Happy Valley's finale missed the mark with one key storyline

A firm frontrunner for best show of the year (and it's only February), Sally Wainwright's drama gave the universally-loved Catherine Cawood a fitting send-off, pushing Lancashire's acting range past its BAFTA-winning boundaries once again and giving the public one last showdown between the black-eyed bobby and the nation's most-hated nemesis, Tommy Lee Royce.

Having tied up the show's various loose-ends from its previous five gripping episodes, Happy Valley's last instalment has already become hallowed television to devout drama fans – and so it almost feels blasphemous to say that the episode was a let-down when it came to one specific plot line.

While Ryan getting to know his dad, Clare and Neil's betrayal of Catherine, and Tommy Lee Royce's criminal antics have been the driving narrative force of season 3, those intense scenes were regularly punctuated by the drama between recovering addict Joanna Hepworth (Mollie Winnard), her abusive, controlling husband Rob (Mark Stanley) and their pharmacist neighbour Faisal (Amit Shah), who was illegally supplying her with diazepam and starting to crack due to his growing criminal operation.

Despite being the cliffhanger of episode 3, which saw Faisal murder Joanna is a fit of rage and frame her violent husband for the crime, the side-story was resolved off-screen in a few lines of dialogue between Catherine and DSU Andy Shepherd (Vincent Franklin) – which, after a season of watching the vulnerable Joanna be manipulated by these men, felt like an injustice.

Although we watched the police interrogate the repulsive Rob, confronting him with hard evidence regarding his regular physical abuse of Joanna, Andy informs Catherine that they actually arrested him after finding indecent images of students on his phone.

Meanwhile, Joanna's murderer Faisal barely appears in the episode, as Catherine tells Andy that he had been supplying illegal diazepam to those in the area and lives next door to the Hepworths – shifting suspicion onto him for Joanna's death.

Read more:

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• Happy Valley star on how finale moment 'sets up how story will carry on’
• Happy Valley creator says Sarah Lancashire's changes improved ending

Happy Valley's main focus on Catherine, Clare and Becky highlighted how the show's brilliant women were the driving force behind it, hitting home how the finale was all about bringing the resilient detective some closure after the traumatic events of the last decade.

Even keeping Tommy Lee Royce's death off screen, letting the viewer know with just a text from Mike (Rick Warden) to Catherine, deprived the narcissist of the attention he's always craved.

However, choosing not to show the fridge-locking bully Rob get his comeuppance for the years of abuse he inflicted on the worn-down Joanna or Faisal's home being surrounded by police before the panicked power-hungry pharmacist was humiliated in handcuffs left some viewers with a scratch yet to be properly itched as the credits started to roll.

We didn't even get a final check-in with Joanna and Rob's poor daughters, who were absent in the last episode despite their heartbreaking presence during the upsetting scenes between their parents earlier in the season.

The internet was alight with theories as to why Poppy, the youngest daughter, refused to take off her coat inside the house, with fans expecting a significant reason to be revealed later in the season – however, the reveal never came.

While we learnt at the end that they'd be in safe hands with their grandparents – a full circle moment that mirrors the Catherine-Ryan set-up in the show – the girls' three-line acknowledgment felt like more of an after-thought than the satisfying closing of a chapter.

Happy Valley may have missed the mark with its brief wrapping-up of the Joanna-Rob-Faisal storyline, but you can't deny that the drama rightly placed Catherine front and centre, acting as one final love letter to the complicated character who's come a long way since convincing a drunk man not to set himself on fire in the first-ever episode.

Happy Valley seasons 1-3 are available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.

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