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In that gangster car journey, Tommy’s ‘get them before they get you’ mindset paid off. The Kneževićs were clearly planning on getting him, either because he wouldn’t let his “bit of business” with Catherine go and so was too great a liability, or because the Marbella dream was always a lie. And so Tommy got them first, ironically helping Catherine’s plight to rid the valley of these cut-rate Sopranos more than any organised crime taskforce.
It was Tommy’s evidence that got Darius charged, not that there was time to show it. Faisal’s arrest also wasn’t seen in the finale, but thanks to Alison Garrs and her dodgy probation officer, it’s only a matter of time. Rob’s possession of indecent images of a minor was a bit of a swerve, but sounds about right. It’s almost a shame Rob didn’t continue his predatory pursuit of Ryan, if only to have seen Catherine reach down his neck and yank out his skeleton whole like a cartoon cat producing the bones of a just-eaten fish. We all know she could do it.
Seeing Ryan in action this episode, there’s the sense that he might even have been able to handle Hepworth alone. After keeping his powder dry and his brow furrowed for most of the series, that boy showed up for the finale in a big way. First, by telling the truth about his contact with Royce entirely off his own back because he knew it was the right thing to do, and secondly, by telling his granny what’s what and advocating for his aunty Clare with words of straightforward sense. Fair play, son.
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I’ll tell you something else about Ryan – that boy’s not doing an apprenticeship. See the speed at which he eyeballed Darius’ goon on that railway platform, and his ‘Are you in Halifax?’ to Royce the instant he heard a police siren in the background of his voice call last episode? Or his quick proud smile when Catherine’s DSU mistook him for a new recruit and said he had “something about him”? Look too at the verdict he delivered on Rob Hepworth – honest, useful, not afraid to speak his mind and state his instincts. Get that boy in uniform. After all, Yorkshire Police are going to need another Cawood in service if they don’t want their solve stats to to drop through the carpet.
So that’s Happy Valley’s happy conclusion. Catherine spent 16 years worrying that when it came to her grandson, the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree, never realising that she’s the tree.
Because for all the brutality this drama has shown us over the years, what this emotional, optimistic finale left us with was the fact that what endures is love. Love for Becky. Love for Ryan. What weapon brought down afeared villain Tommy Lee Royce? Not a gun or a taser but a self-adhesive 6 x 4 photo album filled with days at the park, holidays, birthdays and ordinary love. That’s what turned Tommy from a rampaging bear stomping through that cosy red and yellow home, to the diminished creature he ended up. She won, obviously. Her strength. Her love. Oh, there’s a grandmother alright.
