I loved the first series of Happy Valley, which I discussed on this blog more than once back in 2014. I enjoyed series two as well, and the third and final series more than matched the high standards set by the first two. There are plenty of good TV cop series around - I have a very soft spot for Endeavour, for instance - but Happy Valley is the best I've seen for many years.
This success is due to a great blend of people, place, and plot. Sally Wainwright's characters are superbly characterised and the story is great. The locations around Hebden Bridge, a town I love visiting, are highly evocative (not far away to the north, by the way, is my imaginary Blackstone Fell!). And the acting is brilliant. Sarah Lancashire wins many deserved plaudits as the tough but very human cop Catherine Cawood. James Norton, an actor with a very impressive range (yes, he would make a great James Bond), is superb as the bad guy Tommy Lee Royce. And Siobhan Finneran is, as usual, terrific as Catherine's dozy but somehow loveable sister. The supporting cast, which includes George Costigan, Amit Shah, Con O'Neill and Vincent Franklin, is consistently excellent.
In some ways the storyline boils down to an intense battle between Good and Evil - Catherine versus Tommy. In the six episodes of this series, we only saw the two of them together in a climactic scene. It was a very good scene, even if one or two lines did remind us a little too forcibly that Sally Wainwright learned her craft writing soap operas. But the important thing that she learned from working on Coronation Street and so on was the art of telling stories about believable people.
And, as I wrote nine years ago, she isn't afraid to give even a vile killer some redeeming qualities. She writes in a powerful but very accessible way - not an easy trick to pull off, but she makes it seem effortless. A remarkable achievement. Even before this series was screened, I mentioned Happy Valley in The Life of Crime as one of the best TV cop shows. After series three, I'm inclined to put it at the very top of the list.
