WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME (HAPPY VALLEY, SERIES THREE)

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It says an awful lot about the effect 'Happy Valley' has had when you see BBC News items about the impact the show has had on the Yorkshire community where it was filmed.

Over the last nine years, Sally Wainwright's gripping police drama has built and held onto a loyal audience with just three series to its name by defying convention.

Its live broadcasts on BBC1 have consistently attracted between seven and nine million viewers in the UK..

During the final season, that audience rose to 11 million on the BBC'S catch-up service, the iPlayer.

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And when you take a step back and look at them, those audience figures are no mean feat - especially in an era of so much content.

'Happy Valley' has resonated with audiences too in other territories around the globe either on TV channels or streaming services.

It has done that by building a compelling story of a feud between a dedicated grandmother and police officer and a violent sex offender who she blames for the death of her daughter.

But 'Happy Valley,' as we have said before on our sister blog Pomona Rewind, is more than just a crime drama.

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It's a family drama about relatives struggling to come to terms with a loved one's death, the danger of addiction and the after effects of crime.

The show is also about a broken community and it hasn't put a foot wrong in its depiction of a town wrestling with the problems of deprivation and drug fuelled crime.

There's also a strain of the old fashioned morality tale about what happens when ordinary people are lured into crime by greed or infidelity or both.

Series Three, which Wainwright has indicated will be the final one, finds Sarah Lancashire's Sergeant Catherine Cawood on the brink of retirement.

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Catherine tells colleagues she wants to leave the police quietly with no fuss made.

She has bought a jeep which requires a bit of work and dreams of travelling to the Himalayas in once she leaves the force.

Wainwright's heroine is more weary in this series and more tetchy and impatient with those around her.

Her grandson, Rhys Connah's Ryan is now 16 and on the brink of becoming an adult.

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Ryan is a goalkeeper in the school football team coached by Mark Stanley's irascible teacher Rob Hepworth.

There's friction on and off the field between Rob and Ryan who thinks he's a rubbish coach with no tactical nous.

Meanwhile Catherine's sister, Siobhan Finneran's Clare has set up a home with her partner, Con O'Neill's shop assistant and fellow recovering addict, Neil Ackroyd.

Her son Karl Davies' Daniel Cawood has moved in with Charlie Murphy's Ann Gallagher after the disintegration of his marriage.

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Ann, who joined the police in the second series after being abducted and raped by James Norton's Tommy Lee Royce in the first, has fulfilled her ambition to become a detective.

But she becomes unsettled as the series wears on.

Series three begins with Catherine being directed to a crime scene at a reservoir in Ripponden where a human skeleton has been discovered.

She knows immediately who it is - Gary Gogowski who fell foul of the Knezevic crime gang and then disappeared.

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Catherine's nemesis, Tommy Lee Royce is suspected of having been present when the murder took place and is transported from his prison cell in Sheffield to Calder Valley for questioning.

Sporting a scar on his forehead after a recent altercation in prison and a Jesus hairstyle, he initially stalls when questioned.

However when Jason Merrells' DC Steed and Vincent Frankin's DSU Andy Shepherd reveal they are aware of a conversation he had with a prison chaplain about the murder and that they found his St Christopher's medal at the scene, it looks like they may have finally got someone who could link Alec Secareanu's Dariusz Knezivic to a crime.

During the interrogation, Tommy looks like he might shop Knezivic who is posing as a respectable businessman while running for a seat on the local council.

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However, Tommy smugly throws a curveball - claiming the murder was carried out by Chris Oxley who runs a crime gang in Oldham.

And it is clear he expects the Knezivics to reward him for his loyalty. 

Back in Hebdon Bridge, we learn Rob Hepworth is a domestic abuser with a wife addicted to prescription drugs, Mollie Winnard's Jo.

On discovering she failed to pick up their two daughters from school, he finds out she has obtained diazepam and after threatening to sexually assault her, rings the police to frighten her.

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After having Catherine up the wrong way in school by wrongfully accusing Ryan of vandalising his car, Rob is shocked when Sergeant Cawood arrives at his door.

Catherine notices signs of coercive control like a padlock on the kitchen fridge and decides to take Jo into custody, hoping during questioning she might reveal if she is the victim of domestic abuse.

Jo, however, doesn't take the bait but the diazepam tablets are taken in for forensic analysis to see if their source can be traced.

The person who supplies her with the drugs is a neighbour, Amit Shah's local pharmacist Faisal Bhatti who she has been trading sexual favours with her in return for the tablets.

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With Faisal nervous about getting caught, she leans on him to help her either find her a place to live or bump off Rob by drugging him first and injecting him with air.

Faisal's under the counter trade in diazepam brings him to the attention of the Knezivics who send two of their goons, Oliver Huntington's Ivan Sertic and Jack Bandeira's Matija Jankovic to lean on him and hand over the profits of his lucrative trade.

Ivan and Matija, however, fall foul of Dariusz when a flat where they were storing drug money gets raided and a guy tasked with looking after it is arrested.

This opens up another front in the effort to expose the Knezivics' criminal activities.

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Meanwhile Catherine is approached by her boss, Rick Warden's Mike Taylor to let her know Tommy is due to appear in court in Leeds on charges connected to the Gogowski murder.

However he reveals he has been informed by prison officers that a teenager matching Ryan's description has been visiting Tommy in jail for some time with an adult.

That would mean someone in the family is accompanying him - a thought that is so unconscionable it gnaws away at her.

Who is taking Ryan to see Tommy?

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Will Faisal and Jo go ahead with their plan to kill Rob?

What will happen to Ivan and Matija?

Will Tommy eventually get his long awaited showdown with Catherine?

Final series of popular shows like 'Happy Valley' are always judged on the strength of their final episode.

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And it has to be said as finales go, the last episode was pretty strong.

However shows like 'Happy Valley' should be judged in the round. 

Taken as a whole, the final series of 'Happy Valley' was a  welcome lift from the post Christmas, winter blues.

Wainwright's drama has often had the air of a north of England Western and this was particularly true in the third series which delivered in the final episode the face off between Catherine and Tommy that many viewers wanted.

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This further cemented the notion of Catherine being The Sheriff of Hendon Bridge and Calder Valley.

But was Catherine able to ride off into the sunset in her clapped out jeep, having dispatched of Tommy?

As final episodes go, 'Happy Valley's' was still a typically grounded piece of writing from Wainwright and it avoided easy thrills.

In fact, the entire series was grounded - even when there were moments of suspense.

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All six episodes were taut, meticulously plotted and they knew exactly when to inject moments of levity amid the tension, the fury and the grim violence. 

Impressively directed by Wainwright, Patrick Harkins and Fergus O'Brien, each script embodied all the elements of show that fans of 'Happy Valley' have loved over the years.

We got the fractious family drama, evidence of Catherine's deep well of compassion for some and her impatience with others, her character's ability to put less talented and more cocky superiors in their place, the recurring phenomenon of ordinary people doing stupid things that lead to dreadful crimes and, of course, Tommy's cunning.

It cleverly developed narrative threads from previous series - particularly developing the Knezivic crime gang story and convincingly linking it to Tommy's criminality and the drug trade in Calder Valley.

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One of 'Happy Valley's' strengths has been Wainwright's steely determination to avoid incredulous plot twists to grab audience attention and that remained the case.

However its biggest strengths remain the quality of the scripts and the quality of the performances.

Lancashire once again was majestic in the role of Catherine, a woman worn down by years of policing and keeping her family intact, fuelled by anger at those who have complicated her job and a deep loathing of Tommy.

And yet amid all the resentment and frustration, there were glimmers of the compassion and fierce protectiveness towards her community that have been her signature trait.

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Norton also impressed, deftly switching between malevolence, vanity, bitterness and a surprising streak of sentimentality.

Finneran excelled too as Clare as the sisters' relationship came under strain.

But all the series regulars from O'Neill to Connah, Franklin to Davies, Murphy to Costigan, Warden, Susan Lynch as Alison Garrs and Ishia Bennison delivered.

The new faces like Mark Stanley as Rob, Mollie Winnard as his wife Jo, Alec Secareanu, Amit Shah, Oliver Huntington, Jack Bandeira and Jason Merrells made major contributions to the success of this series.

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'Happy Valley' optimists will note some storylines lay open in the final episode for Wainwright to return to should she decide to revisit the show or craft a spin-off.

And it is true the resolution of the Rob Hepworth and Faisal Bhatti storyline felt a bit rushed in an episode with so much to resolve.

Ann Gallagher was also conspicuous by her absence in the final episode after delivering a knockout rant in the penultimate one.

But if this really is the end, Wainwright should be rest assured with just three series she had created one of the best cop dramas Britain has ever produced without slavishly following the rules.

'Happy Valley' will be really missed unless Wainwright finds a way to revive the show.

(Series three of 'Happy Valley' was broadcast on BBC1 from January 1-February 5, 2023)