After being handed a terminal illness, fans have been left in limbo as to what's in store for Tommy Shelby's character.
In last week's episode, Cillian Murphy 's character Tommy was dealt several heavy blows back to back. After mourning the death of his daughter Ruby, he heard the news he fathered an illegitimate son named Duke. Rounding off the bad news, the gangster found out he has tuberculoma in his brain stem, a growth caused by the same bacteria as tuberculosis.
Quickly deteriorating, Tommy was told he only had 18 months to live. It is also the same condition that killed his daughter. With the fate of his character seemingly set in stone, some fans are thinking otherwise.
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Reddit user XavX explained their theory, which puts his deadly diagnosis into doubt. They said: "So credit to u/Rmendoza90 for this idea – they put a comment describing how they did not believe the supposed diagnosis Tommy was given. Got me thinking, none of Tommy’s enemies could ever overpower him, so perhaps Jack [Nelson] has used to his advantage the death of Ruby to orchestrate a fake diagnosis as a way to put Tommy and the family under immense pressure."
They added: "I imagine Jack’s eager to see how the entire system falls apart for the Peaky Blinders since Tommy plays such an instrumental role and there’s no suitable replacement (considering Ada’s (Sophie Rundle) avoidance and Arthur (Paul Anderson) off his face). I get how the doctor that visited him was Tommy’s personal doctor, but it seemed a bit much seeing how deterministic he was, and how he was stating that he had already call surgeons etc."
Another user said: "Someone else weighed in: ‘The thing that made me a little suspicious is the fact the doctor gave Tommy a ‘second opinion’ from another doctor without Tommy even asking, like he kinda shut the door on any need for Tommy to get an opinion from any other doctor. It may be nothing as it’s so close to the end, but I did feel a little suspicious."
Some fans disputed the speculation, calling it "nonsense." However, with Tommy's new son only just making an appearance, his character may not be disappearing anytime soon.
*Peaky Blinders is on BBC One 9pm and available to catch up on BBC iPlayer
