WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Season 3 of Happy Valley.
Happy Valley will come to an end this weekend with fans on edge as to the fates of Catherine Cawood (played by Sarah Lancashire) and her grandson Ryan Cawood (Rhys Connah) with Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) on the loose. Viewers got a taste of the series finale with Tommy stalking his nemesis Catherine with plans to assassinate her. More disturbingly, Tommy appeared to be beating someone else to death with his face covered in blood as fans feared for Ryan’s life.
However, there have also been concerns that Ryan will accept his father’s offer to move to Spain and start a new life with him.
Happy Valley played on the theme of nature versus nurture and whether Ryan would take after Tommy or whether Catherine had done enough to help the young man lead a balanced life.
In an exclusive interview with Encause.co.uk, Professor David Wilson, a criminologist and former prison warden, questioned whether Ryan had become a psychopath.
He explained, “Ryan said something in the last episode that a psychopath would never be able to say. »
READ MORE: Sarah Lancashire ‘spoke’ to change Happy Valley’s ending
Professor Wilson said Ryan was able to say ‘I love you’ to his grandmother and ‘he meant it’.
The Birmingham City University academic continues: “What this suggests is that Catherine and her upbringing of Ryan overcame any biological element of her personality that might have been psychopathic. »
He went on to expose the nature versus nurture debate and whether psychopaths were born or made.
“It’s usually a messy combination of the two, but you’re usually born that way and then how you’re raised can predict how that underlying personality disorder will become a problem for you,” Professor Wilson said. .
The criminologist is a huge Happy Valley fan and praised actor Norton’s performance as the psychopath Tommy.
He said the Grantchester star was a “very good example” of a psychopath and had a good understanding of the narcissism and lack of empathy often found in this personality type.
Additionally, he refuted suggestions that Norton was too attractive to play the rapist, saying that psychopaths are often “well disguised” and appear charming to mask their true nature.
But Professor Wilson said there was a flaw in Tommy, which doesn’t mirror real-life psychopaths.
He said: “The thing in Happy Valley that they didn’t quite get right was that it wouldn’t have been so focused on extracting revenge.
“He would have moved. He would have found other targets, because he is self-centered.
“He would have felt that he couldn’t get anything out of this family, that there were other fish to fry. He was so narcissistic, he would have moved on to someone else. »
Prof Wilson said Tommy’s next victim would have been someone else who wasn’t in the drama to sink their ‘claws’ into.
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He went on to say, “It’s not so much about who he would have hooked up with in the drama, a real psychopath would have moved on.
“He would have exploited that particular scene to get what he wanted and obviously the other thing to interpret is that he doesn’t really care about his son. That is true.
“He wouldn’t really care about his son, he only cares about his son insofar as his son means things to him that he wants to go beyond. Psychopaths only care about themselves. »
However, it seems that for purposes of Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright’s underlying theme, the story is essentially about the conflict between Catherine and Tommy, with Ryan caught in the middle.
Alongside his research work, Professor Wilson is the presenter of the Channel 4 factual series In The Footsteps of Killers with actress Emilia Fox.
The current series airs and sees the duo dig into cold cases in hopes of finding new leads, which makes the show fascinating.
Happy Valley continues on BBC One on Sundays at 9 p.m.
Happy Valley’s Ryan Cawood isn’t a psychopath thanks to one key detail. – In question