Happy Valley last episode’s Tommy Lee Royce gutwrenching fire scene has a powerful message for everyone
Sally Wainwright #SallyWainwright
Wow. What a final shift for Sgt Catherine Cawood that was – and a belting finale for the millions of gripped viewers across the UK. She is well and truly code 11 and the 11 million who watched her snatch her happy ending are celebrating alongside her.
The entire nation was rooting Catherine on, every second of the one hour eight minute-long finale episode of the BBC crime drama series. And finally, as she faces civic life, we saw our badass heroine at peace after winning the inevitable showdown between her and arch nemesis Tommy Lee Royce.
Once again, writer Sally Wainwright took tension to a whole new level from the moment Happy Valley viewers settled in on the edge of their seats and the twanging of Jake Bugg’s guitar began to play. It was proper gritty Yorkshire telly throughout and oh my god’s own country did it deliver.
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It is near impossible to adequately sum up the wringer of emotions writer Sally Wainwright has put us through tonight – and indeed the previous five weeks – but the take home message has to be, that family is everything and that nurture will always prevail over nature.
While the Kneževićs’ and seemingly invisible Faisal Bhatti and Rob Hepworth’s mind blowing plot twists bubbled away in the background, at the heart of the entire episode were the dynamics of the Cawood family and what might happen to them.
But first, we had to endure the power struggle between Catherine and Tommy Lee Royce. For the first time, Wainwright allowed us to see each formidable character actually vulnerable, while the inescapable realisation that one of them must die made it impossible to look away.
And while there were tender moments between the viewer and Catherine, especially as we watched her caress the photographs of both Ryan and her beloved Becky in the family photograph albums, knackered, work-weary and battle worn, few ever felt sorry for her.
Meanwhile, almost like her shadow, Tommy Lee Royce, unknowingly mimicked Sgt Cawood’s every move – he too looks at Becky and Ryan, resting injured in the same spot as Catherine did just hours earlier. But his sadness is not the same as Catherine’s.
She is grieving what she had, while Tommy, the son of a sex worker and whose father is unknown – despite the Neil theories – is grieving what he never had as a child and what he can now never have with Ryan.
It culminates in Catherine entering the house knowing everything about Ryan’s prison visits and his plan to run to Marbella. Already injured and on the brink of overdosing, Tommy Lee Royce’s armour is damaged beyond repair. Catherine, in her full uniform, faces the man who essentially killed her daughter with a greater, less fearful understanding as to why Ryan, Clare and Neil betrayed her by visiting Tommy Lee Royce in the prison.
With a meek “Hello?” from a seriously injured Tommy Lee Royce, who had just taken a lethal overdose of painkillers, of course Catherine’s first response is to pull out her taser and say “Do you need an ambulance? I think you need an ambulance. I want you to nudge that knife towards me, gently”.
In one of many scenes bound to win a BAFTA, Tommy Lee Royce retorts: “You think I’m going to hurt you?” With the whole of the country behind her, Sgt Cawood starts to recite: “I am arresting you…”
Despite being on death’s door, Tommy Lee Royce, who has lost all power and is actually more like Ryan in this scene than the psychopathic killer he is, whimpers “I’m dead meat” before pleading with Catherine to remember “Gary Gagowski”.
And then the tension between the two grows and grows and grows… as does Catherine’s hatred and she lets rip: “I am glad that he (Ryan) knows that your just a f****d up, frightened, damaged, disillusioned, little toddler brain in a man’s body.”
And all he can do is petulantly say “REALLY” before Catherine unleashes her hatred for him after years of torment. And then…silence. The beat gets going and Wainwright changes everything again as Tommy Lee Royce, bloodied, bruised and on the brink of collapse, says: “… You know what I realised? I realised what a nice life he’s had, a nice life you have given him. I hated you for not telling me I had a boy but last night, I had a glimpse of what a nice life he’s had and I don’t hate you anymore. I forgive you.”
To which Catherine calls him a “delinquent f***” and any fleeting feeling of sympathies towards Tommy Lee Royce are forgotten and the nation remember they are firmly and forever team Catherine.
Then, boom. Tommy Lee Royce is up in flames – a suicide I don’t think any of us saw coming. It was shocking, weird, powerful, unsettling. It was almost biblical.
Some might say it was too much, but isn’t that where Wainwright pulls off her signature move? A psychopath burning alive is no more horrific than watching a woman be bound and gagged then repeatedly raped while being told: “I’ll chop off your t*ts”.
As West Yorkshire Police jump into action (a little tardily might I add), Catherine stumbles out of her house and appears to have a panic attack. Only for her beloved sister Clare to show up bang on cue: “We’ve had another bit of a tussle. I won, obviously. I might have singed one of your crocheted blankets though,” Catherine says, as she rests her drained head on her sister’s bosom. It was TV magic.
Yet again, Wainwright forced the viewer to confront conflicted views tonight. Because although Tommy Lee Royce is a massive psychopath, you can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for him. She shines a light on the devastating impact neglect and abuse and instability can have on a child and makes you question, can anyone truly be born evil?
Happy Valley made the small screen big again. In the culture of binge-watching Netflx and chill and on demand TV that we’re so accustomed to, for six weeks, viewers have loyally been returning for their 9pm, Sunday night fix, of a crime drama so utterly gripping it gives Hollywood’s Breaking Bad a run for its money.
And better yet, the idea of a “will there be a fourth series” is well and truly put to bed (no matter how much we want it).