(Photo: AMC+)

Sarah Lancashire's Catherine Cawood is back – and formidable as ever – in the opening scene from Happy Valley's third and final season.

Though Lancashire's police sergeant is now approaching retirement, there seems to be little chance of her bowing out quietly. The opening scene, which you can watch in full below, shows her uncovering the remains of a gangland murder victim in a drained reservoir.

Lancashire is joined in Happy Valley's third season by Siobhan Finneran as Catherine's sister Clare, Rhys Connah as her grandson Ryan – who is now 16 years old – and James Norton as Tommy Lee Royce, the murderer and rapist who has been Catherine's longtime nemesis.

The show's writer-creator Sally Wainwright has recently promised a "showdown" between Catherine and her bête noire. "There's a very definite climax," she told Radio Times. "A narrative has gone across all three: in Season 1, Catherine and Tommy came face to face outside Ryan’s school, and in Season 2 they almost came face to face in the crematorium, at Tommy’s mum’s funeral. In Season 3, there’s a very big face-to-face showdown. The kind of cathartic showdown that people have waited for. It’s pretty dramatic."

Set in West Yorkshire's Calder Valley, Happy Valley debuted in 2014 and returned for a second season in 2016. Season three is a co-production between AMC+ and the BBC that will premiere in the U.S. on AMC+ and Acorn TV at a date yet to be confirmed. In the meantime, you can binge-watch the first two seasons on AMC+.

Are you excited about making one last visit to Happy Valley?