
Sally Wainwright, the creator of the acclaimed crime thriller Happy Valley, admitted she was terrified of writing the final chapter.
The 60-year-old TV writer was concerned that the third and final season, starring Sarah Lancashire as Sgt Catherine Cawood, would not live up to the previous two instalments.
‘We [Sarah and I] made a definite decision that this was going to be the final season. Just because it’s been successful, we weren’t going to let it drift on until it became a pale shadow of itself,’ she said.
‘I was really anxious not to write a duff third season – [but] I really don’t think it is. There’s a very definite climax.’
The Bafta-winning series returned earlier this month, taking up where the second season left off in 2016.
The components are in place for another showdown between Cawood and James Norton’s sociopathic Tommy Lee Royce. An imprisoned Royce has communicated with Cawood’s grandson Ryan – a resurrected Rhys Connah – the result of Royce’s rape of her daughter, who subsequently committed suicide.
Wainwright said: ‘There’s a very big face-to-face showdown. The kind of cathartic showdown that people have waited for. It’s pretty dramatic.’
She is pleased producers didn’t recast Connah, now 16, who joined the show and ‘has a lovely vulnerability about him’.


In an interview with Radio Times, Wainwright also defended the BBC show’s depiction of violence.
She said: ‘I worked with a police adviser called Lisa Farrand. She was pretty cross with some of that criticism because it’s the reality of being a cop. She’s been badly beaten up twice and nearly killed once. To not reflect it in a drama that is realistic about what it’s like to be a female police officer would be a whitewash.’
Happy Valley continues Sunday on BBC One at 9pm