BBC One
Previously on Happy Valley: murder, kidnap, suicide – and then the bad stuff started happening. The results are in from Kirsten‘s autopsy and the medics agree that she is in fact dead and that being reversed over 79 times by a car significantly contributed to her demise. After some expert plod work Catherine visits Ashley Cowgill about his property 62 Milton Avenue aka Casa Kidnap and he looks proper shifty about it all, as well he might. She gets a scene of crime crew round there to dust and swab like there’s no tomorrow (which for Ann there probably won’t be). Catherine also visits Rapey Royce‘s mother Lynn who looks worse than Catherine’s shithead sister. She’s not a great deal of use but she does drop some intell that the word is out that Rapey Ryan is “Tommy’s lad”. Cue: dead daughter hallucination! Tears! Meltdown!
But you know it’s not all bad news. Nevison‘s missus finally confesses about Ann‘s abduction and the caper starts to unravel. Catherine brings in Phil Crabtree from the National Crime Agency and they have a productive sitdown with the Gallaghers. Kevin‘s name rings a bell with Catherine – he of the shit non-confession – and it also strikes Nevison that it’s odd that the abductors specifically asked for Kevin. Those guys!
The results are in from Kirsten’s autopsy and the medics agree that she is in fact dead.
Yeah, about those guys. They nominate Rapey Royce to kill Ann after which he’ll trouser a £10,000 Brucie bonus. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay obviously never kidnapped, raped and murdered anyone. So naturally he’s in a pretty good mood when he swings by to visit his mam. He tells her he’ll be keeping a dog in the cellar for a mate, by which he means an Ann in the cellar for a rape. Mam tells him rapey Ryan is his son and he tearfully swells with pride thinking about all the rapes they can do together. When he finally gets Ann gets safely installed in the cellar, whacked off her bonce on smack, he tells her how he’s going to have some “recreation” with her before he kills her. Rapecreation, more like. “Cos-mic” deadpans Ann who was only just this morning wondering how this week could get any worse. Now she knows.
She tells him rapey Ryan is his son and he tearfully swells with pride thinking about all the rapes they can do together.
She gets a much-needed break though when Catherine revisits the gaffe and Lynn mentions in passing about the “dog” in the “cellar”. Should Catherine perhaps for call for backup before charging past the padlocked door into the underground torture dungeon? Nahhhh, fuck it – she’s rolling dolo on this one. It’s fairly predictable that as she’s freeing Ann Royce walks in and doesn’t like what he sees one bit. The struggle that follows leaves Catherine with contusions aplenty, molto internal bleeding, a concussion for the ages and fractures by the pound. She does manage to mace Royce in the eyes after Ann brains him with a weight so we’ll call this one a draw.
The two chicks leg it into the street with Ann radioing for help like an actual police officer would have done five minutes ago, sparing us all this shit. Catherine is proper fucked up and she’s only stumbling upright on pure adrenaline. When it runs out she slumps to the tarmac like Manchester United legend Gashley Dung coming within three foot of a defender. “Don’t die!” screams Anne at Catherine but she can’t answer. She’s too busy dying.
On the plus side it looks like Kevin’s girls will still go to private school. Every cloud.
The verdict: Don’t know what they’re doing but they laugh a lot behind the green door.
Mark out of 10: 8