Trigger Warning
The long-anticipated season finale of Happy Valley aired last Sunday, and to be honest, I feel a bit letdown.
Happy Valley first started in 2014, introducing its viewers to the beautiful scenery of West Yorkshire whilst revealing the dark troubling issues of those who live there. Due to its gritty storylines and complex characters the BBC drama series gained huge momentum and popularity leading to another two seasons. The show navigates complex themes from loss and grief to morality, abuse, and addiction.
Sergeant Catherine Cawood, played by Sarah Lancashire, is a compassionate, straight-talking woman who acts as a pillar of strength for the Calder Valley community. She manages to balance raising her dead daughter’s son, Ryan Cawood (Rhys Connah), with her life-long career in the police force. Ryan’s mum died after Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) raped her; she became deeply depressed after giving birth and killed herself. Throughout the show Catherine deals with this grief and her resentment of Tommy.
Each season showcases the downfall of a seemingly normal, nice man who lets his inner most sinister thoughts get the better of him. Catherine’s great attention to detail ensures no wrongdoing escapes justice. Her sister Claire (Siobhan Finneran) is always there to offer a warm cup of tea when she gets back home from a grueling day of fighting crime.
BBC viewers were quick to fall in love with Catherine, a strong female lead character with a no-nonsense approach when tackling vicious criminals. This was potentially comforting to some considering the troubling news stories about male police officers abusing their power.
In the first two seasons there were plenty of moments of combat and confrontation, so you can understand my disappointment when there wasn’t the explosive ending I was hoping for. There were certainly moments in this final season where my heart was racing. For example, in the last episode Tommy is on the run and breaks into Catherine’s home. He lingers in the basement whilst she is in the kitchen above him. Having these two in such close proximity without each other knowing was a nail-biting moment indeed.
But I never got the satisfying catharsis that I wanted for the characters. Instead, there was a somewhat awkward interaction between the two where he acts like a child and she is weirdly calm considering she is standing in front of the man who raped her daughter. There’s some attempt from Tommy at a reconciliation but it’s clear this isn’t possible. So to avoid being sent back to prison Tommy lights himself on fire, a motif we’ve already seen in season one on the barge boat.
The show finished abruptly, leaving many characters without an ending and key story lines were solved with a few words exchanged between Catherine and DSI Shepherd or a simple text popping up on her phone. To me it was an unsatisfying and disheartening ending.
We didn’t get to see how Ann Gallagher is getting along after she got drunk and revealed the truth about Tommy’s criminal activities to Ryan- was she able to get closure once Tommy dies or get to the root of her drinking problem? What was Ryan’s reaction to the death of his criminal father? Did it affect his GCSEs or was he able to come to terms with who his dad really was? And what about Richard Cawood and his partner Ros- did they manage to sort out their strained relationship, and did he write a great story on how Tommy escaped from prison?
In terms of individual performances there were a few who stood out to me. James Norton’s portrayal of Tommy was very convincing. He managed to capture the complexity of Tommy’s character: abused and neglected as a child, he now seeks a relationship with his son to somehow heal the damage inside him. Norton’s physicality highlights how Tommy has been brutalized his whole life which is why he has a deep distrust of people. This makes it easier for him to commit murder which Norton showed by a cold expression coming over Tommy whenever he feels he’s in danger- a switch into killer mode.
Rhys Connah’s portrayal of Ryan was wooden and lacked depth. This made sense in the previous seasons when he’s playing a confused and troubled young child. But Connah’s portrayal of a now teenage Ryan I felt didn’t quite hit the mark. I wanted more emotion from him in key complex moments of the story, like when he visits his father in prison or when he attends Tommy’s court hearing and witnesses his escape. Connah never showed anything more than a gaping mouth and a furrowed brow in reaction to these emotional and extreme situations.
As well, some of the script was cheesy at points. The writers were never short of adjectives to describe Tommy, often with Catherine spouting 3-4 insults within one sentence. My personal favourite was ‘wankertron’. During rows characters would emphasise meaning by re-wording or re-explaining sentiments. I felt this was unnecessary and overly-dramatic– good actors don’t need extra lines to convey emotion.
I know I’m going against popular opinion, but I just was not drawn into the storyline and the characters as much as the previous seasons. The writers made a weak attempt at having Catherine and Tommy reconcile and left nearly all the characters with an unclear ending. I still have a great love for the show and the issues it explores but this last season fell flat.