‘Happy Valley’ season 2 episode 2 review: Catherine faces Tommy Lee Royce, John and Vicky reunite
With Catherine possibly on the hook for the murder of Tommy Lee Royce’s mother on “Happy Valley”, she isn’t working on the case to figure out who actually committed this crime. Their theory is that it’s a serial killer that is connected to a few other murders, but there’s still a lot of the season left to go before we know exactly who did it even though it’s looking like Sean (aka creepy van guy) that was seen prowling for women on the street from the premiere.
With Tommy being let out of prison for his mother’s funeral it looks like Catherine has a few problems to deal with outside of getting her alibi together for the murder of Tommy’s mother. She can’t help herself and heads to the funeral where she sees Tommy for the first time in a long time from the privacy of her car. After he’s gone into the funeral home, Catherine goes into the chapel and gets a good look at Tommy’s girlfriend before standing at the back for the ceremony. When Tommy discovers Catherine is there he accuses her of killing his mother and tries to attack her, but is taken away in tears and rage… exactly what Catherine wanted. Unfortunately her move to attend the funeral doesn’t help clear her name, especially after she has checked all of her notes and can’t find an alibi for the days in question.
The pressure is on John to come up with an extra 1000 pounds a month to give to Vicky for blackmail and it’s causing him to unravel… and everyone is noticing. He decides to tell Vicky that he’s leaving his wife and that he wants to come by her place and she’s happy he’s made this decision. He shows up at her house with an overnight bag and some flowers and she invites him in, pouring him a glass of wine to celebrate. He pushes to get the pictures back, but she peppers him with questions to see if he’s really left his wife or not. She gives him her phone and tells him to delete the photos, but he’s paranoid that she has them backed up somewhere even though she says she doesn’t. Things go from bad to worse when he tries to access her computer and she hits him. He returns the favor and punches her in the face before strangling her to death.
It was disappointing to see Clare drinking again after being sober for so long and with her going so far down the hole we know that Catherine’s focus will be solely on her sister when she should really be finding a way to prove her whereabouts during the murder of Tommy’s mother. We are also very interested to see where this storyline is going to go with Frances getting closer to Ryan and putting ideas in his head about his father. We are only in episode 2, but they have packed a lot in and aren’t pulling any punches. Episode grade: A-
What did you think of this episode of “Happy Valley”? Leave us a comment below and tell us what you think.
Photo: BBC One