Happy Valley star responds to ‘stupid’ fan theories ahead of series finale

Some have been spot on

Happy Valley star Rhys Connah has responded to some of the fan theories surrounding the show’s ending.

BBC One’s acclaimed crime drama reaches its climax on Sunday (5 February), with the finale of its third and final season.

The Independent has recapped all the major talking points from last week’s dramatic penultimate episode.

Ahead of the finale, viewers have been speculating about the fates of Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) and others.

But Connah, who plays teenaged Ryan, seemed unconvinced by many of the guesses.

“One of my mates at college, he loves the show. So when we started filming, he wrote a big list with all the ideas of everything he thinks is going to happen,” he said in an interview with the BBC.

“Every time he watches an episode, he’ll sit there with his notes and go, ‘It happened, right, what’s going to happen now?’ He’s come up with some mad theories. I love hearing them. I love hearing everyone’s opinions of the show.”

“A lot of the theories are a bit stupid, so sometimes I do laugh,” Connah added. “But sometimes when they’re saying random stuff, one of them will list five different plot points, all of which happened exactly.”

Sarah Lancashire in ‘Happy Valley’ (BBC)

Connah also dismissed reports that Happy Valley’s creators had in fact filmed multiple endings to throw people off the scent.

“I did hear somewhere that they’ve made multiple endings, but that’s not true,” he explained, while stipulating that he didn’t know “exactly how it ends”.

“What they’ve done is, as a lot of shows do – there is one ending, but they’ve filmed it in different ways, different ways of how characters say things, the emotions behind them, the angles, the framing, because how much that stuff can affect a scene is more than most people would think,” Connah explained.

Happy Valley concludes Sunday 5 February at 9pm on BBC One.