Review: 'Happy Valley' the final season is TV drama at its soaring peak

By Peter Travers

With Emmy nominations just around the corner on July 12, the time has come for me to make the case for "Happy Valley," a brilliant British crime drama now in its third and final season on BBC America, AMC+ and Acorn TV. The real crime is that "Happy Valley," which regularly sweeps up top prizes in the U.K., has been unforgivably cold-shouldered by Emmy.

Please, no more. How does a television academy that purports to know quality ignore this groundbreaker of a series and Sarah Lancashire, the Category 5 hurricane of an actress who gives a performance for the ages as Sgt. Catherine Cawood of West Yorkshire?

It's not like Emmy ignores Brit actresses playing police detectives -- look at Helen Mirren ("Prime Suspect") and Kate Winslet ("Mare of Easttown"). To my mind, Lancashire raises even that high bar. Her acting is so fierce, so funny, so assured at walking the tightrope between delicate and devastating that her work should be required viewing for anyone interested in acting as art.

BBC

Siobhan Finneran as Clare Cartwright in a scene from "Happy Valley."

Look, maybe you've never seen any season of "Happy Valley," which premiered in 2014. If so, I envy the discovery that awaits you. Fans had to wait two years for season 2 and seven years after that for season 3, which ends "Happy Valley" in volcanic eruption.

With the help of the gifted series creator, writer and sometimes-director Sally Wainwright, Lancashire has created a character for the ages.

Cath, as her family and fellow coppers know her, is on the verge of retirement, but still reeling from the suicide of her daughter, who was groomed and raped by Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), a sadistic killer who fathered Cath's grandson, Ryan (Rhys Connah).

Royce is now in prison where Ryan, now 16, visits to understand how much he may be like or unlike the monster who calls himself his father. Cath is stung by Ryan's betrayal, since the escape plan hatched by Royce, himself a victim of abuse, is mostly to revenge himself on Cath.

In outline, the plot sounds standard for the cops-and-killers genre. It's anything but. The characters seem to grow out of the soil and the community that spawned them, flaws and all. And the acting, in roles small and major, could not be better.

BBC

Sarah Lancashire as Catherine Cawood in a scene from "Happy Valley."

The producers waited years so Connah could grow into the role of Ryan, and he rewards their patience by getting under the skin of a conflicted teen who isn't even close to knowing himself. All praise to Siobhan Finneran as Clare, the ex-addict who stands helpless as big sister Cath hurls verbal bullets at her until Claire sneakily and treacherously undercuts big sis's control.

This series ends, as it must, in a duel between Cath and Royce that has been building for 18 propulsive episodes. You won't be able to tear your eyes off the screen.

Norton, probably best known as the sexy vicar in "Grantchester," is killer good as Royce, slathering charm over wolfish perversity to draw Ryan into his web. Call him electrifying or anything else that sounds dangerous if you get too close. What Norton lets us see is the father Royce could be losing the war with the predator he's become.

It's Cath who knows his game, releasing the reserves of power and amazing grace that Lancashire has at her disposal. This is a magnificent actress at the top of her game. To watch her and Norton go at it in a blazing clash of good and evil is TV drama at its soaring peak. Shame on you, Emmy, if you don't seize your last chance to cover "Happy Valley" in awards glory.