HAPPY VALLEY SERIES 3 - BBC1 Sundays 9pm - no spoilers/TV pace - thread 3

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Old thread: Happy Valley Series 3 - BBC1 9pm started 1 January 2023 - no spoilers - tv pace – thread 2 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/4718852-happy-valley-series-3-bbc1-9pm-started-1-january-2023-no-spoilers-tv-pace-thread-2

New thread for the grouchies 😉

I think that's where I struggle @midsomermurderess as I don't see any ambiguity at all & can't see how others get to that conclusion.

To my mind, even if others do see ambiguity with Becky, we fully know what he's capable of as he demonstrated that with Ann and Kirsten (the police officer he ran over - I'm not 100% sure of her name).

He's irredeemable, & equally isn't looking for redemption. Ryan is a pawn to feed his ego (& even better if it means he gets one over on Catherine).

Just checking in. Thanks for the new thread!

Sorry, just turning over the Daniel comments in my mind.

His resentment comes from having been the ‘good’ one who then got some pretty horrible treatment from his mother when his sister died, so horrible that she herself was clearly appalled when he played it back to her. His point was that his mother had held Becky up as the golden child, ruined by TLR, whereas in his memory she was off the rails, going around with a bad crowd, whereas he had done all the right things. It wasn’t necessarily about the rape. It was the myth of Becky. He shunned Ryan like his father.

I agree with that @CorporateBull

Yes, spot on about Daniel's resentment of Becky. In death Becky has been put on a pedestal even moreso so despite Daniel's lack of affection for Becky and Ryan I can understand where he is coming from.

I re-watched series 2 before starting series 3 to refresh my memory but based on reading some of the comments on here and feeling a bit ??? I think I had better re-watch series 1 too so that I can fully engage.

I could watch Sarah Lancashire read out a shopping list and still be enthralled though, she's incredible isn't she. Acting masterclass, everything she's in. I thought the same about Kiri on Ch4.

To my mind, even if others do see ambiguity with Becky, we fully know what he's capable of
Everyone knows what he's capable of but some of us need proof before we're willing to convict him! It's interesting to me to see how people say look at him of course he did it but we can't know for sure either way.

Also James Norton lilac cardigan that he wore on Graham Norton. Can't find it anywhere on the www.
Looked like he borrowed it from his granny.

I'm not in the least muddled up in my mind because James Norton is a good-looking, likeable actor. And of course TLR has his charismatic side too. I'm not wanting to see the best him or disbelieving the rape - that's a very patronising suggestion.

We don't know much about Becky but we do know TLR poured petrol over his son and threatened to light it and that for me is enough to make Ryan, Claire and Neil's relationships with him just preposterous. I'm hoping that Ryan has been plotting all along to have his revenge on this monster.

But what ‘proof’ will you ever get that’s enough?

Becky told her mother he’d raped her, and we are told it was ‘brutal’. She then kills herself in a dreadful state, and most of her family shun her child afterwards - the aftermath of the rape destroys her family unit.

We’ve seen him rape, torture and brutalise another woman, and then deny it. We’ve seen him treat his mother like dirt, and hit her, and then be devastated (or claim to be) at her death. We have throughout so far seen him as someone who manipulates and damages people, and lies about what he’s done.

The premise of the whole programme depends on him having raped her, and there is no smoking gun reveal possible that will tell us he didn’t. Unless we are about to presented with a long lost diary entry from Becky saying ‘fooled them all’, in which case I would be proved wrong. But I’m really struggling to understand why the fact he raped Becky is not a given at this point.

You're not understanding what people are saying at all.

No, I’m really not! Can you explain what I’m missing?

I don't believe TLR's love for his son is genuine ( and nor did he genuinely love Becky). It's all part of his game playing and manipulation. That scene in the prison with Ryan was quite chilling, all chatty and nice, and then the minute Neil mentions Catherine a psychopathic look flashes across TLR's face. He just can't hide who he really is all of the time.

I think the issue is that it wasn't as explicitly stated as people have expected it to be. If I remember correctly, Becky didn't have an actual conversation with her mum about it - Catherine says that she knows TLRs name because Becky wrote it down. She has said that the rape was brutal, but there's no further detail about why she thinks that.

Becky was only 17 when she got pregnant, Daniel said she was knocked about with TLR and the situation wasn't as his mum remembered it. Catherine would have been working as a detective at this point, so probably really unsociable hours, and not a firm grasp of what was going on at home.

Catherine, knowing that TLR was jailed on rape charges, probably doesn't want to believe / accept that her daughter fancied TLR / was in a relationship with him. I think it's a bit of a moot point tho - the story has moved past it really!

What, again?

If I’m not understanding it, then yes please, because to my mind, my post answered what people were saying. Including @mrstea301 ’s point above. Writing down a name is no different to saying it, and the fact that Becky was willingly hanging out with TLR and off the rails doesn’t mean he didn’t rape her - TLR’s behaviour is ample demonstration of that. Catherine’s view of her daughter’s character might have been rose tinted or out of touch but it doesn’t then mean that Becky was lying about being raped.

I completely believe Becky was raped.

Anyway, my point remains that there can be no ‘proof’ beyond what we already have, so clearly as viewers we will need to agree that we are approaching the programme from two different angles: those who perceive an ambiguity and those who don’t. And if we are going to get a big reveal somehow that the rape never happened, head gear can be consumed at the appropriate moment.

I wasn't saying that Becky was lying about being raped, but I feel on this occasion writing the name down is different from saying it, purely because we haven't been provided with any context for why the name was written down. It doesn't say there was a suicide letter - so did Becky write a note saying that TLR is Ryans's dad? Did she say that she was raped, or has Catherine inferred that from Becky's age and TLRs reputation? The six weeks between Ryan's birth and Becky's death haven't ever really been spoken about. Was Catherine putting pressure on Becky to reveal who Ryan's dad was, and she was being resistant? Did Becky not want to tell her mum that she was pregnant at 17 through consensual sex

I think it's fully possible that TLR did rape Becky, but I think it's worth remembering that the only explicit 'proof' of this that we have is Catherine's statement.

I also think that there's a huge focus on this when I believe that it's really just a plot point to get the story to where it needs to be. It's basically irrelevant as it has already been demonstrated how psychopathic TLR is from what we've been shown - we just needed a reason for Catherine to be gunning for him from the start.

I don't think the rape is a moot point, Ryan has been asking Catherine what happened.
To be honest, when I watched series 1 I did think how it was building up that Daniel was going to be the one who had raped Becky.

I don't think we will ever get the big reveal about Becky and TLR and these threads have over egged what is essentially just a backstory to explain Catherine's hatred of TLR and the nature/nurture aspect of her and Ryan's relationship. I guess we'll all have to agree to disagree.

I caught up yesterday after binge watching the entire show from episode 1.

The writing is incredible, and the acting between Catherine and Claire last week was extraordinary. I can't wait to see where they take this storyline.

Aah you can't beat an over egged TV thread. Some of the theories on The Missing thread some years ago were brilliant.

the fact that Becky was willingly hanging out with TLR and off the rails doesn’t mean he didn’t rape her
Exactly, and neither does the fact that he raped Ann means he also raped Becky. Whether he did or didn't he's a complete psychopath and I'm not ever going to think he's just misunderstood or anything like that. This is my final word on the matter.

Yes, it is a plot point in a fictional story. I don't really understand why we are being lectured about this!

The evidence cited by a pp "We’ve seen him rape, torture and brutalise another woman, and then deny it. We’ve seen him treat his mother like dirt, and hit her, and then be devastated (or claim to be) at her death" is slightly contradictory. We SAW that, we didn't SEE what happened to Becky.

I do subscribe to Hardy's argument that character is plot and I will feel strangely let down if Catherine has been wrong all along (although we know she is flawed) ... but people on this thread are just mulling over ideas and they don't need to justify it to anyone really.