Happy Valley · Season 3 · Episode 6 · 5 February 2023
S3E6 Episode 6
THE MOMENT The final confrontation between Catherine and Tommy Lee Royce, years in the making, in the last episode of the series.
The finale of Happy Valley closes out Catherine Cawood's story with the series' most emotionally concentrated writing. The ending justifies the long investment the show has built over nine years. It comes through as brutal, tender, funny, compelling, and heartbreaking.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
Updated
Happy Valley Series 3 Episode 6 aired February 5, 2023 on BBC One as the trilogy's conclusion and earned its place in the 100-percent Rotten Tomatoes score from 45 critics, with the Guardian's review calling it 'brutal, tender, funny, compelling and heartbreaking.' The finale resolves the Catherine-Tommy Lee Royce confrontation that the series had been building across nine years and three series, and Sally Wainwright's writing earns every note of the resolution through the specific accumulated weight of two people who have already cost each other everything. Sarah Lancashire was described by ABC News as a 'Category 5 hurricane of an actress' - a description the finale's closing sequence makes most accurate. The Series 3 Metacritic of 93 was the show's strongest, and the finale's reception confirmed that the trilogy format was the correct structural choice for a story whose emotional logic required a decade to complete.