BBC One's Happy Valley is perhaps one of the most well-done television crime dramas due to its well-written characters and even better storytelling by writer and director Sally Wainwright. But none of that would actually translate onto the screen for the show's three-season run without Sarah Lancashire's portrayal of Sgt Catherine Cawood. The show is set in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and focuses on a divorced police sergeant, Catherine Cawood, who is raising her daughter's son, Ryan, after her daughter committed suicide.In the first season, Catherine investigates the kidnapping of a girl whose kidnapper, Tommy Lee Royce, happens to be the man who raped her daughter and is Ryan's father. Royce continues to wreak havoc on Catherine's life for all three seasons, but Catherine doesn't accept defeat. Very few other crime dramas have had characters like Lancashire's Catherine, one of them being HBO's Mare of Easttown. However, Lancashire's Catherine has had to deal with a much darker fate than Kate Winslet's Marianne Sheehan.The characters played by Sarah Lancashire and Kate Winslet in Happy Valley and Mare of Easttown are similar, but still differentMare of Eattown and Happy Valley share a lot of similarities when it comes to the main plot. In both shows, the protagonists are divorced police sergeants who have lost a child to suicide and are raising the deceased child's son. Both Marianne and Catherine also have to fight their grandson's other parent, who is trying to be a part of the child's life, but has a history of drug abuse and/or a criminal history. While Catherine investigates the kidnapping of a girl, Marianne investigates a girl who went missing. But there are differences between Catherine and Marianne.Throughout the three seasons of Happy Valley, Catherine has to consistently fight Tommy Lee Royce. This is because he happens to be one of the kidnappers of the case she's working on, and he is the man who Catherine believes is responsible for her daughter's suicide. Royce keeps on coming back to haunt Catherine even after causing her the ultimate loss of losing her daughter. In contrast, while Marianne deals with immense grief from her son's suicide and has to fight Carrie Layden in a custody battle for Drew, the perpetrator in the case she is investigating, doesn't have a personal connection to her.Both Catherine and Marianne are grieving the loss of a child and raising a grandson. However, Catherine's life is explicitly defined by a single, traumatic event and its long-term effects, forcing her to deal with Tommy Lee Royce, who is the source of her pain, regularly. Besides, the setting of Happy Valley in West Yorkshire is presented as a bleak, working-class town, where crime and drug addiction are a regular part of daily life. While Easttown also has its struggles with addiction and economic hardship, Happy Valley uses its grim setting more, which makes Catherine's story and what she had to do to survive and protect her family even darker.Another reason why Sarah Lancashire's Catherine is a much darker character is that her drive is fueled by a raw anger and pain over her daughter's death and the crimes she sees in her community. While Marianne also has a tough exterior and deals with immense grief, she occasionally experiences moments of more lighthearted interactions, such as those with her close friends Jess, Dawn, and Beth. Marianne also ultimately reaches a point of forgiveness and coping by the end of the series. Catherine's struggle is more of an ongoing war with everything evil in her town, represented by Royce. View this post on Instagram Instagram PostWhy Happy Valley stands outMare of Easttown almost feels like a remake of Happy Valley due to the extremely similar plot and because the HBO show came out much after the British crime drama, but Marianne and Catherine have their differences that set the shows apart. Moreover, one might even say that Catherine deals with a darker life, which also makes viewers react to her differently than they react to Marianne. Besides, Happy Valley allows us to witness an antagonist like Royce, who keeps tormenting Catherine from afar, even from prison. At the same time, no matter how hard it gets, Catherine doesn't bow down or give up, and fights till the end.Happy Valley is streaming on Netflix. Mare of Easttown is streaming on HBO Max.For more articles like this, follow Soapcentral.