After spending six weeks glued to the TV every Sunday night as Sarah Lancashire\u2019s stunning performance made us both cry and crack up in quick succession, Happy Valley<\/a>\u2018s third and final season came to a cathartic close at the weekend.<\/p>\n A firm frontrunner for best show of the year (and it\u2019s only February), Sally Wainwright\u2019s drama gave the universally-loved Catherine Cawood a fitting send-off<\/a>, pushing Lancashire\u2019s acting range past its BAFTA-winning boundaries once again and giving the public one last showdown between the black-eyed bobby and the nation\u2019s most-hated nemesis, Tommy Lee Royce.<\/p>\n Having tied up the show\u2019s various loose-ends from its previous five gripping episodes, Happy Valley\u2019s last instalment has already become hallowed television to devout drama fans \u2013 and so it almost feels blasphemous to say that the episode was a let-down when it came to one specific plot line.<\/p>\n While Ryan getting to know his dad, Clare and Neil\u2019s betrayal of Catherine, and Tommy Lee Royce\u2019s criminal antics have been the driving narrative force of season 3, those intense scenes were regularly punctuated by the drama between recovering addict Joanna Hepworth (Mollie Winnard), her abusive, controlling husband Rob (Mark Stanley)<\/a> and their pharmacist neighbour Faisal (Amit Shah), who was illegally supplying her with diazepam and starting to crack due to his growing criminal operation.<\/p>\n Despite being the cliffhanger of episode 3, which saw Faisal murder Joanna is a fit of rage and frame her violent husband for the crime, the side-story was resolved off-screen in a few lines of dialogue between Catherine and DSU Andy Shepherd (Vincent Franklin) \u2013 which, after a season of watching the vulnerable Joanna be manipulated by these men, felt like an injustice.<\/p>\n Although we watched the police interrogate the repulsive Rob, confronting him with hard evidence regarding his regular physical abuse of Joanna, Andy informs Catherine that they actually arrested him after finding indecent images of students on his phone.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Joanna\u2019s murderer Faisal barely appears in the episode, as Catherine tells Andy that he had been supplying illegal diazepam to those in the area and lives next door to the Hepworths \u2013 shifting suspicion onto him for Joanna\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Happy Valley\u2019s main focus on Catherine, Clare and Becky highlighted how the show\u2019s brilliant women were the driving force behind it, hitting home how the finale was all about bringing the resilient detective some closure after the traumatic events of the last decade.<\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/01\/Happy-Valley-Faisal-4da4ab0.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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