On a misty, windswept day in Brontë country, Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), the protagonist of “Happy Valley,” makes the kind of arrest that sets her apart from other TV cops. After entering a blood-soaked farmhouse, she elicits—softly but persistently—a murder confession from Alison (Susan Lynch), the fortysomething mother of a maladjusted adult son. The previous night, Alison’s son had admitted that he was wanted by the police for the killing of several local prostitutes; in the morning, to spare him from prison, Alison shot him before attempting suicide through an over-dose of pills and alcohol. As the sergeant pieces together what happened, she wraps her arms around the dazed mother and cradles her head. Catherine’s recitation of a police caution, the U.K.’s version of the Miranda warning, is as gentle and as absolving as a prayer.
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ART OF STONE
\"The Brutalist.\"
MOMMA MIA
Audra McDonald triumphs in \"Gypsy\" on Broadway.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
\"Black Doves,\" on Netflix.
NATURE STUDIES
Kyle Abraham's “Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful.”
WHAT GOOD IS MORALITY?
Ask not just where it came from but what it does for us
THE SPOTIFY SYNDROME
What is the world's largest music-streaming platform really costing us?
THE LEPER - LEE CHANGDONG
. . . to survive, to hang on, waiting for the new world to dawn, what can you do but become a leper nobody in the world would deign to touch? - From \"Windy Evening,\" by Kim Seong-dong.
YOU WON'T GET FREE OF IT
Alice Munro's partner sexually abused her daughter. The harm ran through the work and the family.
TALK SENSE
How much sway does our language have over our thinking?
TO THE DETECTIVE INVESTIGATING MY MURDER
Dear Detective, I'm not dead, but a lot of people can't stand me. What I mean is that breathing is not an activity they want me to keep doing. What I mean is, they want to knock me off. My days are numbered.
