Peaky Blinders

****

BBC1 and iPlayer

PEAKY Blinders has pulled some strokes in its time, but in the sixth and final series writer Steven Knight executes his most chilling deed yet. He has put Tommy Shelby on the wagon. Believe it, brother.

Only an event of seismic proportions could have brought such a change in a character. Sure enough (spoiler alert), as we catch up with everyone’s favourite back street razor gang turned criminal big shots, the worst has happened to Tommy (Cillian Murphy) and the rest of the family. Aunt Pol, played in glorious fashion by Helen McCrory, is no more.

It was not a change anyone wanted to make, but in real life, a place crueller than any fiction, McCrory died last year. Her character deserved an exit fit for a Gypsy Queen. She got it.

The deed done, the action shifts forward four years. Tommy Shelby is in his usual striding mode, head down, meaning business, a black dog (real and metaphorical) by his side. He’s a long way from Birmingham, though, in Miquelon Island, Newfoundland.

Though prohibition is over Tommy has big plans for the ships that ran booze to America. To that end he is meeting Michael Gray, Polly’s son, who blames Tommy for his mother’s death and has sworn to have his revenge.

Thus the stage is set for a final sub-Shakespearean showdown between the ambitious young prince, Michael (Finn Cole) and Tommy’s king.

But what of the other players who have strutted and fretted their hour upon the Peaky Blinders stage? Brother Arthur, sister Ada, Tommy’s wife Lizzie, Johnny Dogs, and the rest? They too have been changed by Pol’s death, Arthur most of all. Poor Arthur, half man, half grenade. How can Tommy hope to conquer America without all the family by his side?

If this is the end for Peaky Blinders on television – there are plans for a movie though– then where better for the Sopranos of Small Heath to bow out than America? Only in America would mobsters like the mighty Jack Nelson, whose acquaintance we have yet to make but whose legend precedes him, mix with presidents.

America suits Peaky Blinders in other ways. This has always been a show with cinematic ambition. Indeed, Knight premiered the first episodes, back in 2013, at the Edinburgh Film Festival. From the slo-mo swagger of the central characters and the drop dead stylish clothes, to the modern music applied to a period setting, it was obvious this was a small screen drama with big ideas.

While it has stumbled occasionally (those curiously- accented “Billy Boys” for example) Peaky Blinders has built an army of devoted followers. If this firing on all cylinders opener is a guide, this could be the best series yet.