Before ‘Black Doves,’ Sarah Lancashire Gave One of TV’s Greatest Performances in This Gritty Crime Drama

Not only has Netflix's hit spy drama, Black Doves, given us great chemistry between Keira Knightley's secret agent, Helen, and Ben Wishaw's charming triggerman, Sam, but Sarah Lancashire's powerful performance as the omnipotent employer of Helen and Sam, Mrs. Reed, gives the show a larger-than-life presence. However, despite Lancashire's talented display, it is nowhere near her best, which isn't an insult to Black Doves, but a testament to her work on the British crime drama, Happy Valley. Lancashire brings the cold hardness you may like about her performance in Black Doves to Happy Valley and adds a gruffness and vulnerability that makes her a far more complex character than her menacing but somewhat one-note Mrs. Reed. From the way she battles the trauma of losing her daughter to the relationships with her family to the volatile criminals that she comes face-to-face with daily, Lancashire's performance is not just the highlight of Happy Valley, but one of the greatest in recent television.