“Hello,” Sergeant Catherine Cawood said as she crept down her own corridor, her instincts on high alert and her boots squeaking with tension.
‘Hello,’ she said, sounding like the pop star Adele, if only Adele were a seasoned police officer who suspected a bloodied, murderous maniac was sitting in her kitchen drinking her whiskey and gulping down her painkillers, which is exactly what he was was do.
“Hello,” she said, untying her taser and pointing it at the terrifying figure of Tommy Lee Royce – her nemesis, her own piece of holy hell, the man who had unleashed an eruption of pain and death in her family life.
“Hello,” he replied, as nonchalantly as someone who has stopped by for a cup of coffee. No, he didn’t want an ambulance, thanks anyway. Or a biscuit. Tommy was here to get revenge.
It says a lot about the sheer quality of this series – and Sally Wainwright’s exceptional writing – that Catherine (Sarah Lancashire) and Tommy (James Norton) only found each other 50 minutes into this gripping finale.
“Hello,” said Sergeant Catherine Cawood (pictured) as she crept down her own hallway, instincts on red alert, boots squeaking with tension
“Hello,” she said as she released her taser and aimed it at the terrifying figure of Tommy Lee Royce (pictured) – her nemesis, her own slice of holy hell, the man who unleashed an eruption of pain and death inside her had family life
And that their epic showdown wasn’t a desperate banger pounding with machismo and pinched noses, but consisted of devastating words spoken across a scrubbed pine kitchen table.
There were things that needed to be said, and of course Catherine said them.
About her daughter Becky, who raped Royce and later took her own life. Through Ryan, the failed product of this violent liaison, the grandson had raised Catherine himself.
She called Royce “an evil, deluded little toddler brain in a big man’s body” and told him “there’s a difference between getting pregnant and being a father.”
Someone had to! His brutal irritability and emotional immaturity at the same time – cornerstones of the true psycho – were terrifying to watch. “You got it all wrong, you old bitch,” he wailed.
Tommy had flipped through Catherine’s photo albums and was thrilled to find a spark of humanity in himself as he looked at pictures of Becky and Ryan, the family he started but never had.
In an earlier scene, Catherine had also been looking at these albums, her sadness undiminished as she came to the blank pages that represented the unlived life of her long-dead daughter. So much history between these two, so much pain. How could it ever heal?
“I did my best. I’m just tired now,” Catherine said at the beginning of the finale as she laid flowers at Becky’s grave on the eve of her retirement from the police force.
Officer 9675 said goodbye, but not before cleaning up her desk, skipping her retirement party, solving outstanding crimes, and clearing up any loose ends.
Everything was very satisfactory. So many TV series build you up only to let you down terribly at the end.
There often comes a point where the demands of the drama push the limits of the talent on offer, leaving viewers bewildered as swarms of red herrings and that final, desperate, unbelievable twist in the story emerge.
“Hello,” he replied, as nonchalantly as someone who has stopped by for a cup of coffee. No, he didn’t want an ambulance, thanks anyway. Or a biscuit. Tommy (pictured) was here to get revenge
And that their epic showdown wasn’t a desperate banger pounding with machismo and pinched noses, but consisted of devastating words spoken across a scrubbed pine kitchen table
Tommy (pictured) had flipped through Catherine’s photo albums and was thrilled to find a spark of humanity in himself as he looked at pictures of Becky and Ryan, the family he started but never had.
In an earlier scene, Catherine (pictured) had also been looking at these albums, her sadness undiminished as she came to the blank pages depicting the unlived life of her long-dead daughter. So much history between these two, so much pain. How could it ever heal?
Like when the idiot detective Buckles was ridiculously revealed to be the villain in the final series of Line Of Duty.
Or when protection officer David Budd emerged from a drain in a suicide vest at the end of The Bodyguard.
The last of Killing Eve, the last of Game Of Thrones, doesn’t even get me started on The Sopranos.
All that time invested, all that concentration, only for the resolution to be as disappointing as a slammed door.
Happy Valley wasn’t like that. Happy Valley did not disappoint.
In fact, Happy Valley delivered one of the greatest drama finales ever seen on British television; just as moving and unexpected as it is exciting and thought-provoking, with moments of stifling emotion and lightning-fast humor.
“Maybe I singed one of your crocheted blankets,” Catherine told her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran) after Tommy burned himself in their kitchen.
What was particularly moving was when she realized that nurturing, not nature, had triumphed and that her investment in Ryan (Rhys Connah) had paid off.
“For all his flaws, he’s grown into a happy, even-tempered, normal kid,” she said through sobs.
In some of the final scenes, the ever-dutiful Sergeant Cawood asked a supervisor what would happen to the two little girls whose mother had been murdered and whose father was in prison thanks to their efforts. “There’s a grandmother,” he said.
There is a grandmother. And thank God for that. Meanwhile, Officer 9675 has left the building.
Like I said, she did her best. And do you know something? It was more than enough.
In fact, Happy Valley delivered one of the greatest drama finales ever seen on British television; It was as moving and unexpected as it was suspenseful and thought-provoking, with moments of stifling emotion and touches of humor
In some of the final scenes, the ever-dutiful Sergeant Cawood asked a supervisor what would happen to the two little girls whose mother had been murdered and whose father was in prison thanks to their efforts. “There’s a grandmother,” he said