All good things must come to an end, and after 10 years of moody interwar scenes, family feuds, gangland wars, and a healthy dose of gypsy superstition, we’ve arrived at the Peaky Blinders’ final curtain.
It’s been a wild ride, fuelled by eye-for-eye vengeance and extreme violence. The gang’s takeover of Billy Kimber’s horse racing betting books led to a bloodbath with New York Mafiosos the Changrettas, led by eldest son Luca. Not only was Tommy’s first wife (and one true love) Grace killed in the crossfire, but he lost brother John too. Later, his beloved aunt and the show’s matriarch Polly Gray would join the body count.
As Tommy’s list of enemies grew over the years, so too did his connections with people of influence: exiled Russian aristocrats with dodgy heirlooms, and the upper echelons of the British government including future PM Winston Churchill himself.
In the final ever series, his foes have included fascist leader Oswald Mosley, his mistress Lady Diana Mitford and his distant relation by marriage, American gangster Jack Nelson, who has friends in the Oval Office.
Incarcerated cousin Michael vowed to avenge his mother Polly, Lizzie was sucker-punched by the news that her husband slept with human slimeball Diana Mitford, and Tommy used an inoperable brain tumour as his passport to commit heinous acts, all in the name of securing his legacy before time ran out. He may have lost daughter Ruby to consumption, but he found a son in Duke - will he be the one to inherit the Shelby crown?
Standby for our review of the final ever episode of Peaky Blinders. WARNING:Spoilers ahead
Lizzie’s last straw
Fresh from the dinner party from hell, Lizzie (Natasha O’Keeffe) is heartbroken to discover that Tommy (Cillian Murphy) has slept with Mitford when the smoke of his daughter’s funeral pyre still lingers on his clothes. The man has committed some truly abominable acts, but this is one she can’t forgive. A line has been crossed and she’s leaving. Tommy doesn’t try to win her round; in fact he tells son Charles to go with his step-mum. Neither can have him so they may as well have each other.
Duke is tested
In the Peaky Blinders armoury, Tommy’s Uncle Charlie (Ned Dennehy) is showing Duke (Conrad Khan) the artillery. “You’re not just a soldier, you’re gonna be a general - some day,” Charlie tells the young gun. He brings up last episode’s gory referee murder at the betting shop, accusing Duke of running away. But Duke clearly still wants in with the family, so to prove himself, he tells Charlie that he has killed a man, the orderly who denied his dying mother a bed in the hospice. This seems to satisfy the uncle, who asks a final rhetorical question “Can you keep a secret?”
Arthur discovers his brother’s deadly secret
Arthur (Paul Anderson) is crumpled over a set of X-rays in Tommy’s office. He knows Tommy’s secret and is understandably devastated at the impending loss of his brother. Tommy’s consolation is reminding him they’ve both been living on borrowed time since escaping bullets on the WWI battlefields. He won’t stay, despite Arthur’s pleas; by the time anyone knows the truth, he will be gone. In the meantime, Tommy has put the wheels in motion to ensure his social housing legacy worth £10m will come to fruition and the £5m from the Canadian drugs deal will be split amongst his family. Arthur tries to fight him, but he’s weak with grief. The brothers embrace tightly, another final goodbye. “I’ll get the drinks in and wait for you”, Tommy promises, before getting back to business.
Spring cleaning, by order of the Peaky Blinders
At the Garrison, a Peaky Blinders meeting is called with Tommy, Arthur, Duke, Uncle Charlie, Finn (Harry Kirton) and sneaky informant Billy (Emmett J. Scanlan) present. Tommy reveals he’s going away on business, and while he’s away, they need to clear out his country estate - which includes unearthing the many bodies buried on the grounds. He’s levelling the place to make space for his social housing project. Once the spring clean is complete, they’ll have a party there on Sunday. Arthur mentions he will be at the Garrison on Sunday night instead, arming an unsuspecting Billy with all the info he needs on their whereabouts to pass to his boss, Jack Nelson. Quite how they know Billy is in Nelson’s pocket is never revealed, but it’s not long before the snitch starts singing.
Gina strategises a bloodbath
A phone call interrupts Gina (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Michael’s reunion after his release from prison. It’s good news: Billy has called to relay the Shelby brothers’ whereabouts. She suggests a drive-by shooting for Arthur, but Michael isn’t keen on the idea of getting him involved. In his mind, it’s between him and Tommy. Gina explains it has to be this way: after all, when Michael kills “the devil”, it’s only natural to assume that his right hand man Arthur will come after him. “Deep down, they want to be dead anyway”, Gina coos, seemingly plucking a tactic from Manipulation for Dummies. “We will just give them what they want.”
“You’ll have to cross the floor”
In a dimly lit House of Commons, Tommy and Mitford meet at the table. He wants to finalise the funding for his social housing project, but she has other deals on her mind. She propositions him to do the dirty on the benches, prompting Tommy’s best line of the series: “If you want to f**k, I’ll f**k, but you’ll have to cross the floor because I refuse to f*k on Tory benches.”
Her approach is interrupted by Mosley who has an invitation from the German chancellor, one Adolf Hitler. Tommy refuses: he has a more pressing trip to attend, after all.
It’s back to Miquelon Island for the cousins’ final fight
Back on Miquelon Island where the drug deal is about to go down, a bulging black leather bag is loaded into a car with care worthy of a 12-pack of eggs. Michael drives with the explosive cargo to the bar where he had his initial meeting with his cousin way back in episode one. A mid-Atlantic hurricane has made travel tricky and Jack Nelson’s goons wonder if the Almighty has beaten Michael to the punch in taking Tommy’s life. But Michael knows nothing will stop the Shelby head honcho from being at their meeting.
Bloody Sunday begins
Billy and Finn rock up at Tommy’s mansion where the big clear-out is underway, ready to do their bit by drinking the cellar dry. But it’s a trap: the time has come for Billy’s reckoning. Duke orders Finn to shoot his snitchy underling but instead, the youngest Shelby brother turns the gun on Duke and pulls the trigger twice with no joy - both chambers are empty. Finn has been tested, and has failed spectacularly. Sensing a chance to run, Billy lurches forward but Duke, with hawk-eyed peripherals, shoots him right between the eyes before casting Finn out of the family for good. He won’t go easily, and vows revenge.
Aunt Polly is avenged
The bloodbath is only just getting started. Arthur and Uncle Charlie wait in the Garrison ready as IRA gunmen and Laura McKee (Charlene McKenna) enter, foiling their deadly plan and leading them out onto Watery Lane. Before justice for Polly’s murder can be served, a sniper in the shadows fires off a couple of rounds, and they pinball into the dark, misty street.
A nerve-shredding game of cat and mouse begins, blood pooling across the cobblestones as enemies are taken out. In a stroke of genius, Arthur and Charlie pull on gas masks and release mustard gas, leaving the IRA to give away their position as they cough their guts out in the alley. Arthur follows McKee’s hacking, finding her crumpled against a pillar. He lends her his mask so she is conscious for just long enough to hear him say “Her name was Elizabeth Gray”, before finally avenging his Aunt Polly.
We all need a Johnny Dogs in our lives
One loose end tied up, and onto another. Tommy greets Michael at the bar on Miquelon Island, as if he didn’t stitch him up and put him in prison the last time they saw each other. They head to the car but Michael has ‘forgotten’ his cigs so goes back inside, leaving Tommy to get inside the vehicle - the one with the bomb in the trunk. It’s a good day to be a pocket watch salesman: everyone checks their timepieces for the crucial, explosive moment. Surely it can’t end like this for Tommy? The windows of the bar shatter as the bomb does its thing.
But it wasn’t Tommy’s car that was blown to Kingdom Come, it was the one behind him; the one with Jack Nelson’s men. The bomb had been switched by the ever-faithful Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee). Not for the first time, we wonder where Tommy would be without him. As Johnny wanders off to “look at the fog”, the cousins get on with their final showdown. No words will save Michael now: Tommy shoots him through the left eye and that, folks, is the end of Michael Gray.
Alfie Solomons’ resurrection is complete
Tommy returns to the bar, and is greeted by old frenemy Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy), who he also once shot through the eye - it seems to be Tommy’s signature move. His deranged joviality cracks through the tension. He’s got a lot to be happy about: thanks to Tommy, he’s stopped shooting at pigeons in Margate, and now controls most of east Boston. He’s also just got married. His resurrection is complete. Tommy confides his illness to Alfie, who flippantly tells him: “If you are about to express profound emotion, you might be better off expressing it to someone who gives a f**k.” These guys! Tommy gets back to business for the final act.
Tommy holds a living wake
Tommy’s really clocking up the airmiles - it’s a shame frequent flyer programmes are still decades off. Michael’s bullet wound is still smouldering as he’s back across the Atlantic to his country pile. Striding out of the driveway, he gives the nod to press the trigger on 1500 pounds of dynamite, turning it all to rubble.
The smoke lingers in the background of the luncheon he’s holding in the woods, back where the family belong “amongst the horses and caravans, vagabonds and thieves”. It’s a living wake of sorts: he toasts family, “sometimes they are shelter from the storm, sometimes they are the storm itself” and announces he is going away for a bit. Arthur’s too cut up to be there, so Linda (Kate Phillips) reads a message on his behalf, promising him that he will be where Tommy is soon - worrying suggestion that he may top himself than endure a life without his brother. The usually intuitive sister Ada Thorne (Sophie Rundle) is lost, but as he says his goodbyes and sets off, the penny drops. Tommy refuses to explain, preferring not give news he knows will break his little sister’s heart.
Ruby saves her dad one last time
A month passes and Tommy is up in the hills, his three-piece suit holding up remarkably well in the face of outdoor living. He seems fed up of waiting to die and flips a coin for a decision. It falls in his favour, but as he puts the pistol to his head and takes one last look at the rolling green hills, he’s interrupted by a vision of lost daughter Ruby.
She tells him he’s not sick, light the fire and you will see, she urges. He returns to his bonfire and finds a newspaper cutting amongst the ashes announcing the marriage of Mosley and Mitford in Berlin. In the photograph, he spots another familiar face - his physician of three years, Dr Holford. The very same doctor who told him of his death sentence. Tommy has been had.
Tommy is his greatest enemy
It turns out that not only is the man in the grey suit a well-connected liar who was the best man at Mosley/Mitford wedding, but the physician he referred Tommy to for a second opinion was the maid of honour too. It’s a genius ploy (that does nothing for his God complex), Tommy concedes when he accosts Holford in his home: “The only man who can kill Thomas Shelby is Thomas Shelby himself”.
They made him believe he was dying, knowing his nature would do the rest. Tommy has quite literally been saved at the eleventh hour. Tommy takes aim at Holford but instead fires the bullet into the cobbles behind him, in a display of uncharacteristic mercy or perhaps keeping him alive for another plan.
Before Tommy’s arrival at his house, Holford’s servant had been ordered to burn Tommy’s caravan, so he dutifully sets about this task with a jerry can filled with petrol. Tommy arrives a fraction too late, but doesn’t try to save his worldly possessions and photos of his loved ones from the flames. He seems content to let the past go.
Verdict
We were promised an action-packed finale, and boy, did the show deliver. Michael got his comeuppance (we were getting sick of him and Gina anyway), Arthur had his chance to avenge Polly and Tommy made the ultimate comeback. The last ever episode of Peaky Blinders wasn’t nearly as bleak as we expected, and the door has been left open for the movie that’s been so heavily rumoured.
That said, there are still many questions left unanswered: why did Tommy drop his fascist fall-out plan? What prompted Duke, on the verge of leaving the Shelby clan altogether, to do an about-face and become a Peaky Blinder proper? What did Tommy whisper to his illegitimate son at the farewell luncheon? How has Finn strayed so far from the family? Will Tommy go back to his old ways, or embrace freedom in his ‘death’ and begin a new life off-grid? And if the tumour was fiction, what exactly was causing Tommy’s seizures?
The TV series may be over, but as creator Steven Knight has said, this is just the “beginning of the end”. The Peaky Blinders story may only just be starting.
