Fans of hit BBC show Peaky Blinders were left 'emotional and heartbroken' after the final series began with a tribute to actress Helen McCrory.
McCrory, who starred as Polly in the post-Great War Birmingham gangster series, passed away from breast cancer last year.
But when the sixth and final series of the show got underway tonight, the death of her character was confirmed and her funeral was filmed in what the lead actor Cillian Murphy had described as a 'real emotion', when they filmed it after the death of the actress herself.
Read more: Peaky Blinders stars open up about filming 'really moving' Helen McCrory tribute
And the scenes, in the opening 15 minutes of the first episode in the series, left viewers in tears.
"They deffo weren't acting there, those are real tears," said Sadia E on Twitter, while Elle magazine's Emma Fraser said: "I also can't even begin to imagine how hard it was to deal with Helen McCrory's death from a creative and personal point of view. This is a fitting tribute to her performance and this character."
Cillian Murphy had spoken previously about how hard it was to continue without Helen McCrory, but that they were determined to pay a proper tribute to their friend and colleague.
"What I always feel sad about is that we were about to shoot and then the pandemic happened and we had to stop," he said. "If we had shot then, Helen would've been in the show, and that makes me feel sad."
"It's a huge loss; it's hard to comprehend it. Because she was the matriarch of the whole thing. As the character, but just also as her personality. But she's still present in series six," he added.
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