Happy Valley

Season #2 Episode #1

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HAPPY VALLEY SERIES TWO. EPISODE ONE. GREEN SCRIPT. 1.

1 INT/EXT. CATHERINE’S HOUSE, CONSERVATORY. DAY 1. 17.30 1

Sunshine. Evening.

CATHERINE’s not long in from work, she’s still in half-

uniform. She’s with CLARE. They’re both sipping tea and

smoking cigarettes with their sun glasses on. CLARE’s sitting

on the doorstep and CATHERINE’s on one of the plastic chairs.

CLARE:

Sheep rustling?

(CATHERINE:
yup)

Sheep rustling?

(CATHERINE:
still yup)

As in...

(a bit embarrassed, but

she goes for it anyway)

yee-hah! ?

CATHERINE:

No. No, there were no cowboys

involved.

CLARE:

No. Good point. That’d have been

cattle rustling.

CATHERINE:

This was sheep rustling North

Halifax style, so there’s just the

one sheep. And three lads off their

heads on acid.

CUT TO:

2 EXT. LOCAL HOUSING ESTATE. DAY 1. 12.30 2

Three lads off their heads on acid.

One’s got his hand over his mouth, the other over his eyes,

the other over his ears/head. Their cunning plan (to steal

one sheep) has just gone wrong, just this second. A pack of

four feral mongrels (ranging from something a bit like a

German Shepherd to something a bit like a Yorkshire Terrier)

chases the panic stricken sheep up the road.

LAD 1

F[uck]!

LAD 2

Sh*t!

Because they’re off their heads, they’re no doubt finding it

funny as well as annoying.

CUT TO:

HAPPY VALLEY SERIES TWO. EPISODE ONE. GREEN SCRIPT. 2.

3 EXT. GARDEN. DAY 1. 13.10 3

Forty minutes later.

CATHERINE’s in a small back garden with a LITTLE OLD LADY

whose house is half way between the housing estate and the

lush green hills above (where, presumably, the sheep was

nicked from in the first place). On the ground, between

CATHERINE and the LITTLE OLD LADY, lies the sheep, which has

been mauled by the dogs. It’s breath is laboured and painful.

LITTLE OLD LADY:

I managed to shoo ‘em off. The

dogs. I said “Shoo!” see, then I

got our Andrew round. And he said

to call you.

(CATHERINE takes it in.

She’s worried. She knows

chances are she’s going

to have to put this sheep

out of its misery)

Would you like some tea?

CATHERINE:

Yes. Tea. Perfect. Thank you.

The LITTLE OLD LADY goes inside. CATHERINE looks around for

something with which to put the sheep out of its misery. Her

eyes light on a sharp-edged coping stone. She struggles to

pull the stone from the top of the dry stone wall, then she

feels its weight in both hands.

CUT TO:

4 INT/EXT. CATHERINE’S HOUSE, CONSERVATORY. DAY 1. 17.32 4

CATHERINE and CLARE, as before.

CLARE:

You didn’t.

CATHERINE:

They’d mauled it. The dogs had. I

had to. There was no way it was

going to survive and it was

obviously in distress.

CUT TO:

5 EXT. GARDEN. DAY 1. 13.11 5

CATHERINE - struggling with the coping stone - is on her

radio one last desperate time to SHAF.

HAPPY VALLEY SERIES TWO. EPISODE ONE. GREEN SCRIPT. 3.

CATHERINE:

Can you really not find me a vet?

In the whole of f[ucking]

Calderdale?

CUT TO:

6 INT. NORLAND ROAD POLICE STATION, MAIN OFFICE. DAY 1. 6

13.12

SHAF:

I’ve rung seven. Your best bet is

Mr. Baxter up Bolton Brow. He says

he can get there by half four, but

he’s got wall-to-wall surgery most

of this aft.

We cut back to a glimpse of CATHERINE again, thinking “Jesus

f***ing Christ”.

CUT TO:

7 INT/EXT. CATHERINE’S HOUSE, CONSERVATORY. DAY 1. 17.34 7

CLARE:

So...? You did it.

CATHERINE:

Well that was the plan.

CUT TO:

8 EXT. GARDEN. DAY 1. 13.13 8

CATHERINE’s got the coping stone raised above her head, just

about to dash the sheep’s brains out with one terrible blow,

when the LITTLE OLD LADY comes out of her house again.

LITTLE OLD LADY:

Do you take milk and sugar?

CATHERINE swiftly tries (in vain) to hide the stone behind

her back like she’s been caught red-handed doing something

distasteful.

CATHERINE:

No. Yes. Milk. Thank you. And yeah,

go on, sugar. Two sugars. One

sugar. Thank you.

The LITTLE OLD LADY realises what CATHERINE was doing.

There’s an unspoken understanding that it does need doing -

however distasteful - and the LITTLE OLD LADY’s just glad

it’s not her having to do it (not that she could).

HAPPY VALLEY SERIES TWO. EPISODE ONE. GREEN SCRIPT. 4.

She turns and heads back inside and shuts the door so she

doesn’t have to hear anything unpleasant. CATHERINE’s

irritated, she’s going to have to screw up her courage all

over again to do this deeply unpleasant thing. She raises the

rock over her head again, she’s nearly in tears.

CATHERINE (CONT’D)

(she mumbles it, like a

prayer that will protect

her from the consequences

of doing this evil thing)

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I am sorry.

We don’t need to see what happens next (as she smashes the

coping stone down on its head) as we cut back to

CUT TO:

9 INT/EXT. CATHERINE’S HOUSE, CONSERVATORY. DAY 1. 17.36 9

CATHERINE:

It made this noise, it was like...

(horrible, nauseating)

God knows. So then I had to do it

again. Cos it was still alive. And

then...

(she’s upset, reliving it,

annoyed with herself for

being so soft)

It seemed to be all right after

that.

CLARE:

All right as in...

(she can’t help smiling)

dead?

CATHERINE:

I’m so thrilled that you’re finding

this funny.

Except they both know that it kind of is funny. Not the fact

that she had to stone a sheep to death, but the fact that

CATHERINE gets herself into these scrapes.

CLARE:

I don’t know how you do it.

CATHERINE:

Farmer wasn’t laughing.

CLARE:

Well they never do, do they.

According to you.

CUT TO:

HAPPY VALLEY SERIES TWO. EPISODE ONE. GREEN SCRIPT. 5.

9A EXT. FAR SUNDERLAND FARM. DAY 1. 14.00 9A

Establisher.

CUT TO:

10 INT. FAR SUNDERLAND FARM, LIVING ROOM. DAY 1. 14.01 10

It’s like we’ve stepped back in time to a cross between the

1870s and the 1970s. The squalor, the poverty, the dirt.

Nothing new or even clean. CATHERINE’s with 43-year-old

ALISON GARRS and her son, 26-year-old DARYL GARRS.

ALISON:

It’s not first time. Lads come up

off the estate off their heads on

God-knows-what and then they’ll

take one.

CATHERINE:

Really?

(ALISON:
yup)

And... what d’you think it is they

do with ‘em when they’ve got ‘em?

ALISON:

Sell ‘em. Eat ‘em. God knows how.

DARYL:

They’re gimmers, they’re not ‘ogs.

CATHERINE looks to ALISON for an explanation.

ALISON:

They’re for breeding, not eating.

Meat’ll be as tough as an old boot.

DARYL:

They won’t know that though will

they? They’re stupid.

We get the idea that shy DARYL doesn’t often offer

suggestions.

CUT TO:

11 INT/EXT. CATHERINE’S HOUSE, CONSERVATORY. DAY 1. 17.38 11

CATHERINE:

It was what happened next that was

really comical.

(although she doesn’t

exactly look amused)

Well, I say comical.

(MORE)

HAPPY VALLEY SERIES TWO. EPISODE ONE. GREEN SCRIPT. 6.

CATHERINE (CONT'D)

I’d been back at the nick maybe an

hour, hour and a half, and then

there’s another call.

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