to anxiety-induced trichotillomania (the compulsive pulling out of her personal hair), humiliated her earlier than their friends and customarily destroyed her self-worth. It appears little surprise that her darkly humorous inner monologues so usually take the type of an Arya Stark-ian checklist of “individuals I’d like to kill.”

Among the many few shiny spots in Rhiannon’s life are her adoring Chihuahua, Tink, and the ailing father, Tommy (David Bark-Jones), she cares for in her childhood dwelling. However after one notably brutal day within the hourlong premiere, she lastly hits again at a universe that may’t appear to cease dealing her crushing blows. Whereas her first act of violence is born of self-defense, it unlocks one thing in her. For the primary time in God is aware of how lengthy, the previous wallflower walks away from the encounter with a spring in her step and her head held excessive.

However are we watching the triumphant rise of an underdog, or the origin story of a monster? Rhiannon insists, explicitly and repeatedly, that it’s the previous. Her present is much less sure.

From the beginning, creator Kirstie Swain (adapting a novel by C.J. Skuse) sprinkles seeds of doubt round Rhiannon’s self-serving perspective. Is it actually Julia’s fault, as an illustration, if Rhiannon suffers a tragic accident as a result of she’s so enraged by the sight of a billboard for Julia’s real-estate enterprise? Does Rhiannon really go ignored by everybody, or does she simply brush off the individuals — like her cute new co-worker, AJ (Calam Lynch) — who do discover and specific real curiosity in her?

This method has its limits. Even because the collection purposefully blurs the strains between abuser and abused, it’s not above reaching for trauma as a shortcut to producing compassion — which in flip could make some supporting characters really feel extra like thought experiments than full-fledged people in their very own proper.

Largely, although, the ethical ambiguity is a part of the depraved thrill. For the perpetually put-upon Rhiannon, victimhood and villainy are two sides of the identical coin. Like Joe from You, she’s all of the extra harmful for the way successfully she squeezes herself right into a sympathetic archetype.

Purnell — who between this, Fallout and the aforementioned Yellowjackets has not too long ago thrived in macabre milieus — embodies her character’s many contradictions with ease. The harmless vulnerability prompt by her doe-like eyes is belied by the personal smirks she permits herself after doling out her twisted model of justice. Jo Thompson’s costumes additional tone down the actor’s naturally putting appears till she actually does appear to fade into the background. At one level, a stranger errors her crouched, rain slicker-clad type for a rubbish bag. Enraging because the ordeal is for her, you possibly can hardly blame him.

What’s going to occur subsequent in Sweetpea isn’t all that tough to guess; greater than as soon as I discovered myself ready for characters to reach at selections or epiphanies telegraphed episodes earlier than. What I hoped to see occur, then again, I discovered tougher to say — notably within the second half of the six-part season, which brings to the forefront a detective, Marina (Leah Harvey), whose obsessive vendetta in opposition to Rhiannon is rooted extra of their similarities than their variations.

If there’s a draw back to the present’s embrace of ambivalence, it’s that it’s tougher to really feel totally happy if you weren’t totally sure what you hoped for to start with. Thankfully, Sweetpea declines to make us determine, serving up an open-ended finale that implies many extra bloody twists to return. Wherever she takes us subsequent, I’ll be watching the woman who as soon as insisted she was invisible to the world.