Happy Valley has ended for good but there was one tiny moment when lead character Catherine Cawood gave a subtle shout out to another legendary BBC cop drama in the closing scenes.
As Sarah Lancashire and James Norton finally came face-to-face as their characters, Cawood and Tommy Lee Royce, the Yorkshire copper was forcefully explaining why she had beat Royce up on his barge in series one.
The pair were having a back and forth about the criminal's violent past and list of crimes when Catherine shouted at him for beating her up. To which Royce replied: "“You kicked the shit out if ME on that barge." And Catherine's response saw her namecheck fellow BBC cop show Line of Duty which also has a huge following. She said: “Yeah in the line of f*cking duty not because I’m a brain dead psychopath who thinks it’s an afternoon amusement!”
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Fans of the show picked up on the namecheck with one saying: "Ooooo!!! She said ‘The Line Of Duty" and another added: "In the Line of Duty go Catherine." A third viewer tweeted: "Now let’s not bring line of duty into this."
While many others compared the Happy Valley finale to the conclusion of the last series of Line of Duty. "SO much better than the damp squib of the last Line of Duty finale," said one. "Well, unlike Line of Duty, that final episode did not disappoint. Stunning!" added another. And: "See, Line of Duty, THAT’S how you end a series."
The finale of Happy Valley saw lots of action including Royce lash out at the Knezevics in the most violent way as he suspected betrayal from the family who got him out of prison in that, slightly unbelievable, court escape. It also saw Catherine more or less apologise (without actually saying sorry) to sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran) for taking Ryan to see his dad in prison.
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