Episode 6

Catherine's birthday party should be the kind of night that ends with everyone a little drunk and a lot relieved. Instead a drunk Daniel Cawood starts talking about past events with Becky, and his version of history is not hers. The evening curdles in front of everyone, and the show lets it. Families are where this series does its worst damage, and a party is just a room with more witnesses.

The bigger dread is quieter. Catherine learns that Tommy Lee Royce has been spending time with Ryan, and every instinct she has tells her what that means. Ryan is eight and innocent of it all. Tommy is Tommy. The fear sits under the party scenes like a cold floor, and nobody else at the table can see it, which makes it worse.

Daniel's version of past events with Becky lands like a stone in the punchbowl. Becky is not there to answer for herself, and that is precisely why Daniel can say what he likes. Karl Davies plays the drunken need to be understood, and it curdles into something crueller before the night is out. The birthday party was always going to be a risk. Catherine doesn't do gatherings, and when she does, the past turns up uninvited. The only person not surprised is Catherine herself, who has spent years watching her family revisit the same ground and knows better than to expect a new ending.

Sally Wainwright wrote it, Tim Fywell directed. Sarah Lancashire is Catherine, Karl Davies is Daniel, Rhys Connah is Ryan, James Norton is Tommy, Siobhan Finneran is Clare, with Hannah John-Kamen's Justine, George Costigan's Nevison, Joe Armstrong's Ashley, Rachel Leskovac's Julie Mulligan and Mina Anwar's Mrs Mukherjee.

This is the season finale, and it ends on tension rather than resolution, which is the right call for a show that has never trusted easy endings. The party is over. The worry is not.