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Wales Online
Wales Online
Lifestyle
Cathy Owen

I'm a Happy Valley super fan and this is how I think the series is going to end

Sunday, February 5, 9pm. Millions of us will have cancelled events, made excuses about not being able to go out, turned our phones off as we sit down for the end of one of the most talked about television shows in the past decade. But what do we think is going to happen?

Is justice going to catch up with Tommy Lee Royce? Will he come back for our Ryan? Will the feud between Catherine and Tommy come to a deadly end? Not forgetting the sub plots: Will Ivan be getting married on Wednesday? Can teacher Rob go to the police to report his wife has been murdered without incriminating himself? Will pharmacist Faisal Bhatti get away with murder?

So many questions, and only two hours of high drama left for them to be answered. It is not an exaggeration to say this show has gripped the nation, and everyone has their own theory about what will happen.

Read more: Eight reasons why Happy Valley really is the best TV show ever

Sunday nights have quickly become Happy Valley nights as we collectively sit down to watch what twist and turn writer Sally Wainwright is going to take us through next.

We all have our theories, the anticipation is building and the cast and crew are staying tight-lipped. Actor James Norton, who plays the evil Tommy with brilliance, said he is confident people would be "satisfied" and would only say that the ending was a "rollercoaster to film".

He told BBC Breakfast: "I think it will leave people satisfied. I don't want to give anything away but it was an absolute rollercoaster to shoot it. I hope the viewers will get this same excitement that we got."

Asked what his face looked like when reading the last pages of the script, he laughed: "This might be a spoiler though if I give you my face. I think it was sort of 'put down, breathe'.

"There is also a bit of melancholy because it's the end of a very significant chapter for everyone, 10 years of our life. Amongst the shock, the awe and the excitement, there was a sort of element of nostalgia creeping in as this is the end."

So what could actually happen? New pictures released by the BBC ahead of episode five show Tommy Lee on the run after his dramatic escape from the courtroom at the end of episode four.

In the pictures, Tommy Lee is standing on the top of a mountain presumably somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales still wearing the red and black cycling gear that had been left for him in the corner shop.

James Norton as Tommy in his red and black cycling gear on a mountain top (BBC)

More pictures show he has changed his clothes and is in a house about to head up the stairs with cans of alcohol. No doubt hiding out until he can confront arch-nemesis Catherine.

He has bided his time before in the tower block and the canal boat in series one, so he will be happy to wait for the right moment. His escape was meticulously planned, so he must have worked out the next part too. He has had seven years to plan it, and it probably had to happen now before Catherine retires from the police service (on Thursday).

Surely there has to be some sort of show down between the two before the final episode. Their feud has to come to an end, but will they both or neither survive? And what role will our Ryan play in the end?

The last two times the pair confronted each other, Catherine ended up in hospital after being attacked in the street outside his mother's house. Next time it was Tommy who ended up in a stretcher being taken off to hospital after the police officer attacked him on the canal boat.

When she tracked him down to the boat where he was hiding out with his son Ryan, Tommy said to her: "You didn't find me, I found you" making you think that he is now ready to find her again.

Tommy after his last encounter with Catherine Cawood (BBC)

Ryan must also have an important role in the finale, and does Tommy still have plans for them to go bungee jumping together? It will be interesting to see Ryan's reaction after watching his father escape from the courthouse last week.

Will he still have sympathy for his dad? Will he still want to have a relationship with him? Fans will hope that he takes the side of his grandmother, but there was his ominous warning in the first episode when he said "revenge is a dish best served cold". But could that be for his dad when he finds out exactly what happened with mum Becky?

Catherine keeps saying we don't know all the details of what happened to Becky, she told sister Clare she didn't even know even after all those cups of tea over the kitchen table and out in the back yard. All could be revealed, and it could change Ryan's mind.

Ryan was covered in petrol and nearly set alight the last time his dad was on the run (BBC/Red Productions)

And will Alison Garrs have a role in the finale? She shot her own son when she found out he had murdered several women, is out of prison and has been in the background of series three from the start. Last week, she was seen tinkering on the Land Rover that Catherine has bought for her retirement.

Will she play some sort of bigger role in the finale? There are plenty of parallels between her and Catherine's situation. Despite having to arrest her for murder, Catherine obviously had deep sympathy for her actions after it was revealed she had been abused by her father and son Daryl was the result.

Catherine said: "Then she brought up this kid, this child, this aberration that she loved and hated because what else could she do?"

She explained that Alison kept Daryl in the dark about his true father, they never talked about it, and they became outcasts. Catherine agreed that she also doesn't "have the language" to discuss what happened with Becky and Tommy with Ryan..

What of the sub-plots? Blundering pharmacist Faisal Bhatti has transformed from a blundering, geeky downtrodden husband and dad to a cold, calculating killer who might just get away with murder.

It started with viewers believing he was just a good bloke who had made some bad decisions, but the altercation with teacher Rob after their cars bumped showed him in a very different, calculating light.

And now actor Amit Shah has teased Faisal's fate in BBC's Obsessed With Happy Valley podcast, saying: "The beauty of Sally's writing is she doesn't really create goodies and baddies, they're all flawed in their own beautiful way, when you're approaching a character like this you're not looking to play him as a stereotype, you're just looking for the human qualities and the reasons for why he chooses his actions and why he makes those certain choices.

"You have to put stuff aside a little bit and yeah he's done something wrong or he has a flaw... but why is that and how do I make that real and human, that was my approach, that was why I didn't treat him as a baddy as such."

The actor continued: "I still don't know how it still all ends up for him because we filmed the final scenes in various different ways and Sally was actually directing those and so it's quite open and we did different options so I'm not entirely sure how he is going to end up."

Expect some fireworks as well at Ivan's wedding on Wednesday. Will Tommy make an appearance? It is the day before Catherine is due to retire so it could be the fitting more for everything to come together.

Ultimately, what we all want to see is Catherine driving the Land Rover off with the Yorkshire sunset background after hanging up her handcuffs for one last time, and Ryan being able to be a normal teenager again. Will we finally find the happy in Happy Valley?

Happy Valley continues at 9pm on Sunday, January 29, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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