BAFTA-winning Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright has confirmed that the forthcoming third season of the Calder Valley set-and-filmed police procedural will be the last.
Speaking ahead of the season launch on New Year’s Day, Wainwright said: “We always said this would be the final season and it is very definitely is the final season.”
The final, six-episode series will see ever-popular former Corrie mainstay Sarah Lancashire return as Sergeant Catherine Cawood, this time around discovering the remains of a gangland murder victim in a drained reservoir.
It’s been almost six years since season two landed on our screens in February 2016, a wait which means that Lancashire’s on-screen grandson Ryan [Rhys Connah] is no longer the child we’ve seen in previous seasons.
The long wait was no accident, and it sounds like we can expect to see a lot more of Ryan this time around, according to Wainwright: “I waited six years because I wanted to get to a point where Ryan would be old enough to start making choices about whether he wanted to have a relationship with his dad or not,” the show’s creator, wroter and executive producer explained. “And could he have a relationship with his dad, and how would Catherine feel about that? I really wanted to be able to explore that. It’s great that we got Rhys back to play Ryan, and he has done a really lovely job in that. That was always the intention, to have a gap and it has worked out just about right. Just the right period of time because he is now 16, so he can travel places by himself, he can make choices. He can do things behind Catherine’s back. The intention developed through conversations I had with Sarah to make it a three-parter, to make a trilogy.”
Happy Valley Season 3 debuts on New Year’s Day at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
