On paper, the premise of “Happy Valley” sounds like every other TNT show with a forty-something female protagonist. She’s good at her police job. She has a messy personal life. She may as well be Kyra Sedgwick.
While TNT shows never fail in reminding you that—What!? A woman is in power!—BBC’s “Happy Valley” simply treats its female police sergeant like it would a male one. The fact that Catherine is a female in charge is never made to feel like a novelty, which is just one reason why “Happy Valley” is more than the average TV crime show.
Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) is a cop first, above all else, despite juggling a variety of roles, including mother, ex-wife, sister, and grandma. While she struggles with managing these roles, she’s also dealing with the internal conflict of dealing with her daughter Becky’s suicide. Years earlier, Becky killed herself shortly after giving birth to Catherine’s grandson, which Catherine would learn was the result of rape. What worries Catherine is that the grandson Ryan has violent outbursts, which could be traced to the genes of his father, Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton). When Royce is released from prison on unrelated charges, Catherine wants to follow him, just to keep tabs. She knows he’s no good.
Another part of the show involves accountant Kevin Weatherill (Steve Pemberton), who after being rejected for a raise by his boss Nevison Gallagher (George Costigan), hatches a plan to kidnap Nevison’s daughter in order to get the money he wants to send his daughter to a prestigious private school. Who’s one of the thugs Weatherill enlists? You can guess.
Catherine’s life is ripe with conflict, from her complicated relationship with her remarried ex-husband Richard to her estranged connection with her oldest child, Daniel. In one key moment of the show, audiences learn that Catherine played favorites with her children, which comes out in one nearly unforgiveable statement of grief. Her choice to raise Ryan rather than give him up proves to be the root of all her personal problems. Her husband can’t look at Ryan without thinking of his dead daughter, and Daniel, too, refuses to acknowledge a child that could be evil. When Daniel and his wife announce they’re expecting, Richard’s new wife says to Catherine, “You’re going to be a grandma.” Catherine soberly says, “I’m already a grandma.”
The show also shows different degrees of sociopaths, some of which lay dormant. Despite his mundaneness, Kevin Weatherill is one of the most despicable characters on the show who experiences a bit of “Breaking Bad” when he decides to finally get what he wants in life. With two young daughters and a wife with onset MS, he’s someone worth pity, until he gets selfish and jeopardizes his family’s well-being. What’s the difference between him and Tommy Lee Royce? In the end, not very much.
“Happy Valley” moves swiftly over the course of the series, and the economical way the story is presented is appreciated. No filler throwaway characters. Everyone is important. Suffice it to say, the big crime gets solved by episode 3, and yet in some ways, that’s just the beginning of the story. While some shows might stretch this story over the course of 14 episodes or even 22, “Happy Valley” packs a 6-episode punch with two different storylines running parallel before finally merging. Each episode has a cliffhanger that leaves you wanting more, and the climactic finale is one of the most satisfying endings of the year.
The first season of “Happy Valley” is streaming on Netflix with season 2 coming later in 2015.
