I can measure out my life, not with coffee spoons, but in female cops. First, there was Insp Jean Darblay (as played by Stephanie Turner) in Juliet Bravo, who had the young me dreaming of an adulthood in which every man in the vicinity was required to call me ma’am (some hope). Then there was DCI Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) in Prime Suspect, fighting institutional sexism one day at a time with a pair of black leather gloves, a good haircut and too much booze. Finally, there is Sgt Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) in Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley, less highly ranked than either of her predecessors, but about 10 times as tough.
In Catherine’s hi-vis jacket and satisfying way with the word twat, we reach the apogee of the groundbreaking female TV police officer; I don’t believe, creatively speaking, she can go any higher, though I hope I’m wrong. Either way, I’m going to miss her. Every woman I know adores her, this walking, talking embodiment of the fact that the precise moment most women reach their zenith is the precise moment half the world stops listening to them. Excited as I am by Happy Valley’s tangled plots – what is the devilish Tommy Lee Royce about to do? – it’s Catherine’s determination in the face of her extreme weariness that I experience as pure energy: exhilarating, intoxicating, not-to-be-messed-with under any circumstances.
