Happy Valley

A hard-luck northern industrial city plagued by drugs and crime.  A landscape where it’s always overcast and the people seem perpetually tired and damp.  Rust Belt Michigan?  No, western Yorkshire, and it’s the home turf of Sergeant Catherine Cawood, an honest cop doing her best to keep the peace while maintaining some sense of stability within her own troubled family.  In this six-episode series, Catherine investigates a kidnapping perpetrated by a gang of bumbling yet dangerous criminals.

 

Well-acted throughout, with fine performances by Sarah Lancashire as Catherine and by James Norton as her arch-nemesis, the sociopathic thug Tommy.   Don’t watch this with young children, as the frequent spasms of violence are neither operatic nor stylized, but brutal and almost painful to watch.

 

Here’s one if you like crime shows with a hard edge of realism.