The Roush Review

Happy Valley | City on Fire | Class of ’09

-  MATT ROUSH

Happy Valley

SEASON PREMIERE

Monday, May 22, 10/9c, BBC America (also on Acorn TV and AMC+)

THE BEST CRIME dramas pack an emotional as well as suspenseful punch. By that criteria, Sally Wainwright’s brilliant British hit Happy  Valley, returning after seven years for a third and final season, is an instant classic, shattering and altogether satisfying.

The wait was worth it to be reacquainted with Sgt. Catherine Cawood, a tough but caring Yorkshire cop burdened with unbearable sorrows, weary from an untapped reservoir of rage. How great is the range of Sarah Lancashire, so delightful as Julia Child in HBO Max’s Julia and so real, wry and raw as the conflicted Catherine, counting the days till retirement.

She has seen the worst of human nature, having lost a daughter to the abuses of monstrous criminal Tommy Lee Royce (Grantchester’s James Norton). His latest bad act: cunningly finding ways to connect from prison with his son and her beloved grandson, Ryan (Rhys Connah), now an impressionably curious teen.