Who is new to the cast of Happy Valley season 3 on BBC One?

Sgt Catherine Cawood is back… alongside several new faces (Picture: BBC/Lookout Point/Matt Squire)

Tonight, Happy Valley is returning to BBC with season 3, and it’s fair to say excitement is high.

Airing on BBC One as well as streaming platform BBC iPlayer, the series is making a mega comeback with all new episodes for a final outing.

With the drama filmed and set in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, in Northern England, Sarah Lancashire reprises her role as the lead member of the cast, Sergeant Catherine Cawood, a police community officer for the West Yorkshire Police Department.

Siobhan Finneran is back as her sister Clare Cartwright, as well as Rhys Connah as Catherine’s grandson Ryan Cawood, Con O’Neill as Clare’s boyfriend Neil Ackroyd and, of course, James Norton as Tommy Lee Royce, the protagonist’s nemesis and Ryan’s father.

There are also several new characters entering the mix. Here’s what you need to know about them.

Who is new to the cast of Happy Valley season 3?

After seven years away, Happy Valley has finally returned for its third and final season, with plenty of familiar faces in tow.

However, there are also some new characters who will be making their debuts on the drama.

The new actors joining the cast include The Other One star Amit Shah, The Girl Before actor Mark Stanley and All Creatures Great And Small actress Mollie Winnard.

While little is known about how their characters will play into the story, it’s been said they’ll all play ‘pivotal roles in Happy Valley’s final chapter’.

Is there more to pharmacist Faisal than meets the eye? (Picture: BBC/Lookout Point/Matt Squire)

Married couple Joanna and Rob have a run-in with Sgt Catherine Cawood (Picture: BBC/Lookout Point/Matt Squire)

Amit’s character is Faisal Bhatti, who works as a pharmacist in the Valley.

Mark stars as Rob Hepworth, who’s Ryan’s football coach and a father of two young daughters, who’s married to fellow newcomer Joanna Hepworth, played by Mollie.

After Joanna is arrested by Catherine, this incident pulls at the thread of mysteries swirling around the neighbourhood.

What’s the plot of Happy Valley season 3?

This season, Catherine will embark on a high-stakes investigation when she discovers the remains of a gangland murder victim in a drained reservoir.

This mysterious death ‘sparks a chain of events that leads her straight back to Tommy Lee Royce’, the BBC teased.

With her personal and professional life clashing, Catherine must cope with the fact that her grandson Ryan, who’s now 16 years old, ‘has ideas of his own about the kind of relationship he wants to have with the man Catherine refuses to acknowledge as his father’.

What’s more, Catherine’s sister, Claire, is ‘caught in the middle’.

Is season 3 definitely the end of Happy Valley?

Unfortunately, it appears so.

‘We always said this would be the final season and it is very definitely is the final season,’ said the show’s creator Sally Wainwright.

Explaining why it took so long for the series to return, Sally added: ‘I waited six years because I wanted to get to a point where Ryan would be old enough to start making choices about whether he wanted to have a relationship with his dad or not. And could he have a relationship with his dad, and how would Catherine feel about that? I really wanted to be able to explore that.

‘It’s been great that we got Rhys back to play Ryan which has been fantastic, and he has done a really lovely job in that. That was always the intention, to have a gap and it has worked out just about right.

‘Just the right period of time because he is now 16, so he can travel places by himself, he can make choices. He can do things behind Catherine’s back. The intention developed through conversations I had with Sarah to make it a three-parter, to make a trilogy.’

Happy Valley season 3 premieres tonight at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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Sgt Catherine Cawood is back… alongside several new faces.