Tommy Lee Royce is back and more psychopathic than ever in explosive trailer for Happy Valley season three

A dramatic new trailer for hit BBC show Happy Valley has finally landed and Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) looms large over the whole thing.

Sarah Lancashire is back in the award-winning drama which is set to conclude the gripping story of Sergeant Catherine Cawood.

The BAFTA winning series had already been confirmed to be part of the BBC's Christmas and New Year's raft of shows, and the time has come to finally wrap up Happy Valley once and for all.

After seven years since the last series, the trailer shows us Catherine counting down the days until retirement and seemingly ready to move on with her life.

However, the discovery of a murder victim's body throws her onto a path which ultimately leads back to the dangerous criminal Royce, the one person she would least like to see in the world.

While there are still crimes for her to solve before her retirement, Catherine also has to deal with the family connection she has with Royce.

BBC

A murderer and rapist, Royce is the father of Catherine's grandson Ryan (Rhys Connah), and the young 16-year-old is having ideas of his own about the sort of connection he wants with the man.

Though he may be locked behind bars, the trailer teases us with the prospect of Royce growing closer to his son Ryan while police grill him for information about their new case.

James Norton has always managed to make Royce both unpleasant and downright unsettling, and the new trailer is putting all of the character's worst traits on display, not that he had many redeeming qualities in the first place.

When Catherine describes him as a 'narcissist' and a 'psychopath' in the trailer she's spot on the mark, so the question of what sort of relationship he'll have with his son looms large over the drama.

BBC

Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright has always said the show is not about the police, it's about a woman who happens to be a police officer.

Meanwhile, Norton has described his criminal character as a 'terrifying mess', explaining that he researched psychopathy and spoke to psychologists to really nail down the most disturbing aspects of the character.

The actor teased that Royce was sitting on 'information about something we don't know about yet', so we'll have to wait and see what sort of sordid secrets he's holding back.

Happy Valley returns at 9:00pm on New Year's Day on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, with six hour-long episodes to wrap up the story throughout the early weeks of the new year.