Warning: this article contains spoilers from Broken on the BBC.

So Jimmy McGovern’s harrowing but hope-filled Broken ended the way it should: with redemption for Father Michael Kerrigan, and reaffirmation that even the smallest acts can truly bring about change.

McGovern has said that he saw the series – about a priest serving his community in the northwest of England – as a homage to It’s a Wonderful Life. And it is true that, like Frank Capra’s masterwork, Broken was ultimately a drama about the seemingly insignificant ways we touch people’s lives, and the sins of omission that can loom so large.

Father Michael, so brilliantly played by Sean Bean, was tormented by one such moment: his decision not to answer the phone to Helen Oyenusi (Muna Otaru) when she called to ask that he calm down her son. It was such a simple decision – haven’t we all looked at our phones and thought “I’ll call back tomorrow” – but then Vernon Oyenusi died, shot by a police officer. Father Michael not only had to live with the fallout, but also reckon with his failure to tell Helen he could have picked up her call.

Full of heartbreaking moments … Broken. Photograph: Tony Blake/BBC

Broken was full of such heartbreaking instances. In the first episode, Anna Friel’s Christina was fired from her job at the local bookies; her boss later admitted to Father Michael in confession that she had reacted so strongly because she’d had bad news of her own that morning.

But if McGovern homed in on how the most minute events can set off a cataclysm in someone else’s life, he also focused on the equally small acts of kindness that transform someone’s day. The headlines before the show aired spoke about Broken Britain, of poverty and debt and job losses. And while Broken did tackle these things with McGovern’s trademark blend of wit and rage, it was above all a celebration of community and the connections we should all try to find.

It was also about faith. McGovern is no longer a practising Catholic, and his leading man admits his childhood church attendance was sporadic at best. Yet Broken was an astute depiction of organised religion in general, and the Catholic church in particular. This was not television intent on mocking the church or its believers, nor keen to hammer home its many flaws. The abuse scandals, the attitude towards women, the obsession with ritual at the cost of reality were addressed, but overall the show was not condemnatory. Instead it interrogated the very nature of faith: what leads a person to believe, and why you might live out your entire life as an act of atonement.

He might have struggled with his vocation, but he never lost faith … Father Michael Kerrigan (Sean Bean). Photograph: BBC/Tony Blake

Thus, one of the most interesting things about Father Michael was that despite the abuse he suffered as a child, at the hands of the fathers who taught him, and even though he applied those lessons to the wider world as a young man, he came to realise that they were wrong. He found faith and hugged it deep. He might have struggled with his vocation but he never lost faith. Not in his god, nor in the belief that there was goodness in this world.

It helped that Bean turned in the performance of his career. He showed us a conflicted man who channelled feelings of hopelessness into offering hope to others. We believed in Father Michael because Bean made us believe. It was a largely interior performance – we often understood his torment best when he said nothing – yet a powerful one, in which he showed us not just how a man like this might become a priest, but also, crucially, why he would remain one.

Some scenes, such as the moment in the finale when Father Michael’s sermon about money lenders led to the smashing of a bookie’s machines, were a little broad. But I would argue that this was a passion play, and that, as such, all biblical overtones were intentional. It is true, too, that McGovern took the sledgehammer approach at times, ramming home points about suffering and social injustice. Again, though, such passion felt justified. Television is less angry than it once was, and all the poorer for it: McGovern’s fury coupled with Bean’s despair made for an unmissable series.

Was the ending, with Father Michael’s parishioners queuing up to tell him that he was a wonderful priest, a deliberately sentimental echo of the final moments of It’s a Wonderful Life? Absolutely. But after six hours of bleak and bruising storylines, McGovern earned the right to a bit of redemption. Like Capra, he has always enjoyed throwing sentiment into the mix, and he gets away with it because of the power and the humour of what has come before. No other drama this year has cut me so deep to my core.