SPOILER ALERT: ‘Hello,’ she said, as she trained her Taser on Tommy… her own piece of holy hell: JAN MOIR’s five-star verdict on the explosive Happy Valley finale
‘Hello,’ said Sergeant Catherine Cawood, as she crept through her own hallway, instincts on red alert, boots squeaking with tension.
‘Hello,’ she said, sounding like the pop star Adele, if only Adele were an experienced policewoman who suspected that a bloodstained homicidal maniac was sitting in her kitchen, drinking her whisky and swallowing fistfuls of her painkillers, which is exactly what he was doing.
‘Hello,’ she said, as she unclipped her Taser and trained it on the terrible figure of Tommy Lee Royce – her nemesis, her own piece of holy hell, the man who had triggered an eruption of pain and death in her family life.
‘Hi there,’ he replied, as casual as someone who had popped around for a cuppa. No, he didn’t want an ambulance, thanks all the same. Or a biscuit. Tommy was here for vengeance.
It says everything about the sheer quality of this series – and Sally Wainwright’s exceptional writing – that Catherine (Sarah Lancashire) and Tommy (James Norton) didn’t come face to face until 50 minutes into this gripping finale.
‘Hello,’ said Sergeant Catherine Cawood (pictured), as she crept through her own hallway, instincts on red alert, boots squeaking with tension
‘Hello,’ she said, as she unclipped her Taser and trained it on the terrible figure of Tommy Lee Royce (pictured) – her nemesis, her own piece of holy hell, the man who had triggered an eruption of pain and death in her family life
It says everything about the sheer quality of this series – and Sally Wainwright’s exceptional writing – that Catherine (Sarah Lancashire) and Tommy (James Norton) didn’t come face to face until 50 minutes into this gripping finale
And that their epic showdown was not some desperate knockabout throbbing with machismo and squashed noses, but comprised instead of devastating words spoken across a scrubbed pine kitchen table.
There were things that had to be said, and of course Catherine said them.
JAN MOIR: Sgt Catherine’s the patron saint of middle-aged women ignored by the world. She deserves a Happy Valley happy ending! – READ MORE
About her daughter Becky, who Royce had raped and who later killed herself. About Ryan, the misbegotten product of that violent liaison, the grandson Catherine had brought up herself.
She called Royce ‘a nasty deluded little toddler brain in a big man’s body’ and told him ‘there is a difference between getting someone pregnant and being a dad’.
Somebody had to! His brutal petulance and emotional immaturity at this – keystones of the true psycho – were terrible to behold. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, you old bitch,’ he whined.
Tommy had been leafing through Catherine’s photo albums, thrilled to find a spark of humanity in himself when he looked at pictures of Becky and Ryan, the family he made but never had.
In an earlier scene, Catherine had looked at those albums too, her grief undimmed as she came to the empty pages that represented her long-dead daughter’s unlived life. So much history between these two, so much hurt. How could it ever heal?
‘I have done my best. I’m just tired now,’ Catherine said at the start of the finale, laying flowers at Becky’s grave on the eve of her retirement from the police force.
Officer 9675 was bowing out, but not before clearing her desk, skipping her leaving party, solving outstanding crimes and clearing up every loose end.
It was all very satisfying. So many television series build you up, only to let you down horribly at the end.
Often there comes a point when the demands of drama outwit the limits of the talents on offer, leaving viewers confused by darting shoals of red herring and that final, desperate unbelievable twist in the tale.
Often there comes a point when the demands of drama outwit the limits of the talents on offer, leaving viewers confused by darting shoals of red herring and that final, desperate unbelievable twist in the tale
‘Hi there,’ he replied, as casual as someone who had popped around for a cuppa. No, he didn’t want an ambulance, thanks all the same. Or a biscuit. Tommy (pictured) was here for vengeance
And that their epic showdown was not some desperate knockabout throbbing with machismo and squashed noses, but comprised instead of devastating words spoken across a scrubbed pine kitchen table
Tommy (pictured) had been leafing through Catherine’s photo albums, thrilled to find a spark of humanity in himself when he looked at pictures of Becky and Ryan, the family he made but never had.
In an earlier scene, Catherine (pictured) had looked at those albums too, her grief undimmed as she came to the empty pages that represented her long-dead daughter’s unlived life. So much history between these two, so much hurt. How could it ever heal?
Like when idiot detective Buckles was laughably unmasked as the villain in the last series of Line Of Duty.
READ MORE: Happy Valley villain James Norton poses in his boxers, shows off his wounds and shares sweet snaps with onscreen son in behind the scenes look at series one
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 final Game Of Thrones, don’t even get me started on The Sopranos.
All that time invested, all that concentration, only for the denouement to be as disappointing as a slammed door.
Happy Valley was not like that. Happy Valley did not disappoint.
In fact, Happy Valley provided one of the greatest drama finales ever seen on British television; as moving and unexpected as it was thrilling and thought-provoking, with moments of choking emotion as well as flashes of humour.
‘I may have singed one of your crochet blankets,’ said Catherine to her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran) after Tommy self-immolated in her kitchen.
Particularly moving was when she realised that nurture not nature had triumphed and that her investment in Ryan (Rhys Connah) had paid off.
‘For all his faults, he’s turned out into a happy, well-adjusted, normal kid,’ she said, sobbing.
In some of the final scenes, the ever dutiful Sergeant Cawood asked a superior officer what would happen to the two little girls, whose mother had been murdered and whose father, thanks to her efforts, was in jail. ‘There is a grandmother,’ he said.
There is a grandmother. And thank God for that. In the meantime, Officer 9675 has left the building.
Like she said, she did her best. And do you know something? It was more than enough.
In fact, Happy Valley provided one of the greatest drama finales ever seen on British television; as moving and unexpected as it was thrilling and thought-provoking, with moments of choking emotion as well as flashes of humour
In some of the final scenes, the ever dutiful Sergeant Cawood asked a superior officer what would happen to the two little girls, whose mother had been murdered and whose father, thanks to her efforts, was in jail. ‘There is a grandmother,’ he said
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