Peaky Blinders series six is off to a roaring start, with the stage set for the final chapter.
ICYMI, episode one saw Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and his cousin Michael Gray (Finn Cole) tango around a transatlantic opium deal, as well as the introduction of a new character, Michael’s uncle-in-law Jack Nelson, an east Boston gang boss with connections that stretch all the way to the Oval Office. We ended with Tommy’s daughter Ruby in the feverish grip of a possible gypsy curse.
News of her illness proved so disturbing Tommy hurtled straight back home - but not before a final meeting to issue an ultimatum to Michael.
With episode two now out and a flurry of faces old and new now in the picture, there’s plenty for fans to digest.
We get our heads around it all - warning: spoilers ahead.
Ruby passes health checks, but it’s Tommy who’s got real problems
Tommy returns home to England to a welcoming committee. Little Ruby seems to have made a full recovery since the last time we saw her, trusty black Madonna swinging around her neck. Still, better safe than sorry - Tommy’s feet have barely crunched the gravel before he bundles the kids and Lizzie (Natasha O'Keeffe) into a waiting car to see his own specialist at the Shelby Sanatorium. Although docs give Ruby the all-clear, Tommy is literally sick with worry, wanting yet more confirmation from Johnny Dogs and his witchy wife Esmerelda.
Lizzie, sick of feuds, gypsy curses and being just another item on Tommy’s to-do list, wonders when it will all end. "One last deal to be done, and we can escape forever," Tommy says in the dead tone of a man who doesn’t know anything but a life of complete chaos.
It’s a stormy night, and keen-eared Lizzie somehow manages to hear a crash in the house beyond the thunder outside. Tommy is having a fit on the bathroom floor, a wartime tunnel tussle flashing through in his mind: long-gone ghosts have come a-haunting. This new development has Lizzie panicked but he bats aside her wifely concern, "I have work to do. I’ll rest after the Boston business is done." It might be a permanent rest at this rate, Mr Shelby.
Tommy Shelby: the headline act
At a local rally - he’s still Labour MP for Birmingham South - Tommy riles up his working class comrades on the unfair gulf in food, labour, and dignity through the prism of class. "You must suffer for those in greener pastures!" the statesman booms to the raucous crowd, a rock star at a stadium set, a preacher to his gospel. They hang on every word. He could easily recruit new members here to replenish his depleted gang of Peaky Blinders, but Tommy has left backstreet skirmishes for bigger, bolder baddies.
A solemn face appears in the sea of frothing mouths and swinging fists. It’s the woman who authorised Polly’s kill, IRA Captain Swing aka Orlagh McKee (Charlene McKenna), here for their first ever in-person meet. She stands beside Arthur (Paul Anderson), who for once, isn’t in opium-induced oblivion (it doesn’t last long). A dog straining against a leash on the orders of his master, he growls when she mentions Polly Gray.
Ireland is added to Uncle Jack’s meet-and-greet itinerary of fascists
At favoured watering hole The Garrison, Tommy offers a debrief on the Boston deal: looks like old black beret McKee here is the puppetmaster. Tommy’s extracurricular work leaves Swing stunned: he’s somehow managed to snaffle Jack Nelson’s private correspondence which includes a letter signed by the sitting US President and pages of Jack’s antisemitic sentiments. His imminent trip to England is ostensibly to secure whisky import licences but really, he’s on a fact-finding mission to gauge the UK’s support for fascism.
Tommy’s plan is to hook up Nelson with Mosley and his supporters, but he wants McKee to meet him and promote a fascist Dublin too - which will in turn open the door to their dodgy dealings in Boston. Tommy concludes with a good old fashioned proverb from the Bible - is Peaky Blinders really a Dot Cotton origin story? Will Tommy open an East End laundrette next? "I’m just a man trying to make an honest living in a very dark world." Don’t hate the player, folks.
In the Garrison’s shadows, sister Ada (Sophie Rundle) overhears his plan, and goes apoplectic. She may no longer be active but her socialist ideals still burn brightly: after all, this is the woman who named her son after Karl Marx. Ada recoils at the thought of dealing with toxic waste like Mosley and Nelson but Tommy promises it’s their way out. "By being among the fascists, I can undermine them," he tells his little sister. "Polly would approve; beneath the gold and diamonds, the mink and the lace, she was a solid socialist."
Alfie Solomons gets his role in Tommy’s final act
It turns out we don’t have to wait long for the return of one-eyed Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy): the former bootlegger is back, listening to his gramophone at Glastonbury main stage levels. Tommy lays out his plan, the final act of this bloody opera: Alfie’s uncle Charles Solomons has been violently murdered by men known to Alfie in east Boston. Spilling blood is one thing, but when it’s family claret, Tommy knows it gets under one’s skin. He’s got all his drug smuggling ducks in a row and dangles this kill to persuade Alfie to snatch power back to the Solomons. In return, he’s after Alfie’s abandoned Camden property which he plans to knock down and build houses for the needy. A heart of blackened gold, readers.
Gina bids Michael farewell before sailing to England
TV’s most nauseating couple Michael and Gina (Anya Taylor-Joy) meet in his cell before she sails to England. Jack has decreed that Tommy, who they’re still unimaginatively calling The Devil (takes one to know one, toots) must die and Michael can be the one to do it. There’s an icky promise to rouse at the same hour every night on either side of the Atlantic to… come together, both spiritually and erm, in the biblical sense.
Tommy dangles Arthur’s estranged wife Linda as a rehab technique
Back in London, Lizzie and Tommy dart up rain-splattered stairs to Mosley’s latest rally, a weird night out for a staunch socialist. How’s he explaining this to his supporters? “I’m here to act as a bridge between ideologies. To remind Mosley that the way of the British people is compromise”. His dignified words are scuppered by Arthur who arrives in a cartoon cloud of expletives at Mosley’s invitation. With Tommy striking deals across the Atlantic, they’ve become pals, but it’s mostly to do with the fact that Arthur has unlimited access to various party powders rather than a kindred spirit between the two.
In an effort to incentivise Arthur, Tommy offers a carrot in the form of Linda (Kate Phillips), Arthur’s god-fearing missus last seen driving off in S5 after attempting to shoot her husband. She and Tommy have been pen pals, and he tells his wayward brother that if he stays clean for a couple of weeks, he’ll get her to visit. It looks like Alfie Solomons isn’t the only one making a comeback this series.
The Shelbys meet Mosley’s Nazi-loving new squeeze: Lady Diana Mitford
It’s an episode for new faces: we’re introduced to Mosley’s mistress and future wife, the reptilian Lady Diana Mitford (Amber Anderson), too. She and Tommy size up each other, both wearing the same expression you would if faced with a python. She delights in belittling Lizzie, our favourite character of the season, who eventually strikes back and reveals Diana’s not the only one who has carnal knowledge of Mosley. Mosley (Sam Claflin) reads Jack’s hate-filled letter; he and Diana, the “engine of his operation”, are excited to meet him; they are all peas in a festering little pod.
Jack Nelson and Tommy finally meet
In Westminster Abbey, a man stands waiting. It’s the infamous Jack Nelson. He and Tommy exchange the world’s strangest small talk - comparing kills and child abusers, just the light stuff - and Tommy reveals the very first person he killed was a young Prussian soldier with green eyes. Green eyes! The ghost in Tommy’s fits? The one daughter Ruby hallucinates? It doesn’t take long for Jack to admit he’d quite like to hang out with some fascists while he’s in town.
…And here’s where Tommy goes off script. He has people on both sides of the fence, he says, and he’s happy to pass intel on Churchill’s plans in return for access to Nelson’s Boston network. Treachery! But it gives Nelson plenty of food for thought.
Ruby’s demons are back, Tommy calls for a familiar face
At home, Lizzie discovers Ruby’s disturbing scrawled drawings - and not the kind you’d be happy to stick on the fridge. She finds her shivering by the fireplace; the poor girl can hear voices coming from up the chimney. Meanwhile Tommy is in the House of Commons, railing against his constituents’ living conditions, calling for ministers to clean up the slums and create more social housing, much to Mosley’s amusement. All the while Lizzie leaves messages in his office in a blind panic over the worsening state of their daughter - the little mite has started coughing up blood now.
Finally finished in the House, Tommy finds out what’s going on at home, but before he can tear off back to Brum, he has another fit in his office; the green-eyed demon back for round two. He’s barely caught his breath before Lizzie is on the blower again, and Tommy musters himself to rush back. It’s serious so he calls in the big guns: Esme Shelby Lee (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), brother John’s widow and apparently the Blinders’ version of a Ghostbuster.
Verdict
There’s a lot to absorb in the second episode, with Tommy’s scheme, the final act of his opera, slowly coming into focus. We reckon it won’t be long before we witness a classic Peaky Blinders clash; an inevitability with Alfie and the IRA now on board and Michael gunning for bloody vengeance in his prison cell. Will Tommy get his wish for rest sooner than he thinks? Will Ruby ever be right again? When will Lizzie slap Lady Diana? It’s all to play for in episode 3.
