Personally, I loved that we weren’t spoon fed all the tying ups (I know, I know, yes I just made that up 😂) of what happens to vile Rob, Pfizer and the OCG because I like to think SW aren’t treating her viewers like simpletons who can’t infer what will happen from what she has given us.
She knows we are all smarter than that 😁
For me, the ending was perfect because there were no dramatic over the top shoot outs, no Catherine storming into her own house, all guns (metaphorically!) blazing, no Ryan in imminent danger - having to choose between his beloved Granny and his dad, further traumatising him.
I am super happy that Catherine didn’t harm TLR, and the fact that he did not die in her house as that would’ve taken away everything that the house represented for Ryan - his memories of a happy childhood, where he was (and knew it, even during all those times he was being a pita - lashing out and kicking off) loved and cherished by his Granny and Aunty Clare.
Catherine knew she had won (nature vs. nurture) when Ryan spilled the beans re his contact with TLR, and shared all the info with the major incident team.
It was solely down to him that Catherine reconciled with Clare. His speech really made her take stock, and realise Ryan being a good lad (‘a prince’!) was partly down to Clare. Clare has been the one who filled in all the gaps in Ryan’s childcare as we know Catherine works shifts. He repeated “Clare was always there. She’s always been there, ever since I can remember” - that really hit home for Catherine, you could almost see her heart defrosting there and then 😂
She 100% knew then that our Ryan was a good ‘un, that he was more like her than she ever realised.
There were two little snapshots of this earlier on in the series which pin pointed this to me.
The first was when Catherine stopped by Clare and Neil’s flat to drop off Ryan’s stuff after she’d found out he’d been visiting TLR.
She asked him if he knew what ‘hereditary’ meant, and he said something like yeah, stuff you inherit from your parents… < Catherine interrupts > he continues with - ‘or grandparents’ (totally paraphrasing here!)
Then there was the scene where she went into the Hepworth house for the first time, and vile Rob was pissed because she’d taken so long to get there. Catherine retorted that he’d called 999, when “FYI” he should’ve really called the non emergency number.
Ryan later echoed her use of “FYI” later on, I think in the school meeting scenes after vile Rob had accused him of defacing his car.
Sorry that was mega long 😳🤣
Will stop my waffling now and get on with some actual work!
TLDR I thought the ending was 👌🏻