There are very few TV shows that truly stamp themselves on the cultural psyche. Usually, they’re big, genre-defining American shows. The Sopranos, say, or The Simpsons. But no programme has had a greater influence, in recent years, than Sally Wainwright’s blistering Brontë-country barnstormer, Happy Valley. From Mare of Easttown to Fargo, the fingerprints of Happy Valley are all over prestige TV, like my thumb marks in the Christmas Wensleydale. Now, after a seven-year break (in which nothing good has happened to the world, and I blame its absence), the show is finally back on BBC One, where it belongs.
The new year’s return to the Calder Valley finds an ill-fitting contentment descended upon the Cawood family. Catherine (Sarah Lancashire) is approaching retirement but seems to be relishing both her final months in the job and her future plans. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m very proud of my 30 years,” she tells her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran), “but job done.” Meanwhile, grandson Ryan (Rhys Connah) is, seemingly, a normal teenager – loudly berating his teammates on the football pitch and making crude jokes with friends. His biological father, convicted murderer Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), is safely behind bars. What could go wrong?
