CHARACTER WORK: HAPPY VALLEY SAVES ALL THE CATS

This week I'm looking at some examples of the ways that shows introduce characters.

Yesterday I dug into main character Catherine Cahood's introduction in the pilot of HAPPY VALLEY, and the way creator Sarah Lancashire defines the character and her world by turning our expectations of the cop show on its head. Rather than the standard action hero nonsense, Catherine's opening involves her talking down a drunk 20something standing on a playground playset as he threatens to light himself on fire because his girlfriend is cheating on him, while others nearby laugh. 

Obviously, every choice a character makes in a series or film is an opportunity to reveal more about them and feed our interest in them. But one thing Lancashire does in HAPPY VALLEY that I don't think I've seen anywhere else is she begins every episode with another Save the Cat moment for Catherine. And each one is completely different than any of the others. So in Series One:

• 102 opens on Catherine trying to stop an ice cream van selling drugs. And it's full on-- she's chasing the van on foot, smashes its window, is told to stand down and doesn't. With just a few alterations it could easily have been the start of the series.
  
• 103 has Catherine having to deal with the catastrophe of one of her cops murdered,  and swallowing all her pain and guilt so she can guide her officers, deal with her idiot boss, talk to the cop's partner and then also the cop's parents. 
• 104 has her working her superiors to get what she needs without revealing that the man who killed her daughter is involved with the scene she wants investigated.  
• And 106 starts with Catherine having to tell a father who has just gotten her kidnapped daughter back exactly what the monsters who had her did to her. 
  

Only 105 doesn't begin with a Cat Save of any kind--and that's because 104 ended with Catherine being beaten nearly to death rescuing a girl who has been abducted. 105 instead opens with that young woman getting help for herself and Catherine. 

Why do this?  

 

In part, it reestablishes and expands Catherine's credentials as our protagonist. Her competence and willingness to sacrifice for the job knows no bounds.  

 

In a very specific way it also establishes Catherine as someone who is active, who is always making choices. Choices reveal character. They're also the magnets of story. They draw us to the characters making them, and create consequences that pull the story and the character farther along. Catherine is as compelling a character as she is in part because every episode opens with her acting on something -- and each time in a different way. 

 

To me there's an interesting underlying idea in Wainwright's approach too, namely that every episode is a first episode. HAPPY VALLEY may be highly serialized, but that doesn't mean it won't be someone's first encounter with the show, or that the principles of a first episode, the clear definition of character and world, aren't still useful.

In a way Lancashire's move hearkens to the world of comic books, where it's often the standard to begin each issue with some sort of reorientation. Except where in comics that approach can at times feel like treading water, Lancashire's work most certainly does not. We're always launching in from big, new story events. And the choices Catherine is asked to make are always different to keep the story fresh. 

 

Between VALLEY and GENTLEMAN JACK Wainwright's work is a master class in establishing strong active characters. (And we haven't even talked about LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX, another fantastic show.) If you don't know her work, she's worth a look.

 

TOMORROW--GROUP THINK: FOYLE'S WAR INTRODUCES THE AMERICANS