By Morgan Cormack

Published: Friday, 30 December 2022 at 12:00 am

---

It’s finally time – Happy Valley is back.

The anticipated third season picks back up seven years after the second and, in its third and final instalment, viewers can expect drama-fuelled fireworks from the offset.

Back in 2016, after season 2 had aired, creator Sally Wainwright revealed that she wouldn’t bring back police sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) until she had time to write a good enough script. While distance has certainly made the heart grow fonder, it’s natural that some of the previous season’s grittiest details may have slipped to the back of your mind.

So, in an effort to make sure that there aren’t any moments of confusion or finger-pointing at various characters, allow us to refresh your memory about what happened in season 2 of Happy Valley. Only read on if you have watched it as there are major spoilers ahead.

What happened in Happy Valley season 2?

In season 2, we once again follow Catherine as she investigates a major crime in the Calder Valley. But, of course, all roads in her life somehow always seem to lead back to her nemesis: kidnapper, murderer and rapist Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton).

Catherine is tasked with investigating a human trafficking operation after multiple prostitutes are found dead across the Valley, including Royce’s mother, Lynn Dewhurst. Royce believes Catherine is involved in some way and tells penpal-turned-love interest Frances Drummond (Shirley Henderson) as such when she visits him in prison.

And so Royce maps out a plan of revenge. It mainly centres on Frances killing Catherine but also involves getting in contact with his son Ryan, though that’s strictly prohibited. How, then, you may ask? Drummond falsifies her identity and is placed into Ryan’s school as new teaching assistant Miss Wheland, who coerces the young boy into believing he should forgive his dad and write him a letter.

Elsewhere, one of the lead investigating officers on the serial murder case is DCI John Wadsworth (Kevin Doyle), who is caught up in a love affair with Vicky Fleming (Amelia Bullmore). When he attempts to end it between them, she drugs and blackmails him with compromising images she’d staged. When she threatens to send them to his entire contact list – thus jeopardising his career and personal life – John strangles and kills her in a fit of rage and fear.

As one of the officers on the serial murder case, he has the knowledge needed to stage the scene to make it look like another in the string of serial murders of women in the area, and thinks he’s got away with it too – until the real murderer is revealed.

In episode 1, we meet Daryl, the young farmer whose sheep were stolen and who is continually terrorised by local youths. He lives with his mother Alison and seems like a background character until we find out that actually, he’s the killer behind the murders of local prostitutes.

Later in the season, he confesses to his doting mother, who promises she will stick by his side. In the morning, though, after making him one final cooked breakfast, she shoots Daryl dead.

She does so to protect him from prison life, she later tells Catherine, but then proceeded to attempt to take her own life. In the hospital after Catherine saves her, she tells Catherine she became pregnant with Daryl after being raped by her father. Daryl was always an “aberration” in her eyes was always going to turn out badly.

As for the murders themselves, Daryl tells his mother that he didn’t kill Vicky, explaining that he “wouldn’t have had to have done that last one if people hadn’t kept thinking he’d done that Vicky Fleming one”. With a renewed interest in catching Vicky’s murderer, the police appeal for anyone who may have noticed suspicious activity on the evening of her death.