The following contains spoilers for the series 3 finale of Happy Valley. Note: not season 3. This is not an advert on CBS. If you haven’t yet seen it then go away now. But do come back when you’ve seen it and tell me whether you agree with what follows below.
So look, those of you still with me, we have to talk about what just happened there and the overblown reaction to it on social media. The general consensus is that the last episode - extended from its regular 60 minutes to 70 minutes due to the sheer magnitude of it - is the greatest hour (and a bit) of television ever made. It’s just…well…not. Is it?
Don’t get me wrong. It’s good. It’s very, very, good. Sarah Lancashire and James Norton are great in the lead roles. Even Siobhan Finneran as Lancashire’s Catherine’s sister Claire has her moments when she’s not stumbling around wearing that look of confused sadness on her face. I’m not so sold on the performances of sulky, monosyllabic Rhys Connah as Ryan or Con O’Neill’s terminally gullible Croaky Neil but these are minor quibbles. Things you can get away with and still be the greatest show ever made. But some things you can’t.
My main beef is the ending. From the moment Catherine returns home to find Norton’s Tommy Lee Royce in her house the ship starts to list a little. Most of the scene in which they confront each other is TV gold. Three series and nine years of mutual hatred and the reasons for it spew forth. But the writer must have been fretting about running time, needing to stretch it out a little at that point. Which is somewhat ironic given the time-saving hatchet job done on the subplot which we will come too later. For now we will focus on the Catherine-Tommy showdown.
When they’ve said all that needs to be said, when the action is crying out for a denouement. For the pair to have a bloody fight to the death. Just at that moment we get overkill. The conversation has run it’s course but we still get another 10 minutes of dialogue between the two which, while delivered wonderfully and with the same intensity by the actors, is basically just one saying “fuck off” and the other saying “no, you fuck off”. Eventually Tommy can take it no more and brings it to a merciful end by setting himself on fire. Perhaps this is what women mean when they keep telling me that James Norton is hot. Though I doubt it.
I’m a patient man so the dragged out verbal duel was not a deal breaker. And yes I am aware that I have just used the Americanism ‘ deal breaker’ right after balking at the use of the Americanism ‘season’ but the truth is I couldn’t think of a better phrase. Anyway, the point is that there was still an opportunity to redeem the situation. But having dragged out the argument between Catherine and Tommy there isn’t enough time to wrap up the Faisal, Joanna, Rob situation. To recap the painstakingly cultivated sub-plot:
Schoolteacher Rob is a domestic abuser. He is physically bullying wife Joanna. She’s on prescription drugs but she can’t get enough so she goes to friendly neighbour and pharmacist Faisal for some extras. As they grow closer throughout the series she reveals Rob’s violent streak to Faisal. So together she and Faisal plot to kill Rob. Only before they get round to that piece of business they have a row about exactly who she has told about their medication transactions. There’s some shouting, a bit of push and shove and then he violently clubs her over the head with a rolling pin. The implication is that he finishes her off by injecting fresh air into her as she lies convulsing from the head trauma. It all seems a bit extreme for a quiet but neurotic character such as Faisal but we probably should remember that he is under extreme pressure having got himself mixed up with eastern European gangsters with perfect Yorkshire accents.
Whatever you think of this sub-plot it is significant and took up a good chunk of screen time throughout the show’s final, six-part run. So for it to be wrapped up by Catherine in one line on her way out of the door on her last day with the force feels a little disappointing. The information - that Faisal has been caught for the pill peddling (and maybe the murder?) and Rob for the possession and sharing of indecent images - is delivered to the DCS so matter-of-factly that Catherine might just as well have been reminding Croaky Neil to pick up a bottle of milk and some tea bags before he drops Ryan off at home. Driving Ryan around seemed to be Croaky Neil’s sole function whether Catherine approved of their chosen destinations or not. Regardless, this ‘by the way’ approach is not the stuff of the greatest hour of TV in history. Give me 20 minutes of Kelly McDonald saying ‘no comment’ in Line Of Duty over this any day.
And another thing. Sorry I’m on one now and nobody ever said this blog was structured. It can be a bit stream of consciousness. Why did they have to turn Rob into a paedo? Yes he had to go down for something but was beating up his wife not enough? I’m not an expert on these things but I have it on good authority that the combination of wife beater and schoolboy groomer in the same individual is not a common one. It felt tacked on for shock value and seemed to imply that being a wife beater alone simply isn’t nasty enough for a character you’re meant to hate and whose demise you are encouraged to enjoy.
For all this, I did enjoy it. It’s a great series. I’m triggered however by all the talk on social media of this being the greatest hour (and 10 minutes) of TV. Whether it’s TV, film, music or sport there is this modern pandemic of every new thing having to be the best in history. Not only is this irritating but it shows a lack of knowledge and imagination. It’s lazy. But that’s probably Twitter for you.
But why can’t something just be very, very good and be left at that?
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