***THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE HAPPY VALLEY FINALE***
Happy Valley fans saw the series wrapped up at the weekend, with a fiery finale between Catherine Cawood and her nemesis Tommy Lee Royce in the show's final moments.
The closing scenes of the BBC One drama - created by Sally Wainwright - were praised across the United Kingdom, as a fitting end to the widely-watched thriller which has had viewers on the edge of their seats for weeks.
Catherine (Sarah Lancashire) finally confronted Tommy (James Norton), with emotional home truths and vicious insults being traded for 15 minutes in their incredibly tense final meeting.
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The Mirror reports that the scene ended with critically wounded Tommy Lee setting fire to himself after pouring over pictures of his son Ryan over the years. This Morning aired an extended Happy Valley special segment on Monday morning to react to the tense final episode, as Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield quizzed criminologist David Wilson and former Met Police senior detective Sue Hill on the scenes.
Holly asked the pair their thoughts on Tommy Lee’s intentions, as she wondered whether he had been reformed and simply wanted to spend time with his son Ryan – who they speculated could be the subject of a future spin-off amid hints in the finale of a future in law enforcement.
Yet criminologist David insisted that was not the case, explaining: “He was using his son because that was the final piece of power and control that he had.”
Former Met officer Sue echoed his thoughts, saying: “We used to talk about ‘Are they mad or bad?’ He’s thoroughly bad. He’s a wrong’un. He’s just vile. To watch Catherine with him, you wonder how she never shot him.”
Sue theorised Tommy Lee could have been trying to provoke her deliberately in the final scenes to bring about a suicide by cop’ ending for himself. She praised Sergeant Cawood, saying: “She had such professionalism, control, compassion,” as David added of Tommy Lee: “It was narcissism on his part until the very end.”
Phil questioned whether the final self-immolation was the ending a crime expert would have expected for a psychopathic character such as Tommy Lee. Phil asked: “Is what he did to himself the final power?” David replied: “In a word, yes.”
He then added: “But go back one stage – by the time there is that confrontation with Catherine, he’s also been injured in his previous fight. He’s actually physically quite weak, which takes away some of the incipient threat he might have. Is that the ending he might want? Yes, of course. He wants to go down in a blaze of glory.
“He doesn’t want to be judged by the criminal justice system. The way he can control it is by not letting that system deal with him, so he commits suicide. It’s narcissistic. It’s about power.”
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