Unhappy Valley would be a suitable title for Happy Valley's impressive final season. The battle between police officer Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire, Last Tango in Halifax) and narcissistic psychopath killer Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton, Grantchester) comes to a head. Catherine's grandson and Tommy Lee's son become an important plaything due to their rivalry. It provides an exciting and psychological drama that has a definitive end after six episodes.
In the sidelines of the drama outlined above, the mutual relationship between Catherine and her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran, The Stranger) creates more tension. The two are very different in character. Catherine is more of a hard worker. She is straightforward in everything. Clare tries to keep things right. She therefore usually opts for what she considers to be the golden mean. Partly because of her boyfriend, Clare commits a huge blunder. That ensures that the sweet peace between Catherine and Clare is hard to find.
The third season of Happy Valley ends in style.
As if this wasn't drama enough, Catherine is also withdrawn from a case that is close to her heart. Through her grandson, she comes into contact with a rather aggressive PE teacher. When his wife appears on the police radar at the hands of the gym teacher, all alarm bells go off. It ensures that Catherine has to effectively use her last days as a policewoman before she retires.
Happy Valley shows both sides of the story. The perpetrators are followed just as intensively as those conducting the police investigation. The gloomy images ensure that the sad atmosphere of the story gets a perfectly fitting background. The chosen location makes an excellent contribution to this. The acting level, as so often with British productions, is excellent. Take James Norton as an example. The good-natured priest from Grantchester is a sophisticated and manipulative psychopath in this role. Now he has shown his dark side before during McMafia, but this role is the superlative.
As a reviewer you can only bow deeply to that.
The third season of Happy Valley ends in style. It's similar to the first two seasons. Catherine and Tommy Lee's shared past plays an important role (again). The story ends nicely. Though neat actually, when it comes to the intensity of the ending, isn't quite the right term. That chosen ending is surprising and very final. So there should be no doubt for anyone that this really is the end of a great television series. I myself doubt whether the ending is good or actually disappointing. However, Happy Valley offers everything that makes British drama so good. As a reviewer you can only bow deeply to that.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
This loyal viewer is also happy to bow deeply with you. What a great series, what an acting performance! Sally Wainwright wrote this great script. There are such great dialogues in it, it is precisely those without haste that make a deep impression. For example, Tommy and Ryan late at night. Sarah Lancashire, wonderful to watch, great!
