A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post, Playing Devil’s Advocate with ‘Last Tango in Halifax’: Caroline & Kate to just look as realistically in the framework of a drama as we can before we make judgements on the characters and direction of the story lines.

I tweeted the link with the hashtag of #LastTangoInHalifax, and surprisingly I got a tweet back from series writer, Sally Wainwright, and she started following my twitter acct. Major fangirling moment. 🙂

Christmas Eve marked the end of the second series, and what an ending. In advance of the final episode, BBC announced its official recommissioning of a third series of the BAFTA and Royal Television Society NorthWest (RTSNW) award winning series. This second series has averaged 5½ million viewers (24-26% share).

Series two brought us over the course of six episodes an internal timeline of six-seven month period of time, that picks up from the end of series one with Alan Buttershaw’s heart attack and his improving health. He and Celia continue to buck any and all tradition and decide to go ahead and arrange to get married without telling anyone, including their immediate family. Gillian’s and Caroline’s lives get ever more complicated and put stresses on their personal relationships with family and loved ones. This oft-times heart-warming series about a couple of seniors falling in love again, and their families took a darker turn this series, but it was also not without its comedic moments, quite often between Caroline and Celia, and the absolutely brilliant hotel scene in episode 5 between Gillian and Caroline.

Gillian’s storyline got increasingly dark this series, fractures in her relationship with her father, John, Robbie, and a growing sisterly friendship dynamic with Caroline over the series. Though there does have a few lighter moments to balance out the dark.

Caroline’s storyline arc, in the beginning of series one, not feeling ready to advance her feelings and relationship with her colleague Kate, to Caroline’s realizing she’s too old to pretend to be something she isn’t and decides to go after Kate. Series 2, Caroline’s gotten to the point of wanting to progress things further with Kate on a personal level but not ready on a professional outting. At the end of series 2, while not without considerable heartbreak, she makes a huge step forward with Kate that ended up making me smile for long after the show finished for the night.