The third season of Happy Valley will premiere on BBC tonight, and it is safe to assume that viewers are really excited about the event.
The series is making a huge reappearance with brand new episodes for its very last run, which will be broadcast on BBC One as well as the streaming platform BBC iPlayer.
Sarah Lancashire reprises her role as the leading member of the cast, Sergeant Catherine Cawood, who is a police community officer for the West Yorkshire Police Department. The drama is filmed and set in the Calder Valley, which is located in West Yorkshire, in Northern England.
In addition, Rhys Connah reprises his role as Catherine Cawood’s grandson Ryan Cawood, Con O’Neill reprises his role as Clare Cartwright’s boyfriend Neil Ackroyd, and James Norton reprises his role as Tommy Lee Royce, the protagonist’s adversary as well as Ryan’s father. Siobhan Finneran reprises her role as her sister Clare Cartwright.
In addition to this, several new characters have been added to the mix. The following is the information that you must know regarding them.
Who is new to the cast of Happy Valley season 3?
After seven years away, Happy Valley has finally returned for its third and final season, with plenty of familiar faces in tow.
However, there are also some new characters who will be making their debuts on the drama.
The new actors joining the cast include The Other One star Amit Shah, The Girl Before actor Mark Stanley and All Creatures Great And Small actress Mollie Winnard.
While little is known about how their characters will play into the story, it’s been said they’ll all play ‘pivotal roles in Happy Valley’s final chapter’.
Amit’s character is Faisal Bhatti, who works as a pharmacist in the Valley.
Mark stars as Rob Hepworth, who’s Ryan’s football coach and a father of two young daughters, who’s married to fellow newcomer Joanna Hepworth, played by Mollie.
After Joanna is arrested by Catherine, this incident pulls at the thread of mysteries swirling around the neighbourhood.
What’s the plot of Happy Valley season 3?
This season, Catherine will embark on a high-stakes investigation when she discovers the remains of a gangland murder victim in a drained reservoir.
This mysterious death ‘sparks a chain of events that leads her straight back to Tommy Lee Royce’, the BBC teased.
With her personal and professional life clashing, Catherine must cope with the fact that her grandson Ryan, who’s now 16 years old, ‘has ideas of his own about the kind of relationship he wants to have with the man Catherine refuses to acknowledge as his father’.
What’s more, Catherine’s sister, Claire, is ‘caught in the middle’.
Is season 3 definitely the end of Happy Valley?
Unfortunately, it appears so.
‘We always said this would be the final season and it is very definitely is the final season,’ said the show’s creator Sally Wainwright.
Explaining why it took so long for the series to return, Sally added: ‘I waited six years because I wanted to get to a point where Ryan would be old enough to start making choices about whether he wanted to have a relationship with his dad or not. And could he have a relationship with his dad, and how would Catherine feel about that? I really wanted to be able to explore that.
‘It’s been great that we got Rhys back to play Ryan which has been fantastic, and he has done a really lovely job in that. That was always the intention, to have a gap and it has worked out just about right.
‘Just the right period of time because he is now 16, so he can travel places by himself, he can make choices. He can do things behind Catherine’s back. The intention developed through conversations I had with Sarah to make it a three-parter, to make a trilogy.’
Happy Valley season 3 premieres tonight at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.