The popular series ‘Peaky Blinders’ is back with a bang. Well, it ended with an almost bang (spoiler alert).
The sixth and final season of the show is almost here, so hold onto your flat caps as we recap the whole series from start to the fifth season.
Season 1
Source:imdb
The story follows Tommy Shelby and the Shelby Family which includes his 3 brothers, Arthur, John, and Finn, his sister, Ada, and their aunt Polly.
Tommy is the head of the family and leads the Peaky Blinders. He steals a consignment of guns meant for the army. So, Winston Churchil sends Inspector Campbell to find the missing guns and his main suspects are the Peaky Blinders. He appoints Grace Burgess undercover as a barmaid at a pub owned by the blinders. Grace and Tommy eventually fall in love, and things get complicated when Campbell professes his love for Grace.
Meanwhile Tommy starts to fix races which attracts the attention of Billy Kimber, leader of the Birmingham Boys, and he isn’t happy about Tommy’s ambitions.
Tommy’s sister, Ada marries his former best friend, Freddie Thorne, a communist, and they have a child together.
John talks to Tommy about his plans to marry Lizzie, a “retired prostitute”. Tommy tests if Lizzie has really stopped working and turns out she hasn’t. Tommy arranges a marriage between John and the daughter of the rival Lee family, Esme, in an effort to form an alliance with them.
In the showdown against Billy Kimber, Tommy shoots him down ending the war
Grace makes a deal with Campbell about the stolen guns for Tommy’s safety. She professes her love for Tommy, he flips a coin to decide.
Grace is confronted by Inspector Campbell pointing a gun towards her at the train station, the season ends with a cut to black and the sound of a gunshot.
Season 2
Source:imdb
It was actually Grace who shot Inspector Campbell. He survives his wounds, and the series skips 2 years ahead. Campbell. He survives his wounds, and the series skips 2 years ahead.
Grace is married and has moved to America, Freddie Thorne died of pestilence, and Tommy is as ambitious as ever. He plans to expand his operations to London, an extremely wild and bustling city, Darby Sabini’s territory. Sabini is an Italian gang leader rival to the Peaky Blinders. Tommy also starts working with the IRA (Irish Republican Army), the IRA wants to unite Ireland under one state not under British control.
To establish a presence in London, Tommy, Arthur, and John take control of the Eden club, which was controlled by Sabini. Tommy also allies with Sabini’s rival, Alfie Solommons, a jewish gang leader. Meanwhile Arthur’s PTSD gets worse leading to addiction and erratic behaviour. We learn that while fighting, he accidentally killed a boy during a boxing match.
We find out that Polly’s children were taken away by the authorities at a very young age. Her daughter died but her son, Michael was still alive. He comes back to the family and joins the business. Meanwhile Tommy hires Lizzie as his assistant, and has a relationship with his horse trainer, May Carlton.
Grace returns to town with her husband, and ends up in bed with Tommy ending up pregnant.
Solomons and Sabini make their own truce. Solomons backstabs Tommy, getting Arthur and Michael arrested. In an effort to free her son, Polly goes to Campbell, who forces her to sleep with him.
Tommy reforges his alliance with Solomons. The season finale takes place on Derby Day, where Tommy plans to take over Sabini’s business and burning, stealing all of his betting licences and money. He is also tasked with killing Field Marshal, Henry Russel by The Crown and Winston Churchil.
Lizzie lures the marshal to an empty stable where Tommy kills him. In the meantime, Polly kills Campbell. Tommy is then kidnapped to be killed on the orders of Campbell. They take him to an open field with a hole dug out for Tommy. Then one of the kidnappers kills the other two and informs Tommy that at some time in the future Winston Churchil will speak to him in person.
Season 3
Source:imdb
We skip 2 years to 1924, Tommy and Grace get married. Later, at their wedding party Tommy is on edge and wants everyone to behave properly to impress Grace’s family. To prevent Lizzie’s shady boyfriend, Angel from coming to the party, The Peaky Blinders burn down Angel’s restaurant. At the party a Russian man, Anton Kaledin, wanted to talk to Tommy. Polly asks him for a codeword, then he is allowed to speak with Tommy, he tells him that his money will be delivered by the niece of ArchDuke Romanov, Tatiana Petrovna. It is then revealed that his codeword was actually wrong and he is killed by Arthur. Romanov pays Tommy with a giant sapphire which was cursed and Tommy gives it to his wife.
Meanwhile Angel’s father, an Italian gang leader under Sabini, sits down with Arthur and John, he is disrespected by John and steams off in anger.
A hotheaded John then beats up Angel. Vicente sends men to kill Tommy for the revenge of John’s actions but they end up killing Grace instead, this sends Tommy into a downward spiral. He asks John and Arthur to bring in Vicente alive to torture him. Vicente tries to leave the country with his wife, John and Arthur leave his wife behind, disobeying Tommy’s orders. Tommy begins to torture Vicente but Arthur shoots him out of mercy.
Back to the russians, Tommy understands the whole mission which is to supply russians with weapons and forcing a revolution in Soviet Georgia.After Tommy meets with his sister Ada, Father John Hughes – who is also involved in the deal with the Russians – threatens to kill Tommy’s son, Charlie, if he ever contacts her again.
It is revealed that Father Hughes is actually an informant for the Soviets against the Russian plot. Tommy offers to kill him for free but Michael ends up killing him and saving Tommy’s son. Michael was abused as a child under the care of Father Hughes.
Tommy calls on old adversary Alfie Solomons to help him carry out a heist on a cache of Russian jewels.The robbery is a success and each of the Peaky Blinders gets their share of the riches. But Tommy informs them about the warrants issued for the whole family and the police come in to arrest everyone except Tommy.
Season 4
Source:bbc
The season opens with John, Michael, Arthur, and Polly being led to the gallows, and it appears that this is the end of the line for them. But they are saved at the last minute through Tommy’s efforts.
A year later. The Shelby family is in complete disarray, with John and Arthur living out in the country with their families, Polly living at her house drinking herself mad. This time of peace is disrupted when all of the Shelby family members receive a black hand i.e. declaration of a vendetta, from Luca Changretta, Vicente Changretta’s son from New York, head of the New York mafia.
Tommy kills a mafia spy in his kitchen staff and decides that the whole family should move back to Birmingham, their turf. Everyone agrees, except John. Michael goes to John to convince him to change his mind, there they’re ambushed by Luca’s men, Michael is seriously injured and John dies.
In his fight against Italians, Tommy enlists a fellow gypsy, Aberama Gold, a ruthless and savage killer whose son is a talented prize fighter. Amberama takes the fight to the Italians, killing 4. Arthur survives an attack, killing 2.
Tommy is also expanding his liquor exportation business because the United States was under probation at the time.
Meanwhile, The Blinders set up a trap for the Italians in an apartment where Arthur was invited, but it turns out they actually went to Michael at the hospital. Luca spares Michael because of a deal he made with Polly. The deal was that Luca gets Tommy in return for sparing Michael, Arthur, and Finn.
The deal was actually a trick by Tommy and Polly, to entrap Luca in the alleys of small heath, luring the italians into the compact space and firing at them with a machine gun from season 1. Tommy kills almost all of Luca’s men, until Tommy and Luca are face to face when the police show up. Luca flees and sets up a deal with Alfie Sollomons.
Alfie’s nephew is to fight Aberama Gold’s son and Luca pays Alfie for access of his men to the venue disguised as cornermen. Arthur follows one of the men to the backroom where he is ambushed and seemingly killed. Tommy finds and kills the assassin, and runs to the ring to announce Arthur’s death.
Luca’s mom offers truce on one condition, that all of the Shelby family’s assets and business are given to Luca. Tommy agrees and meets up with Luca and his men the next day to sign the papers. But turns out Tommy had made a deal with the other families in New York and Al Capone, so all of Luca’s men don’t work for him anymore and the other families can take over Luca’s territory without a fight. Arthur then appears out of the shadows and shoots Luca in the head, killing him. Turns out Arthur’s death was just a hoax to deceive Luca into believing Tommy’s helpless and weakened position.
Knowing Alfie had betrayed him, Tommy confronts him on a beach. Alfie revealed that he was suffering from skin cancer, Alfie asked Tommy to put him out of misery, however, Tommy is hesitant to pull the trigger, and tries to order Alfie to look him in the eye. Alfie shoots Thomas in the side to provoke him to fire, and Tommy shoots him in the face seemingly killing him.
The season ends with a new turn for the future of the shelbys. Tommy decided to trade his business hat for politics and gained the support of The Crown by handing over communists to the police. The season ended with Tommy becoming the MP for Birmingham South.
Season 5
Source:imdb
Years have passed and Thomas Shelby is now focusing on being an MP and his legitimate businesses. He meets with a fellow MP, Oswald Mosley. Ada warns him against hearing Mosley’s propositions because he plans to move towards fascism. Tommy decides to join hands with Mosley with the intent to take him down from the inside.
In America, Michael has been placed in charge of the family business and he has married a woman named Gina. The stock market crashes and Michael loses most of the Shelby family’s fortune even though Tommy told him to cash out. Rumours begin to circulate that Michael was trying to overthrow Tommy as the head of the Shelby family. He denies these claims and justifies his innocence.
The Billy boys, a Glasgow razor gang led by Jimmy McCavern shoot Aberama Gold and kill his son Bonnie as a message to Tommy, declaring that they are taking over. With their financial position diminished, the peaky blinders are in no position to go to war. The peaky blinders call for truce.
Understandably, vengeful Aberama Gold is angered by this decision, but Tommy offers Polly’s hand in marriage in return. He proposes to Polly and she accepts.
To generate more income Tommy makes a deal with a Chinese triad businessman names Chang, helping him smuggle heroin.
At a family meeting Michael proposes to take over the business with Tommy in a background role, Tommy rejects the offer and banishes Michael. With her son kicked out of the family business, Polly resigns.
Arthur and Linda’s marriage becomes fractured and leads to their divorce. With Mosley’s movement gaining traction, and support from the government, Tommy decides to have him assassinated, after which he would take over the party.
Tommy breaks his old comrade, Barny, free from the mental asylum to assassinate Mosley. He then pays a visit to the very much alive Alfie Solomons and pays him to have his men stage a riot that would be a cover for Mosley’s assassination.
The Assasination attempt is a complete disaster. New member of the Shelby business tips an unknown person about the assassination and Barny is killed by an unknown assassin before he can fire the shot. When Aberama Gold tries to kill Jimmy McCavern he is killed to by an unknown assailants.Oswald Mosley walks away from the stage unharmed.
The season ends with Tommy shouting and pulling a gun to his head.
