
Good tales require good characters, and God bless Sarah Lancashire’s portrayal of Sergeant Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley.
There will be spoilers for last night’s season finale, which had a buttock-clenching finish.
It was the ideal blend of heart-stopping tension, exhilarating action, emotional family drama, and truly funny moments of comedic relief, just like the rest of writer Sally Wainwright’s three-season epic.
It was a journey that took a long, long time to settle down from, from Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) savagely shooting henchmen inside a moving car to the gasp-inducing sight of him gazing through Catherine’s front window while she rested.
Expectations were high: as a nation, we had been thinking about nothing but how the heck it was going to end.
Will Tommy persuade his son Ryan (Rhys Connah) to run away with him after last week’s cliffhanger? If that fails, would he abduct Ryan, or, on the other hand, would Ryan be the one to eventually murder him?
Of course, the answer to all of the above was ‘no’.
Because, for all the terrifying moments he offered, and all the times we felt bad for wanting to swim in those delicious blue eyes (must… not… hunger… over… the… psychopath…), this was never Tommy Lee Royce’s or Ryan’s narrative.
It was Catherine’s, and it remained so until the very end.
Catherine has been the stoic beating heart of the whole thing, dropping wry one-liners at the most exquisite of moments (‘I nicked him once for a public order offence and he bit me’) and wearily wading through all the BS around her in order to serve and protect her community, her family, and – above all – Ryan, her late daughter’s son.
Catherine hasn’t always spoken or done the correct thing; in fact, at many critical junctures, she hasn’t said anything at all.
But with a rich, tragic backstory (her daughter died after being tormented by a violent criminal boyfriend, leaving a grandchild in her care), a complicated family, a relentless police job, and one hell of a nice multi-colored scarf; she’s carried the weight of the world on her shoulders with barely a moment to catch her breath (who could forget her highly relatable cry of ‘WHAT A S**T WEEK’?).
In the climax, Wainwright gave Catherine with the serenity she deserved, giving her the answer she wanted to the issue that had loomed big over the whole show: ‘will my grandson turn out like his awful father?’
Of course, the response was a thundering no.
Of course, she had to go through the ringer to get there: we got her reconciliation with sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran); we got her finishing her last shift before retirement without any more bickering over a leaving do; and we even got her casually gifting her superior with one last solved case as she packed up her desk.
In fact, the episode’s final stretch was so brilliantly, firmly The Catherine Show that there was simply no need to see the big male villains live out their final story beats: not Darius’ downfall, not Faisal’s arrest, not Hepworth being locked up in a cell, not even Tommy Lee Royce taking his last breath.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way: in the end, those jerks didn’t matter.
Not at all. And those images would have paled in contrast to the one we actually needed: Catherine and Clare’s peaceful, exquisite snuggle (RIP the crochet blanket) and, ultimately, Catherine’s visit to Becky’s burial, where she knew her daughter could now rest in peace.
Catherine’s story was complete with that small touch of the gravestone, and we will be eternally grateful to both Wainwright and Lancashire for keeping us engaged in her for every single second of the past 18 episodes spanning nearly a decade.
On the one hand, it’s heartbreaking to think that she won’t be appearing on our televisions any more.
On the other hand, how pleasant it is to have her narrative wrapped up so neatly, with such a strong feeling of finality and closure – and a sense that everything, despite everything that has occurred, will be OK.
Lancashire has won every award. Wainwright has won every accolade. And kudos to the spectators for not fainting under the strain of that thrilling narrative.
Catherine, best wishes for your retirement. Please save me a piece of that cake.