Happy Valley

Chestnut - our Catherine would have switched voice record.

Glorianny

The Knezevics were people traffickers and involved in prostitution, not just drug dealing. I don't think Darius would be charged with anything. Tommy's statement to Catherine wouldn't count as evidence.

I was hoping Catherine had switched her 'voice record' on before entering the room, then everything he said would have been recorded as a dying confession.

It’s been one of the best in my opinion.

Well, I don't know about you but I thought that Happy Valley, the three series taken together as a whole, was worthy of comparison with the best of the golden age of TV drama.

What I liked about it was the gentle pace of it that allowed the stories to breathe and the characters to develop, And they were whole, rounded and believable characters. It was, of course, visually stunning in the way it contrasted the beautiful landscape with the gritty urban lives being lived out in the valley. And just the right balance of horror and wit.

The Knezevics were people traffickers and involved in prostitution, not just drug dealing. I don't think Darius would be charged with anything. Tommy's statement to Catherine wouldn't count as evidence.

So many factors brought into this, as Iam64 said (thank you), it is nature vs nurture with Tommy and Ryan, then we have the so called respectable middle class professionals such as the PE teacher, and the pharmacist; one was a violent abuser, controller, groomer of adolescents, one was a drug dealer and murderer. Both from comfortable childhoods as far as we knew. So, did this make them 'better' than the drug dealing murderers the Knezevics who did the same, just on a larger scale?

Ryan has inherited 50% of his genes from Tommy but does that include a 'bad gene'? Until we are able to identify every gene responsible for pretty much every personality trait I guess we will never know. Did Tommy have a bad gene, did one or both of his parents have one? It could be a long time before we can answer these types of questions.

Having worked for many years in child protection I did feel for Tommy at the end, despite the horror of what he was capable of. The thing is we aren’t all bad any more than we are all good, and children with attachment difficulties and chaotic families have more than most to contend with.

Great review House Plant Queen.
The nature/nurture debate wasn’t finalised, can it ever be?
Children who develop before birth, consuming all kinds of drugs/alcohol as well as poor diet, violence and chaos start with a huge disadvantage. Even if Tommy had been removed at birth and gone straight to prospective adopters who provided loving stable care, would he have been a stable well rounded personality

I thoroughly enjoyed the final episode, and thought the script and acting were exemplary. The sign of good writing, and acting, is when you find yourself, as I did, feeling sorry for TLR, for a life wasted. That moment when he peeked into Ryan's bedroom, and saw all the personal stuff, the love that had gone into giving a child a home; he must have compared it to his own grim upbringing with nothing of his own. I kept reminding myself that he was a monster, that he had ruined lives, but nobody, as a child, wants to grow up into a life like that endured by TLR, he was doomed from conception. Ryan came good, showed himself to be a smart lad, especially when he argued for his Aunt Cath. All in all, brilliant writing, very well performed, and I was glad that it ended with both main characters speaking to each other, and perhaps, understanding each other more than when they started.

Spoiler Alert!

Sorry I thought it was so contrived it annoyed me. Suddenly Catherine -having been told not to go anywhere alone, not apparently needing to do the morning briefing she's done every other morning, is free to drive to home territory to collect a cake. En-route she gets a call from Winnie, who lives round the back but has spotted a break in at the front. So she goes home and goes in.
At this point my capacity for belief was so stretched. So Tommy sitting at her kitchen looking better than he did when bleeding to death the night before was just a step too far.
Sorry to disagree with everyone.
I do like some reality in the endings.

Oh, there's bound to be another one CatsCatsCats in a while, though not just yet - we need to get our breath back.

That was a very satisfactory ending, wasn't it? I couldn't possibly have predicted it at all. I almost wanted our Catherine to give nasty psychopath TLR a cuddle at the end but knew she mustn't let go of the Taser or she'd be in trouble.

All the loose ends were nicely gathered in.

Just for a moment there I thought Tommy was going to bleed out in the living room and Catherine would come back to find his body slumped over the photo albums, but that would have been a very unsatisfactory ending because they needed to meet.

My life is upended. I am bereft, desolate, have no purpose.....

What am I going to do now that Happy Valley has ended?

Only joking (well, partly). But I doubt there will ever be another TV drama as good as that one shown in my lifetime.

One of the quickest 70 minutes of my life!
I’m in awe of the script, the actors and the faultless conitinuity.

Pleased Catherine and Clare ‘made up’ at the end, due in no small part to Ryan’s defence of his great aunt, probably reminding Catherine of how involved she (Clare) had been in his nurturing and upbringing.

How he has turned out was partly due to both women, I shouldn’t think Catherine could have managed her hectic job without Clare being there for Ryan when he was growing up, despite all Clare’s own struggles with life.

Brilliant, I have felt like I have been in this drama all the way, maybe as it was filmed not far from where I live, plus the Yorkshire area.

It felt like one of those gripping books that you cannot put down as your there in the middle of all the action.

What are we going to watch on Sunday nights now

Lucy Mangan is always good but that review is superb. I particularly enjoyed her recognising Lancashire and it’s older women .

Lucy Mangan sums it up in her Guardian review -

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/feb/05/happy-valley-finale-review-sally-wainwright-sarah-lancashire-one-of-tvs-greatest-trilogies-gets-a-fiery-farewell

Masterclass of acting. Just superb.

Should have said it was Brilliant?

Chestnut

That must be the best ending of any series in recent years. The final episode usually disappoints but this one wrapped everything up beautifully. The murder was solved off camera after it finished, but you know it will be solved and that's what matters. Most importantly, everyone can sleep peacefully and start to heal, knowing Tommy is no longer a threat.

James Norton conveyed both sides of Tommy so well, the dangerous, violent, unpredictable side and the regretful side, where he seems to realise he could have had a normal life with a wife and son but that was not a path he could ever find a way down. You see a flicker of humanity and pain in his eyes, and it was a revelation when he told Catherine he didn't hate her any more. I almost expected him to thank her for bringing up Ryan but he didn't go quite that far.

I accept that the violence is important to the plot but I really hate it. I had to look away for most of the car scene and the fight in the field. Just horrible.

So agree with this. Brilliant ending.
I hated the violence and watched it through fingers. Brilliant drama.

That must be the best ending of any series in recent years. The final episode usually disappoints but this one wrapped everything up beautifully. The murder was solved off camera after it finished, but you know it will be solved and that's what matters. Most importantly, everyone can sleep peacefully and start to heal, knowing Tommy is no longer a threat.

James Norton conveyed both sides of Tommy so well, the dangerous, violent, unpredictable side and the regretful side, where he seems to realise he could have had a normal life with a wife and son but that was not a path he could ever find a way down. You see a flicker of humanity and pain in his eyes, and it was a revelation when he told Catherine he didn't hate her any more. I almost expected him to thank her for bringing up Ryan but he didn't go quite that far.

I accept that the violence is important to the plot but I really hate it. I had to look away for most of the car scene and the fight in the field. Just horrible.

Brilliant and an excellent ending. Totally unexpected.

If you are a fan of James Norton and haven't seen McMafia, it's well worth a watch. It starts next Sunday at 22h00 on the Drama Channel. It's about Russian oligarchs, some of whom are living in the UK.

Meant SW is a genius !