Happy Valley (2014) Review: A Sergeant Who Never Lets Go

Is Happy Valley worth watching?

Yes. Happy Valley is one of the best British crime dramas of the century, a gripping, funny and devastating portrait of a Yorkshire police sergeant, and Sarah Lancashire’s performance alone makes it essential. Sally Wainwright’s writing treats violence as something with consequences that never fade, and across three series the story builds to a rare sense of completeness. The only real reservations are its brutality, which includes sexual violence and is not for everyone, and a middle series that spreads itself a little thinner than the first and last.

What is Happy Valley about?

Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) is a sergeant in West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley, experienced, blunt and very good at her job. She is also a bereaved mother raising her orphaned grandson, Ryan (Rhys Connah), with the help of her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran). When a botched local kidnapping plot begins to unfold, it becomes entangled with Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), the man Catherine holds responsible for her daughter’s death, who has just been released from prison.

Happy Valley was created and written by Sally Wainwright for the BBC, and she also directed several episodes. It is a British drama in English. This review covers the complete series: three seasons (series, in British terms) of six episodes each, released in 2014, 2016 and 2023, and the story is finished.

Sarah Lancashire’s Catherine is television at its best

Everything in Happy Valley runs through Catherine, and Lancashire makes her one of the great characters in British television. She is funny in a dry, working-class way, stubborn to the point of self-harm, and capable of fierce tenderness and frightening anger within the same scene. Lancashire never asks for sympathy; she plays Catherine’s grief as something she has folded into her daily routine, which is exactly why it hurts when it breaks through.

James Norton is chilling as Tommy, a man whose menace comes from how ordinary and self-pitying he can seem. Siobhan Finneran is quietly superb as Clare, and the sisters’ relationship, loving, exasperated and scarred, gives the series much of its warmth. The multiple BAFTA wins the show collected feel entirely deserved.

A crime story rooted in a real place

Wainwright’s great skill is specificity. The Calder Valley is not a picturesque backdrop but a lived-in community of market towns, housing estates and moorland roads, where the police know the families they deal with and old grudges run deep. The crimes grow out of money worries, addiction and resentment, and the show treats them with a clear-eyed seriousness that sets it apart from puzzle-box detective drama.

The humour is essential, too. Catherine’s commentary, the canteen banter and family arguments leaven even the darkest episodes, and the tonal control is remarkable: a scene can move from laugh-out-loud dialogue to genuine horror without feeling contrived.

Where the pressure drops

The series is not flawless. The second season adds a separate murder investigation that is less compelling than the personal story at its core, and some plotting there relies on coincidence. The gap of several years before the final season also means it helps to watch the three series close together. More seriously, the violence, including sexual violence, is depicted with a frankness that some viewers will find too much, even though it is never gratuitous in intent.

Who should watch Happy Valley?

It is essential for fans of British crime drama and anyone who values great character writing over twisty mysteries. At 18 episodes across three series, it is a very manageable binge. It carries mature ratings for a reason: expect strong violence, references to rape and suicide, drug use and frequent bad language.

If it grips you, three strong follow-ups:

• Broadchurch for another British crime drama rooted in a small community’s grief.
• Line of Duty, a very different kind of police series, built on procedural tension and interrogation.
• Adolescence for a more recent British drama that treats violent crime with the same seriousness about consequences.

The verdict

Happy Valley is British television drama at its most humane and most unflinching, anchored by a central performance for the ages. Its darkness and a slightly diffuse middle series are the only caveats; as a complete, three-series story it is close to essential viewing.

Rating: 4.5/5