Spoiler alert: this recap is published after Happy Valley airs on BBC One in the UK. Do not read on if you haven’t watched episode four.
Tommy’s on the run, Joanna’s in a suitcase and Catherine’s a whisker away from retirement. As Sally Wainwright’s searing drama enters its home stretch, here’s your Crown Court hearing with regard to the fourth episode …
A glow-up and a great escape
We all suspected that Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) was planning something for his impending murder trial in Leeds. Now it all slotted together and his scheme worked like a dream – or, as far as Calder Valley residents are concerned, a total nightmare.
We first saw Tommy shirtless in his cell, smartening up for his big day in court by shedding his Nazarene locks and unkempt beard with the help of a fellow prisoner (actually a real-life barber called Gaz from Manchester’s Cutthroat Barbershop). This afforded us a glimpse of his back tattoo: the name “Ryan” on a sword. A sword of vengeance?
Short hair, cruel smirk and cocky strut restored, he was ready to face his public. Because he’d protected the Knezevices in the reservoir corpse investigation, pointing police instead to a gangland rival, the crime kingpins owed him and agreed to spring him.
It was unbearably tense as five key characters converged on Leeds Crown Court: Tommy in his prison van, gang enforcers Matija (Jack Bandeira) and Ivan (Oliver Huntingdon, still battered and bruised from his, ahem, staff appraisal meeting), our hero’s journalist ex-husband Richard Cawood (Derek Riddell) and, of course, Tommy’s biological son Ryan (Rhys Connah), who’d bunked off school at Tommy’s behest.
At the pre-arranged hour of 12.55pm, a pulsating, propulsive sequence began with Ivan and Matija gratuitously starting a fight in the courthouse foyer as a diversion. Alarms sounded. Tommy took advantage of the pandemonium by decking both of his security escorts and climbing out of the witness box. He parted panicking crowds by shouting “Police!” (the cheek) and was given a head-start on his pursuers by security guards belatedly locking down the building.
Now we saw what that secret text meant two weeks ago. He ran to nearby Rico’s Newsagents, where waiting in the backroom was a bicycle and courier’s outfit. With helmet, sunglasses and snood, it was the perfect disguise, enabling him to calmly pedal to freedom while police rushed past, radios blaring about his “history of violence and possible access to firearms”. As he rode off into the sunset, Jake Bugg’s lyrics acquired new meaning: “The only thing that’s pretty is the thought of getting out … ”
Darius Knezevic, we’ve been expecting you
Notorious crime family the Knezevices, oft-mentioned but never seen, have plagued West Yorkshire for three series. Now we finally met them. After Ivan and Matija failed to silence “shit-for-brains” Josip before he was arrested, the bungling heavies were summoned to a meeting with “the chief”. Suddenly resembling little boys way out of their depth, the puffa-clad pair looked terrified – not least because they’d nabbed a rucksack containing an estimated £15,000 in dirty money from the “cuckooing” flat before it was seized by police. In a panic, they buried the cash near some local allotments.
“Respectable businessman” and prospective local politician Darius Knezevic (Romanian actor Alec Secareanu, familiar from God’s Own Country and Baptiste) was dapper and smoothly sinister as he summoned them to a disused building he’d just bought. His elder brother Zeljko (Brit-Ukrainian actor Greg Kolpakchi) said little, just lurked ominously. Darius was confident that Josip wouldn’t dare talk – the expensive lawyer he’d provided would help see to that – but Ivan still needed to “be smarter”, so Darius administered a brutal beating, urinated on him for added humiliation, before calmly cleaning his hands with a wet wipe. Well, he rarely likes to get them dirty nowadays. He had a job for the duo the next day – one that involved wearing suits. See you in court, lads.
Unexpected item in baggage area
We last saw abused wife Joanna (Mollie Winnard) about to be finished off by her neighbourhood pharmacist and Diazepam dealer Faisal Bhatti (Amit Shah). Now she was nowhere to be seen as toxic PE teacher Rob Hepworth (Mark Stanley) returned home with their two daughters. There were some heartbreaking visual details. The upturned Girl’s World toy with smeared red lipstick resembling blood. The ironic “Kindness” sign hanging on the kitchen wall. The way Jo’s discarded nightshirt was emblazoned with “Underestimate me, that’ll be fun”.
When he had a car prang with Faisal on the next morning’s school run, Rob flew off the handle with borderline racist remarks (“We have rules in this country, pal”). Faisal remained impressively cool in the face of Rob’s bristling hostility – even taunting him with “Are you all right? Is something else upsetting you?” (basically a faux-concerned “U ok hun?”). Haplessness was a disguise. The killer chemist is far more calculating than he first appeared.
Hepworth dealt with his wife disappearing with all his customary charm, snapping at everyone, scoffing at suggestions she was “vulnerable” and treating it as more of a minor inconvenience than a genuine concern. However, alarm bells rang for Sgt Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) when Jo’s parents reported her missing. We learned during their interview that the couple met when Rob was a teacher and Jo was in sixth-form. Yuck. He’d since shown his true colours as a “control freak” who padlocked the fridge and flushed her anxiety medication down the toilet. “If anything bad has happened to her, it’s him that’s done it,” sobbed her mother. Catherine, ever canny, asked if Jo was seeing someone else.
When a missing persons’ detective visited Rob at home and conducted a search, Rob’s eye was caught by a large suitcase in the garage. Once he was alone, he struggled to lift it. Viewers feared the worst. He unzipped it to find Jo’s corpse folded up inside. As someone suspected of “coercive control and psychological abuse”, he immediately became prime suspect.
Bloody-nosed but unbowed
With the focus on jailbreak Tommy and poor Joanna, this was a relatively quiet episode for protagonist Catherine – as it should be in her last few days before retirement. She returned her spare uniform, prepared to take tea with the Chief Constable on Wednesday and “on Thursday, you can kiss my ample arse goodbye”. Joyce (Ishia Bennison) had collected “£2,175 and sixpence” in a whip-round but Catherine was still refusing a leaving do. If anyone can resist a Colin the Caterpillar cake, it’s her.
She paid a visit to Neil Ackroyd (Con O’Neill), boyfriend of her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran, positively vibrating with guilt and stress), convincing him not to facilitate any more prison visits for Ryan. Fan theories about Neil being Tommy’s father seem to have been laid to rest by the way he rolled over. When he let slip about the invitation to Leeds, Robo-Granny grew suspicious. Why would Tommy want his son to see him sentenced to even more years inside? Well, unless he was planning to “show what a big man he is by sticking two fingers up at the Crown”? She informed her superiors of a potential escape bid but it proved too little, too late.
Regardless of impending retirement, the weight of the world remained on her shoulders. She was still haunted by visions of dead daughter Becky. She worried about Joanna’s disappearance. She worried about “dozy sod” Ann Gallagher (Charlie Murphy) stirring up her own trauma during her attachment to CID. She worried about Richard getting dangerously close to the Knezivices while researching his exposé of council corruption. At least Ryan was safe with Richard. For now.
Line of the week
“Alternatively, you could shove your misplaced do-gooding up your arse” – Catherine’s robust reply to Clare’s group therapy suggestions.
Notes and observations
As Tommy got his trim, he was listening to Nirvana’s acoustic cover version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” by Lead Belly. Maybe his music taste remains stuck in his grungy 90s youth.
Neat touch how gangster Viktor (Anthony Flanagan) was codenamed in his underlings’ phone contacts as “007”. Ivan was certainly shaken and stirred.
Richard was amusingly rattled by the prospect of a cosy supper with convicted killer Alison Garrs (Susan Lynch).
This episode wasn’t brought to you in association with the word “twat”. Tommy was instead variously described by Catherine as a “vacuous thug”, a “black hole” and, best of all, a “wankatron”. You’ll hear no argument from us.
I enjoyed this tweet by Les Dennis the other day.
As the penultimate episode beckons, will Tommy head straight for the nearest bungee-jumping crane? Will Faisal manage to frame Rob for murder? And what does £2k buy in Hebden Bridge or, indeed, the Himalayas? Please share your thoughts and theories below …
• This article was amended on 23 January 2023. Sgt Cawood spoke of her “ample arse”, not her “apple arse” as an earlier version stated.
