'After the Flood' is a Mystery Flowing Straight Outta 'Happy Valley'
It’s very easy to be charmed by the over-ambitious BritBox thriller. It’s tough to pinpoint precisely when and how the implausible small-town crime saga became one of British TV’s most bankable returns on investment. However, British telly writers have many too-complicated-for-soaps storylines brewing in their heads. When deployed as winningly as After the Flood, it’s tempting to let them invent as many interchangeable Happy Valley derivatives as they want.
This series has a couple more tangible links to Sally Wainwright’s landmark, fan-favorite detective drama – Juliet Charlesworth produced both shows; Season 1 supporting actor Sophie Rundle (one of the first people to be killed on-camera by Tommy Royce) takes the lead as Jo Marshall, a pregnant constable training for detective duty; and our mystery once again takes place in gloomy Yorkshire, this time in the fictional and flood-prone Waterside. Thanks to its shared similar setting, tone, and frayed, misled suspects, After the Flood could, in another universe, be pitched as a spin-off limited series that network execs would instinctively commission off the back of Happy Valley – maybe with a guest appearance from Catherine Cawood as Jo’s old mentor or aunt during the flood crises in the opening and closing episodes. (These are free ideas, BritBox; take them or leave them.)
After the Flood lacks Happy Valley’s grounded approach to its multipronged story of trauma, revenge, and ego, with characters that superficially evoke the same warmth as Wainwright’s but without the earned, substantive empathy we feel for the Cawood clan. Instead, Jo and her family – her detective husband Pat (Matt Stokoe) and flood relief volunteer mother Molly (Lorraine Ashbourne) – feel more like navigators of the plot who occasionally break out in sighs, furrowed brows, and severe concern than actual lived-in characters. When an open-ended conclusion suggests a new chapter for Jo’s clan, it’s hard to imagine them existing outside of the rigid demands of the storyline.
