Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

You want a strong female character? I’ll give you a strong female character.

Catherine Caewood (played by Sarah Lancashire) is the lead role in BBC’s Happy Valley, a crime drama set in working-class West Yorkshire; it’s a valley, but it isn’t happy.

This character is perhaps the most conflicted, complex, and yet utterly understandable creations I’ve seen in a while. Caewood, a sergeant with the local police, is forty-seven, divorced, with two kids—one dead, one that won’t talk to her—and a grandson. She lives with her sister, a recovering heroin addict and, well, you get the picture. Her life’s a mess.

Except it isn’t.

The show’s first season aired in 2014, and it follows the aftermath of the death of Caewood’s daughter. The second season, released this year, continues the main story while introducing a new season-specific arc. The seasons are short—six episodes each—making each one perfect for a weekend binge, and I thoroughly encourage indulging.

The stories are not overly complex. They don’t toss around red herrings like fishmongers at Pike Place Market. They don’t gyre and gimble, creating plot twists for the sake of creating plot twists. Rather, writer/creator Sally Wainwright starts at the edges of her story and, through revelation and deduction, drives the plot inexorably toward the crux. The main action begins in a relatively sedate manner but as we learn more, and as the characters gain an understanding of what’s going on, the tension and suspense build and build. By the end of each season, I was rapt, riveted, in thrall.

Sarah Lancashire is undoubtedly the star of the show. She is in nearly every scene, and brings a power to the character that really lifts the entire series. Brit-Telly fans may recognize her from some of her more light-hearted roles, such as Last Tango in Halifax and Lark Rise to Candleford. She is more than ably assisted by fellow actors like Siobhan Finneran (of Downton Abbey, as sister Clare), James Norton (whom “Masterpiece Mystery” fans will know as the vicar from Grantchester, and who here plays a really really bad guy), and many other excellent talents.

Lancashire’s portrayal of Sgt. Caewood, though, is simply astounding in its range and its complexity. Above all, she is a fighter. As a mother, a grandmother, a protector of her community, and as a bastion of self-reliance, she is positively formidable. She is by turns a woman who loves her job and hates her job, oftentimes both at the exact same moment. Likewise, her relationships with others in town are just as schizophrenic in their contradictions: she gives no quarter in pursuing wrongdoers, but once the handcuffs are on, she might take the perp in her arms, providing comfort and sympathy. Her relationships with friends and with family? Even more complex. Lancashire shows true genius in her ability to show us all these contradictions, simultaneously yet clearly.

The result is a character who is equal parts den mother, she-wolf, goddess, sinner, Amazon, and retributive angel. Fully three-dimensional. As complex (and contradictory) as a human can be. Yet you understand everything she feels; in fact, we’ve felt a lot of it ourselves. She is unapologetically real.

Happy Valley, Seasons 1 and 2, are available for streaming on Netflix.

As a final note, can we agree that the “Netflix Original” appellation is, more often than not, a lie? Netflix freely slaps this “Original” label on shows that it had no involvement in producing. It’s just the distributor. I’m glad they do distribute such quality drama, but it irks me when they play word games like that. Credit where credit is due.

k