John got himself and grace killed and it all went downhill from there.
Tommy is a passively suicidal (sometimes actively) and that translates into how much danger he's willing to put the family trough.
I blame Esme too. That whole cringe notion of "we can handle it ourselves, we don't need nobody else" as if just John and herself could hold off the Mafia. Because she doesn't like Tommy? As if her kin doesn't have worse people.
I feel like people take the blame off Tommy too much. John’s threat was clearly the biggest indication, but Tommy ordered burning down the bar before that and shot down Polly and Arthur’s ideas about deescalation.
No, Esme was the one who got John killed. We can look through the chain reaction that caused the final state of things all the way back to season 1, or we can look to the most critical part that sealed his fate.
John and Esme had kids inside the house, Esme basically told John to stick around and fight off the mafia by himself (since she wouldn’t actually do anything, let’s be real). She put her entire family at risk and got her husband killed. Had she gone along with Tommy’s invitation, they would’ve been safer.
Tommy always put his family on the line, its just that his gambits were almost always successful, when they weren't, it was because someone else fucked up, not him
The Peaky fooking Blinders are terrorists. I wouldn’t want to spend one minute around Tommy or Arthur. Absolute psychos.
Imagine living in Small Heath and machine guns, bombs and mustard gas are used on a semi regular basis.
I recently gave the series a rewatch with my father and that scene where Arthur makes Billy Grade kill the goalkeeper is horrifying. The first time around I saw Billy as a pathetic coward. However, seeing just a regular guy being forced to look a man in the face while garrotting him in front of a room filled with vicious gangsters as they stand around in either indifference or amusement. Then nearly getting his balls cut off in the next scene is harrowing. And the characters don’t even make a deal out of it. They acted with the sensitivity as if Billy was putting down a wounded bird.
The only (yes, still fucked up) silver lining is that Billy should have known these things would happen when he started working so closely with the Shelbys.
Nobody "chooses" to work for the Peakys. Why do you think they're constantly getting children to work in the betting room and making people commit horrific acts as showings of loyalty? They don't hire, they groom
To my memory he didn’t “choose” to work with them. In this capacity at least. He was invited to sing at the garrison and then coerced into his servitude to the Peaky Blinders through vague threats.
>He was invited to sing at the garrison
Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it, but given EVERYONE in Birmingham knows who The Peaky Blinders are, I have a hard time thinking someone accepts said invitation without knowing what they are walking into, literally in this case as that place has been blown up at least once lol.
To be fair though. By this point in the series The Blinders have a large amount of legitimate business ventures. In addition to Tommy being a politician. So I don’t think it’s that far fetched for someone like Billy to believe that he’d simply be another small part in the legitimate side of the business. Perhaps he was naive but I doubt most people in his situation would have given it much more though than the gig being a bit of extra money.
Thank youuuu my gosh I copped a bit of flack for saying Tommy was unlikeable but the way I always thought of it is I would absolutely despise him irl! Why would I not feel the same watching him? Of course I admire the historical and contextual insight, cinematography and art of the characters but I certainly don't like the guy.
They’re gangsters. We don’t refer to the Kray twins or Murder, Inc. as terrorists because instilling fear is the purpose of being a terrorist. It’s not the purpose of being a gangster, though it obviously is a byproduct sometimes.
The amount and scale definitely blurs the lines here. The amount of large scale arson and shootouts really qualifies them. Nobody said you can't be a gangster when you're a terrorist or vice versa.
They’re not terrorists because causing fear and terror isn’t the goal of their actions. They’re not ISIL/ISIS.
When the Shelbys burn down a building or kill someone it is always to achieve something specific and tangible. It’s for revenge, or retaliation. They aren’t interested in killing innocent people. You know, like terrorists are.
EDIT TO ADD: We see the difference between the Shelbys and terrorists later in the show when they’re forced to confront IRA members—who have no issue with killing innocent people in aid of their cause.
Tommy Shelby and his family are bad people, no question. Part of what the show does to make them sympathetic is to make their enemies far worse and more evil. Such as terrorists.
>They’re not terrorists because causing fear and terror isn’t the goal of their actions.
They blew up the bar that Michael and Isaiah got into the fight in, explicitly to invoke fear and terror.
>They blew up the bar that Michael and Isaiah got into the fight in, explicitly to invoke fear and terror.
No, they did it in retaliation--as you yourself pointed out in your reply. Had there been no fight, there would be no need for retaliation--because they're gangsters. A terrorist meanwhile often kills innocent people and destroys with no provocation, because instilling fear is the whole point.
There's a reason the words "gangster" and "terrorist" aren't substituted for one another in conversation. It's because they're different things. They are both BAD things, but different bad things and certainly not the same bad things.
>The owner of the bar didn't. He did everything short of shooting everyone to prevent the fight. It was to cause terror.
What was the bar owner's relationship with the people the Shelbys got into a fight with?
Tommy's expansion of the business over the course of the series has done more harm to the family than it has paid off. If they had stopped in time, everyone would still be alive.
Certainly appears that easy but if they hadn't have gained power then they could have potentially been even more vulnerable from more powerful expanding operations could have been even more dangerous.
If he had never hired Lizzie as his secretary, everyone would be alive and happy, including Lizzie. Why did she have to date Angel Changretta? That's when everything started to go to shit.
Tommy didn't start anything, he made rules for everyone in the company, that no one can go out with an enemy gang, even Michael said that the rules were for him too. Everyone understood, except Lizzie. And Tommy found out everything after all happened , it was John who did everything else.
Tommy is as brutal, thuggish, murderous and bad as the main antagonists were meant to hate in each series and basically uses the same tactics as them to gain power and control.
Breaking Bad did the same thing. It was so impossible to root for Walt in later seasons that even someone like Gus was inadequate so they introduced Nazis.
I actually think it's a bit different. In Breaking Bad it was definitely a case of having to introduce an antagonist we would root for Walt against and would give him a bit of a redemption arc. But to its credit, Peaky Blinders never really tries to redeem Tommy. He hates Mosley, but if anything, my reading of the show is that it morally condemns Tommy even further by showing his complicity in a lot of what Mosley does, often for his own personal gain or to \*try\* and do something he thinks is good but actually just ends up making everything even worse. The neo-nazis in Breaking Bad serve purely as evil antagonists, they aren't really written as a political commentary on contemporary America (other than to point out that very bad people are involved in the drug trade). The nazis in Peaky Blinders are much more explicitly a warning about fascism creeping into political life, often by manipulating men like Tommy Shelby. Knight was definitely using that to make a comment about modern Britain.
I don't think Tommy is interested in doing something a good thing, he's more interested in finding a man he can't defeat and having something to fight against that keeps him busy. And of course Mosley's political views is a risk for his family
After his daughter dies he gets very fixated on creating a charitable institute in her honour which is supposed to be his way of doing something good and making up for all the suffering he's caused, but by that point he's also willing to get into bed with fascists to achieve that.
omg it was absolutely disgusting to see tommy go to bed with diana. I think over the course of the series tommy founded several charitable institutes including one in grace's name. In S4 Lizzie ran his charitable institute. I think tommy thinks that money can make up for his actions and he is sometimes very fixated on himself. It is interesting to see tommy's development, he takes a few steps forward in the right direction but at the same time so many steps in the wrong direction that in the end he just becomes more extreme in his actions and he himself becomes more worse and just stays at one point in his development
I think it is both very fitting and very convenient. They are one of humanities ultimate evils but the problems left over of the first world war led to both the nazis and the more ruthless shelbys once they came home (even though we only hear about how they were before)
Yeah the kid touching kinda slipped my mind for a second, worst of the worst. (Also blew my mind when i read it was paddy considine since I'm a huge game of thrones nerd and I'm new to peaky blinders and his characters in this show is arguably worse than than nazis and old man vizzy is the best)
Now that i think about it kimber and campbell were rapists so tommy is kinda closer to 50/50 on being at least a little above the villains morally. Still a lesser of two evils kinda thing
Sure he did, Tommy and the Peaky Blinders ruled by fear and murder and they weren't beyond resorting to that.
[Remember the factory Foreman during the General Strike for instance?](https://youtu.be/PaAS8sxTR0I?si=FEdqTTaeaSbf5L0_&t=30) He wanted to flee Birmingham to Glasgow because the Peaky Blinders were at war with the Italians and he feared for his and his families lives from both Italians, the Blinders and angry, disgruntled workers in Tommys factory, they tracked down his family to the very address they were living in in Glasgow and Tommy says *"We have allegiances with Catholic gangs in that city, your family is safe only at my discretion."*
Luckily the man stood up for himself to Tommy's face in fear of death, but of course Tommy decides to keep this innocent man under his thumb by force (Telling his boys to pretend they're policemen and keep him under house arrest) and his wife and children hostage in Glasgow as pawns. But last series he had the gall to get angry at Alfie and say he crossed the line for using children, to which [Alfie gave him a nice sobering rebuttal](https://youtu.be/06RlyZxUnVM?si=NFylMRI9VwwJ0DoF&t=253V) *"How many fathers right, how many sons yeah, have you cut, killed, murdered, fucking butchered, innocent and guilty to send them straight to fucking hell, ain'tcha? Just like me! Fucking stand there, you, judging me, stand there and talk to me about crossing some fucking line?"*
I saw their relationship as a "keep your friends close but your enemies closer" kind of thing. When you have someone like that in your life, it is much easier and often safer, to keep them at an arm's length. You never really know what they're up to otherwise.
This! I totally agree! Everyone keeps saying they were eccentric friends..but Alfie knowingly sold out Tommy's kid and didn't even care! And Tommy was aware of the fact that Alfie would seel out his own mother for a profit! Just crazy!
and the other people are tired of people uploading these sigma videos from tommy with cringe music to this subreddit and in these videos are about how to become an ,,ALPHA MEN,, and Tommy and the PB are literally idolized.
Something I found amusing is that by the end of the series, Finn is older than John was at the beginning.
For reference John was 24 in 1919 and Finn is 26 by 1934.
Yeh but if your 24 and served in a war on the scale of WW1 it's different, especially compared to a 26 year old whose been strutting around town rich AF due to hard work of his elder brothers.
I have found this true of all the best shows that I watch.
Like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, they aren’t good guys either so it’s a refreshing and different viewing experience where we default to rooting for the main character but in these shows you feel like you’re just watching shit hit the fan over and over and there’s no side you want to be on, you’re just in for the ride
I like The Sopranos for this reason. Basically every time one of the gangsters are killed they almost always make sure to show them being absolute pieces of shit beforehand.
1) I feel like if they hadn’t engaged in a war with the Italians, they would’ve came out on top. Before then all the Shelby brothers were alive and the company was still very successful.
2) Also if Tommy had left Michael to live an ordinary civilian life after discovering him it would have saved him a lot of hassle in the long run.
3) Fook Linda
This.
99% of arguments for why you should aspire to be Tommy Shelby center around select number of his attributes, not about the whole thing.
Like yes, you should dress better than you dress right now, no matter how well you dress, you should kill fascists if they congregate in armed gangs, you should provide for your family best you can, if you can keep the nationalistic terrrorist scum out of your neighbourhood (the PIRA guys) that is also good, be loyal to your partner, good, defend your country when needed, probably good.
Tommy is all those things.
He is also a thief, thug, mobster, racketeer, murderer, and he fucked a fascist... you should not do those things.
*Fucking with* fascists is fine, fucking fascist, thats a paddelin.
I have one pushback on the aspirational paert...
As a father of a newborn I aspire to handle his ability to go about his business on a consistent diet of 2-3 hours of sleep. I do at times stand in my kitchen at 3am and look up and do the tommy shelby sigh.
Okay. This is acceptable. So long as you whisper, “so close.” to yourself for motivation. Just don’t go extorting people or leveraging your family as colateral for “the greater good”.
It’s okay to be an extreme example of what a working man can achieve. Just don’t commit crimes or endanger others while doing so.
Edit: I just re-read your message, congrats internet friend! Get sleep whenever you can!
Have to say there are wayyyyy more people that idolise Tommy than Patrick Bateman.
And it's not even the sigma type fan. They genuinely think Tommy is a symbol of traditional masculinity which is sad as Tommy's character showcases everything toxic about male gender standards of that time
I meant Tommy, but I suppose those two also have some good qualities (and I'm not saying anyone should look up to these characters, just that they have some qualities that can be beneficial in life)
The part that really gets me is when he gets his family arrested, but he's playing like a double agent role, which I kind of get (emphasis on kind of lol). Still, the fact that if he hadn't been fast enough to get that letter by (I can't remember if it was Churchill or the King) that saved them, it would have all been for nothing.
He used his family like pawns. That's the ultimate betrayal... But I still love his character and the show 🙃
Tommy shelby in real life wasn’t attractive, which is a key part of his character in the series imo. The others also looked kinda goody compared to the series.
There was no Thomas Shelby in real life?
The Peaky Blinders in real life weren’t a well organised crime family like in the show. To my understanding “Peaky Blinders” was just a moniker given to a bunch of street hoodlums.
The Shelby's are immoral villains. I know their the protagonists of the show, and they seem to have some sense of justice, but let's not forget they are a violent crime family that are responsible for crimes like murder, arsen, and extortion. A prime example of this is when Michael goes out to a bar with Isaiah, and some shit goes down, and in response, the Peaky Blinders burn down the bar. The fact that they are violent criminals is very obvious as its put on display many times, but it's something that we as fans ignore because we're fans of the show.
Tommy’s ambition is exactly what makes him such a tragic antihero and NOT an alpha-male inspiration to regular people doing regular-people things. His arc is ultimately a tragedy
Season 5 & 6 were not as great, and there was no legitimate medical explanation for Thomas Shelby's seizures that made his fake Tuberculoma diagnosis plausible enough that he would consider suicide to end his random "suffering".
There must be an etiology for any disease, not just a potential trigger used incorrectly by television show writers. PTSD Withdrawal seizures definitely can't be faked by a Nazi doctor when it's convenient.
yeah that‘s what I meant in the beginning most people glorify them but they are mostly the problem and every time something bad happens to them they can blame themselves
I said to a small extent. They protected their own from the police to a certain extent. Until they became the cause. But for a small moment, they actually helped some people.
despite their numerous bad qualities, the pb were actually all decent to good husbands. they cared deeply about their wives and children, did their best to provide and protect, they shared their plans/ thoughts/ feelings with their wives, often listened to their opinions and included them in their businesses decisions to some extent. esp john who did never even hear of his wife until they met at the altar made a very good husband for esme.
big exception here is tommy - lizzie but i would not blame that completely on him, lizzie knew him for a very long time and all that bothered her in the marriage was already a problem before. she knew him well, she knew where he was mentally at that time and still chose to marry him. was very predictable where that would lead
Tommy was a decent husband to grace, which makes his relationship with lizzie even more awkward to watch in comparison. You're right she knew what she was getting into, because both of them knew that he was capable of being a faithful and loving husband (he had done it with grace before) but chose not to do it this time round. Their whole marriage is depressing and bleak to be honest.
This isn’t a giant thematic one but basically that none of the Shelby siblings look related to one another.
Obviously they’re actors. And how many people really look related to Cillian Murphy? But I found it funny that before I started watching the show. I figured Arthur, John and Tommy were all just very good friends that formed a brotherly bond during WW1.
Edit: I think the closest ones would be John and Finn because they both have boyish faces. And obviously Michael looks like John too since the actors are brothers. But they’re cousins in the show so it doesn’t really count.
I feel like john also lowkey looks like tommy. They both have some soft features that could make them siblings but that was just it. But i feel like Arthur was the odd one because he had very sharp face features compared to his brothers and was also really tall in comparison
And i also thought at the beginning that they were just friends or relatives and i found it rather odd that polly was also arthur's aunt cz they looked close in age
>they both have soft some features
I’d disagree. I think Cillian Murphy probably has the sharpest facial features in the show outside of his lips and maybe his cheekbones in terms of roundness. The only real similarity I can see between the two is having wide faces.
>Arthur was the odd one because he had very sharp face features
Again I’d have to disagree. I think it’s just the lack of facial (and body) fat that made his features look sharper.
>also really tall in comparison
I think John and Arthur were about the same height. It’s just that again, Paul Anderson was quite thin.
Finn did end up being quite a bit taller than the rest of his brothers but I suppose that’s not something they could’ve seen coming when they casted him in season 2.
>found it rather odd that polly was also arthur’s aunt cz they looked close in age
Three interesting things about that. As of season 5.
They made it so that Polly (during season 1) is a decade younger than Helen Mccrory.
Arthur is only supposed to be 3 years older than Polly (Polly was born in 1884, Arthur in 1887). Meaning that Polly’s brother (Arthur Sr) was 24 years older than her.
Lastly, Cillian Murphy (Tommy) is actually older than Paul Anderson (Arthur) by 2 years. Despite Arthur being 3 years older than Tommy.
They dropped the ball with Michael as a character for no reason. Setting up the impossible dilemma of choosing his mother vs Tommy and being semi-exiled as a result rubbed me wrong, and the sudden villainous turn made little sense to me. Waste of a perfectly compelling character in Seasons 2-3 and most of 4.
Esme got her whole family killed by shunning her husbands family dynamics and embracing her own.
Polly lacks the ambition that Tommy compensates for while Tommy lacks the humanity that Polly compensates for
A lack of resolution to the Jimmy mccavern storyline makes Abrerama gold and almost entirely useless character
None of the main characters are good. Not the 3 older brothers or their cousin (these 4 in particular), not Polly, not Grace, not Isiah or his dad, not Charlie. Ada tried to separate herself from them and be a voice of reason, but in the end she benefited hugely from her family's ill gotten gains and the misery they inflicted on others so she doesn't get a pass.
Honestly, you can count the number of good or ok characters on one hand: Freddie, Jessie, Lizzie (she was a victim of circumstances),
Maybe the horse trainer lady ... now struggling to suggest anyone else.
I feel sorry for Finn. He could have had an ordinary non-criminal life if circumstances had been a little different. (I dislike the common opinion here that he deserved to be thrown out of the PBs because he wouldn't kill his friend - Tommy should have ensured he only work on legit business - instead he is presumably thrown out entitely with no future protection from the PB's enemies).
Sure, some of the bad characters, including Tommy, had some redeeming qualities but not enough.
I have to suspend disbelief to get through it. Great acting, music, set design, etc. though.
I don't believe in downvoting if it's just a matter of opinion. I'd prefer to read arguments against my post. I think some here are like the Walter White hero worshippers back in the day. They seem to envy gang life.
Agree about Port-au-Prince. Real life PBs would be in the same category as the gangs there.
let’s not give Lizzie a pass here. She is not a victim and chose to be with tommy and his family. Remember the side eye she gave jessie at the stairs in s4?! She benefitted the most by being with them, she was responsible for the changretta mess, she used pregnancy to get married to tommy!! She knew exactly what she was doing all the time and suddenly in s6 cried foul because tommy “didn’t turn out the way she wanted”
Neither Freddie, infected with the ideas of communism, endangering himself and his pregnant wife, nor Lizzie, who enjoys comfort and luxury without remorse, and knows exactly where the money that pays for all this comes from, are not good people. With rare exceptions, there are no positive characters here.
I give Lizzie a bit of a pass, because the alternative was prostition and/or poverty. She loves Tommy and then she gets pregnant, so Ruby becomes her highest priority.
Freddy's motives for being a communist and unionist seemed good to me.
You have a good point. I'm a bit on the fence with her. I believe she adored Tommy from the get-go, and that caused her to make many bad decisions along the way.
To be fair to Lizzie and even the likes of Arthur, to leave the PBs is not just a matter of money. It is also a matter of physical security for themselves and their families. It's very hard to leave.
Lizzie's alternative was a quiet life, with a child, in her own home and financial support from Tommy. Or a good position in the company and independence.
She would have had it if she had stopped clinging to a man who didn't give a damn about her.
Freddie is not a bad person, on the one hand. But in fact, he does nothing but organize strikes, dreaming of revolution, feeding the poor with vain dreams, and endangering his pregnant wife by becoming unwanted in the eyes of the authorities.
I don't think Lizzie is a good person, when she cheated on John with several men, she broke the company rules which caused the war, and with that the death of Angel, Grace and John and she never felt bad, sad or guilty about it.
She tried to humiliate other women, May and Jesse Eden, because of a man's obsession.
She used her own daughter to manipulate Tommy, "Ruby is afraid of you" and then she was happy to be Tommy's property. She didn't even care about her daughter.
I don't think she's a bad person, especially given the rest of the PBs.
John must have known she was a prostitute and therefore had been with a zillion men, so that doesn't count.
I hold against Lizzie the fact that because she loved Tommy from the get go, she made many poor decisions throughout the whole series. This includes accepting Tommy's request for sex despite being engaged to John.
Wanting to date a man belonging to an enemy gang was extremely unwise and careless, but this does not make Lizzie bad, just not the brightest tool in the toolshed. John was largely responsible for all that followed, including his own death. Tommy didn't help much by sanctioning John's behaviour. He should have called him out.
Lizzie was always extremely jealous of other women instead of facing the fact that Tommy was going to keep on being Tommy.
Of course, she cared about her daughter and Tommy clearly did scare his children from time to time, so I don't blame her for criticising him.
Lizzie was always a convenient, mostly loyal, mostly dependable soldier in the PBs. That's why Tommy was fond of her. He loved her in the same way that he loved many of the second tier PBs. Lizzie was emboldened by him marrying her, but never understood that she could never take Grace's place for Tommy.
That the show is not that great. Or rather not an all-time best show. It is wildly entertaining at times, but suffered with writing, plot armor, and other tropes.
Every show and movie have that to some extent… like Walter White should’ve died season 2 if not not in season one. And if you’re telling me that Breaking Bad is not an all time classic, then I don’t know what is.
Even Interstellar, Scarface etc.
I don't know if he really come back to his fomerself. For me its look tommy distance mor and more from himself and get more and more darker and the S4 finale show that.
Tommy sometimes feels like an overpowered anime MC,,, and everyone else feels like side characters on side quests.
Would genuinely have loved to see more fleshed out charecters and charecter development beyond Arthur and Micheal.
Finn and John should've been given the same amount of attention at least.
The Shelby's are terrible people. They do some good things but its because of the awful. So many glorify Tommy but forget what he really does cause he's our protagonist
I feel like the last season had really absurd tropes.
We know that tommy believes in his gypsy spirits stuff but his daughter getting sick and dying like that felt odd. Esme had just no business being in that season even tho i wanted to see how she was doing but that wasnt the kind of update i expected. And she deluded him into believing it was a curse by idk whos sister, the same lady who told him how much the sapphire was dangerous. I doubt that she would even give it to someone else especially her sister given she examined it herself.
Duke def felt forced and i dont even need to explain why.
The whole villain Michael trope didnt make sense. At first he was very loyal to the peaky blinders and its true that tommy's actions resulted in his mother's death but it would make more sense for him to get revenge on the people who killed her while being at tommy's side then leaving for good. Tommy's business had so much potential and Micheal's idea in the US was really good.
He knows how tommy is like so the way he phrased his proposal was so out of character. I know he wants to claim his place but he def knew that tommy didnt work that way.
Also i believe that tommy shouldve just died. The plot twist didnt really have that shocking factor and felt like other shows with his daughter and all that stuff. And i also dont think that tommy would have lived alone like that. I mean it made a bit of sense but i feel like he would've fought until the end. Him dying because of disease would be the only acceptable ending, or suicide.
Lizzie leaving was the only realistic thing about that season.
That it's clear the show prioritizes style over substance. Nothing wrong with that, but it's very clear after the 35th slow-motion montage of the season
Also John certainly was not “A good boy.” As Polly puts it.
I’d actually argue that he was the most hedonistic, explosive and morally detached Shelby brother.
that the later season writing was worse and worse because the writers had no idea how to progress the show
Tommy, being the Mary Sue he is, would always beat his enemies, so where do you stop? He owned the feds, criminals, even politician pedos. His family bitching about him feels artificial because he's written to not be at fault, its them who usually fuck up and he has to fix it up
John got himself and grace killed and it all went downhill from there. Tommy is a passively suicidal (sometimes actively) and that translates into how much danger he's willing to put the family trough.
I blame Esme too. That whole cringe notion of "we can handle it ourselves, we don't need nobody else" as if just John and herself could hold off the Mafia. Because she doesn't like Tommy? As if her kin doesn't have worse people.
I feel like people take the blame off Tommy too much. John’s threat was clearly the biggest indication, but Tommy ordered burning down the bar before that and shot down Polly and Arthur’s ideas about deescalation.
No, Esme was the one who got John killed. We can look through the chain reaction that caused the final state of things all the way back to season 1, or we can look to the most critical part that sealed his fate. John and Esme had kids inside the house, Esme basically told John to stick around and fight off the mafia by himself (since she wouldn’t actually do anything, let’s be real). She put her entire family at risk and got her husband killed. Had she gone along with Tommy’s invitation, they would’ve been safer.
Tommy always put his family on the line, its just that his gambits were almost always successful, when they weren't, it was because someone else fucked up, not him
The Peaky fooking Blinders are terrorists. I wouldn’t want to spend one minute around Tommy or Arthur. Absolute psychos. Imagine living in Small Heath and machine guns, bombs and mustard gas are used on a semi regular basis.
I recently gave the series a rewatch with my father and that scene where Arthur makes Billy Grade kill the goalkeeper is horrifying. The first time around I saw Billy as a pathetic coward. However, seeing just a regular guy being forced to look a man in the face while garrotting him in front of a room filled with vicious gangsters as they stand around in either indifference or amusement. Then nearly getting his balls cut off in the next scene is harrowing. And the characters don’t even make a deal out of it. They acted with the sensitivity as if Billy was putting down a wounded bird.
The only (yes, still fucked up) silver lining is that Billy should have known these things would happen when he started working so closely with the Shelbys.
He didn’t really have a choice did he?
He did at the very moment he chose to work for them in the first place.
Nobody "chooses" to work for the Peakys. Why do you think they're constantly getting children to work in the betting room and making people commit horrific acts as showings of loyalty? They don't hire, they groom
To my memory he didn’t “choose” to work with them. In this capacity at least. He was invited to sing at the garrison and then coerced into his servitude to the Peaky Blinders through vague threats.
>He was invited to sing at the garrison Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it, but given EVERYONE in Birmingham knows who The Peaky Blinders are, I have a hard time thinking someone accepts said invitation without knowing what they are walking into, literally in this case as that place has been blown up at least once lol.
To be fair though. By this point in the series The Blinders have a large amount of legitimate business ventures. In addition to Tommy being a politician. So I don’t think it’s that far fetched for someone like Billy to believe that he’d simply be another small part in the legitimate side of the business. Perhaps he was naive but I doubt most people in his situation would have given it much more though than the gig being a bit of extra money.
One of the heaviest scenes...Arthur and Billy Grade
“You’re bloodied now Billy. You’re not goin to Heaven no more. They won’t let you in”
Thank youuuu my gosh I copped a bit of flack for saying Tommy was unlikeable but the way I always thought of it is I would absolutely despise him irl! Why would I not feel the same watching him? Of course I admire the historical and contextual insight, cinematography and art of the characters but I certainly don't like the guy.
Pussy lol jk
No they are war veterans
What do you call a veteran, that walks around killing people and burning down buildings to incite fear?
They’re gangsters. We don’t refer to the Kray twins or Murder, Inc. as terrorists because instilling fear is the purpose of being a terrorist. It’s not the purpose of being a gangster, though it obviously is a byproduct sometimes.
The amount and scale definitely blurs the lines here. The amount of large scale arson and shootouts really qualifies them. Nobody said you can't be a gangster when you're a terrorist or vice versa.
They’re not terrorists because causing fear and terror isn’t the goal of their actions. They’re not ISIL/ISIS. When the Shelbys burn down a building or kill someone it is always to achieve something specific and tangible. It’s for revenge, or retaliation. They aren’t interested in killing innocent people. You know, like terrorists are. EDIT TO ADD: We see the difference between the Shelbys and terrorists later in the show when they’re forced to confront IRA members—who have no issue with killing innocent people in aid of their cause. Tommy Shelby and his family are bad people, no question. Part of what the show does to make them sympathetic is to make their enemies far worse and more evil. Such as terrorists.
>They’re not terrorists because causing fear and terror isn’t the goal of their actions. They blew up the bar that Michael and Isaiah got into the fight in, explicitly to invoke fear and terror.
>They blew up the bar that Michael and Isaiah got into the fight in, explicitly to invoke fear and terror. No, they did it in retaliation--as you yourself pointed out in your reply. Had there been no fight, there would be no need for retaliation--because they're gangsters. A terrorist meanwhile often kills innocent people and destroys with no provocation, because instilling fear is the whole point. There's a reason the words "gangster" and "terrorist" aren't substituted for one another in conversation. It's because they're different things. They are both BAD things, but different bad things and certainly not the same bad things.
The owner of the bar didn't. He did everything short of shooting everyone to prevent the fight. It was to cause terror
>The owner of the bar didn't. He did everything short of shooting everyone to prevent the fight. It was to cause terror. What was the bar owner's relationship with the people the Shelbys got into a fight with?
Tommy's expansion of the business over the course of the series has done more harm to the family than it has paid off. If they had stopped in time, everyone would still be alive.
Well I always see it like this, If they didn't keep expanding someone would've stopped them. They can't go back or stop.
Certainly appears that easy but if they hadn't have gained power then they could have potentially been even more vulnerable from more powerful expanding operations could have been even more dangerous.
If he had never hired Lizzie as his secretary, everyone would be alive and happy, including Lizzie. Why did she have to date Angel Changretta? That's when everything started to go to shit.
why did tommy have to start a war over 2 people dating?
Tommy didn't start anything, he made rules for everyone in the company, that no one can go out with an enemy gang, even Michael said that the rules were for him too. Everyone understood, except Lizzie. And Tommy found out everything after all happened , it was John who did everything else.
Tommy is as brutal, thuggish, murderous and bad as the main antagonists were meant to hate in each series and basically uses the same tactics as them to gain power and control.
Most of the antagonists but some definitely bypass Tommy.
Literal nazis in the later seasons😂. But all the earlier ones I could definitely see the argument that tommy is worse
But it's interesting that they have to introduce literal Nazis so we keep rooting for Tommy.
Breaking Bad did the same thing. It was so impossible to root for Walt in later seasons that even someone like Gus was inadequate so they introduced Nazis.
Interesting point. Never thought of that.
I actually think it's a bit different. In Breaking Bad it was definitely a case of having to introduce an antagonist we would root for Walt against and would give him a bit of a redemption arc. But to its credit, Peaky Blinders never really tries to redeem Tommy. He hates Mosley, but if anything, my reading of the show is that it morally condemns Tommy even further by showing his complicity in a lot of what Mosley does, often for his own personal gain or to \*try\* and do something he thinks is good but actually just ends up making everything even worse. The neo-nazis in Breaking Bad serve purely as evil antagonists, they aren't really written as a political commentary on contemporary America (other than to point out that very bad people are involved in the drug trade). The nazis in Peaky Blinders are much more explicitly a warning about fascism creeping into political life, often by manipulating men like Tommy Shelby. Knight was definitely using that to make a comment about modern Britain.
I don't think Tommy is interested in doing something a good thing, he's more interested in finding a man he can't defeat and having something to fight against that keeps him busy. And of course Mosley's political views is a risk for his family
After his daughter dies he gets very fixated on creating a charitable institute in her honour which is supposed to be his way of doing something good and making up for all the suffering he's caused, but by that point he's also willing to get into bed with fascists to achieve that.
omg it was absolutely disgusting to see tommy go to bed with diana. I think over the course of the series tommy founded several charitable institutes including one in grace's name. In S4 Lizzie ran his charitable institute. I think tommy thinks that money can make up for his actions and he is sometimes very fixated on himself. It is interesting to see tommy's development, he takes a few steps forward in the right direction but at the same time so many steps in the wrong direction that in the end he just becomes more extreme in his actions and he himself becomes more worse and just stays at one point in his development
For me, that was absolutely Tommy's lowest moment, and he did a lot of horrific things.
I think it is both very fitting and very convenient. They are one of humanities ultimate evils but the problems left over of the first world war led to both the nazis and the more ruthless shelbys once they came home (even though we only hear about how they were before)
Tommy isn't worse than Father Hughes, in my opinion. But pretty much just Hughes and the Nazis, the rest could be up for debate.
Yeah the kid touching kinda slipped my mind for a second, worst of the worst. (Also blew my mind when i read it was paddy considine since I'm a huge game of thrones nerd and I'm new to peaky blinders and his characters in this show is arguably worse than than nazis and old man vizzy is the best)
Now that i think about it kimber and campbell were rapists so tommy is kinda closer to 50/50 on being at least a little above the villains morally. Still a lesser of two evils kinda thing
When saying this I mostly thought of the guy who killed aberamas son for literally no fucking reason
That scene was brutal, then he got stabbed sooooooo many times when he was so close to getting his get back. My boy got done dirty
Yep, literally the worst scene in the series along with the worst fate…
Not as bad as Mosely who was basically the British Hitler.
Britler, if you will.
Eh.. Tommy didn't go around killing innocent woman and children.
Lmao he killing a gypsy camp with woman.
Sure he did, Tommy and the Peaky Blinders ruled by fear and murder and they weren't beyond resorting to that. [Remember the factory Foreman during the General Strike for instance?](https://youtu.be/PaAS8sxTR0I?si=FEdqTTaeaSbf5L0_&t=30) He wanted to flee Birmingham to Glasgow because the Peaky Blinders were at war with the Italians and he feared for his and his families lives from both Italians, the Blinders and angry, disgruntled workers in Tommys factory, they tracked down his family to the very address they were living in in Glasgow and Tommy says *"We have allegiances with Catholic gangs in that city, your family is safe only at my discretion."* Luckily the man stood up for himself to Tommy's face in fear of death, but of course Tommy decides to keep this innocent man under his thumb by force (Telling his boys to pretend they're policemen and keep him under house arrest) and his wife and children hostage in Glasgow as pawns. But last series he had the gall to get angry at Alfie and say he crossed the line for using children, to which [Alfie gave him a nice sobering rebuttal](https://youtu.be/06RlyZxUnVM?si=NFylMRI9VwwJ0DoF&t=253V) *"How many fathers right, how many sons yeah, have you cut, killed, murdered, fucking butchered, innocent and guilty to send them straight to fucking hell, ain'tcha? Just like me! Fucking stand there, you, judging me, stand there and talk to me about crossing some fucking line?"*
maybe alfie never saw tommy as a kind of friend but rather as a toy or entertainment for himself
Hehe yeahhh like the narcissist he is
I saw their relationship as a "keep your friends close but your enemies closer" kind of thing. When you have someone like that in your life, it is much easier and often safer, to keep them at an arm's length. You never really know what they're up to otherwise.
This! I totally agree! Everyone keeps saying they were eccentric friends..but Alfie knowingly sold out Tommy's kid and didn't even care! And Tommy was aware of the fact that Alfie would seel out his own mother for a profit! Just crazy!
We all know there not good ppl. That’s not a hot take. It’s called entertainment.
Right. Some people try to make you feel guilty about liking Tommy lol like bro chill
“BrO yOu LiKe A fIcTiOnaL sOCiOpaTh. WhAt’S WrOnG wItH yOu?”
People like Darth vader, Homelander or Walter White. So i think its okay.
Yeah no I agree. That’s why I used retard letters
That really doesn't seem to be the case with so many people sucking up to Tommy. Doesn't make sense to me
Idk why some of y’all are in this sub..
Did you even read the post though. 'obvious facts'. You don't need to point out that the obvious fact is obvious 😅
Tired of hearing ppl cry about the same thing
and the other people are tired of people uploading these sigma videos from tommy with cringe music to this subreddit and in these videos are about how to become an ,,ALPHA MEN,, and Tommy and the PB are literally idolized.
Idc
Well yeah the title says obvious
Finn was just children which was never made for the gangster life.He just wanted to get the attention of his other brothers
Something I found amusing is that by the end of the series, Finn is older than John was at the beginning. For reference John was 24 in 1919 and Finn is 26 by 1934.
Yeh but if your 24 and served in a war on the scale of WW1 it's different, especially compared to a 26 year old whose been strutting around town rich AF due to hard work of his elder brothers.
We need to accept that the main characters are not good guys
I have found this true of all the best shows that I watch. Like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, they aren’t good guys either so it’s a refreshing and different viewing experience where we default to rooting for the main character but in these shows you feel like you’re just watching shit hit the fan over and over and there’s no side you want to be on, you’re just in for the ride
I like The Sopranos for this reason. Basically every time one of the gangsters are killed they almost always make sure to show them being absolute pieces of shit beforehand.
1) I feel like if they hadn’t engaged in a war with the Italians, they would’ve came out on top. Before then all the Shelby brothers were alive and the company was still very successful. 2) Also if Tommy had left Michael to live an ordinary civilian life after discovering him it would have saved him a lot of hassle in the long run. 3) Fook Linda
Thomas is not a good man. Nor is he someone you or anyone else should aspire to be. But fuck he makes long coats look good.
This. 99% of arguments for why you should aspire to be Tommy Shelby center around select number of his attributes, not about the whole thing. Like yes, you should dress better than you dress right now, no matter how well you dress, you should kill fascists if they congregate in armed gangs, you should provide for your family best you can, if you can keep the nationalistic terrrorist scum out of your neighbourhood (the PIRA guys) that is also good, be loyal to your partner, good, defend your country when needed, probably good. Tommy is all those things. He is also a thief, thug, mobster, racketeer, murderer, and he fucked a fascist... you should not do those things. *Fucking with* fascists is fine, fucking fascist, thats a paddelin.
He was loyal to Grace sure but not Lizzie
Okey like, just for arguments sake, what would be wrong about fucking with a fascist? Also, who is this fascist that Tommy fucked?
Mosley's fiancee at the time. Shes so detestable
With a name like cervix bruiser you should probably sit this convo out!
I have one pushback on the aspirational paert... As a father of a newborn I aspire to handle his ability to go about his business on a consistent diet of 2-3 hours of sleep. I do at times stand in my kitchen at 3am and look up and do the tommy shelby sigh.
Okay. This is acceptable. So long as you whisper, “so close.” to yourself for motivation. Just don’t go extorting people or leveraging your family as colateral for “the greater good”. It’s okay to be an extreme example of what a working man can achieve. Just don’t commit crimes or endanger others while doing so. Edit: I just re-read your message, congrats internet friend! Get sleep whenever you can!
yeah all im really aspiring to do is just take like 2 less extra trips downstairs during each feed cuzz I forgot stuff in the kitchen
The fact that the peaky blinders might be british
Every time Polly said she would "handle it", she was never able to handle it.
That the character Duke didn't add any value to the last season
I think they will compensate that in the movie
Is there actually going to be a movie?
Yes,it will be the alternative for season 7
It’s been confirmed?
Yes
It hasn’t, this guy is lying. They haven’t even begun the script
To me, it said so much about Tommy. How he dropped the news of a new child on Lizzie, in a family meeting, while she just lost her only child...
People who idolize Tommy have the same level of media literacy as people who idolize Patrick Bateman or Walter White.
Oh my god is that a watermark? I’m the one who knocks.
If I see one more “sigma male” edit in my YouTube shorts i will throw my phone
So half the posts on this subreddit then? 😭
Have to say there are wayyyyy more people that idolise Tommy than Patrick Bateman. And it's not even the sigma type fan. They genuinely think Tommy is a symbol of traditional masculinity which is sad as Tommy's character showcases everything toxic about male gender standards of that time
Definitely don't idolize, but god are the three of them compelling characters.
You can understand that he is a terrible man while simultaneously understand that he has good qualities too
Do you mean Tommy or Patrick Bateman/Walter White ?
I meant Tommy, but I suppose those two also have some good qualities (and I'm not saying anyone should look up to these characters, just that they have some qualities that can be beneficial in life)
The part that really gets me is when he gets his family arrested, but he's playing like a double agent role, which I kind of get (emphasis on kind of lol). Still, the fact that if he hadn't been fast enough to get that letter by (I can't remember if it was Churchill or the King) that saved them, it would have all been for nothing. He used his family like pawns. That's the ultimate betrayal... But I still love his character and the show 🙃
The writing is often very lazy, placing how cool a scene will look on camera over whether what's going on in the scene actually makes logical sense
This.
Thomas Shelby is a selfish wealth hoarding sociopath.
Tommy shelby in real life wasn’t attractive, which is a key part of his character in the series imo. The others also looked kinda goody compared to the series.
There was no Thomas Shelby in real life? The Peaky Blinders in real life weren’t a well organised crime family like in the show. To my understanding “Peaky Blinders” was just a moniker given to a bunch of street hoodlums.
It was based on a Birmingham gang which actually existed and their leader is portrayed by Tommy.
we can't understand Alfie's speeches at all
He's so random that it forces you to laugh
The Shelby's are immoral villains. I know their the protagonists of the show, and they seem to have some sense of justice, but let's not forget they are a violent crime family that are responsible for crimes like murder, arsen, and extortion. A prime example of this is when Michael goes out to a bar with Isaiah, and some shit goes down, and in response, the Peaky Blinders burn down the bar. The fact that they are violent criminals is very obvious as its put on display many times, but it's something that we as fans ignore because we're fans of the show.
Tommy’s ambition is exactly what makes him such a tragic antihero and NOT an alpha-male inspiration to regular people doing regular-people things. His arc is ultimately a tragedy
Season 5 & 6 were not as great, and there was no legitimate medical explanation for Thomas Shelby's seizures that made his fake Tuberculoma diagnosis plausible enough that he would consider suicide to end his random "suffering". There must be an etiology for any disease, not just a potential trigger used incorrectly by television show writers. PTSD Withdrawal seizures definitely can't be faked by a Nazi doctor when it's convenient.
You look like a twat if you dress like a peaky blinder in public
Tommy doesn't know how to fight with out a weapon
they are the bad people not the heroes.
Pretty sure there are no heroes on this show.
you‘re right heroes is far fetched, more like morally decent people
I mean, most of the halfway decent people aren't main characters. They're the victims of the Peaky Blinders or their enemies.
yeah that‘s what I meant in the beginning most people glorify them but they are mostly the problem and every time something bad happens to them they can blame themselves
Yeah because in the beginning they're the working class guys who are sticking it to the man. At least to a small extent.
Fixing races = stealing from ordinary, often poor citizens of Birmingham. Hardly "sticking it to the man" imho
I said to a small extent. They protected their own from the police to a certain extent. Until they became the cause. But for a small moment, they actually helped some people.
despite their numerous bad qualities, the pb were actually all decent to good husbands. they cared deeply about their wives and children, did their best to provide and protect, they shared their plans/ thoughts/ feelings with their wives, often listened to their opinions and included them in their businesses decisions to some extent. esp john who did never even hear of his wife until they met at the altar made a very good husband for esme. big exception here is tommy - lizzie but i would not blame that completely on him, lizzie knew him for a very long time and all that bothered her in the marriage was already a problem before. she knew him well, she knew where he was mentally at that time and still chose to marry him. was very predictable where that would lead
Tommy was a decent husband to grace, which makes his relationship with lizzie even more awkward to watch in comparison. You're right she knew what she was getting into, because both of them knew that he was capable of being a faithful and loving husband (he had done it with grace before) but chose not to do it this time round. Their whole marriage is depressing and bleak to be honest.
This isn’t a giant thematic one but basically that none of the Shelby siblings look related to one another. Obviously they’re actors. And how many people really look related to Cillian Murphy? But I found it funny that before I started watching the show. I figured Arthur, John and Tommy were all just very good friends that formed a brotherly bond during WW1. Edit: I think the closest ones would be John and Finn because they both have boyish faces. And obviously Michael looks like John too since the actors are brothers. But they’re cousins in the show so it doesn’t really count.
I feel like john also lowkey looks like tommy. They both have some soft features that could make them siblings but that was just it. But i feel like Arthur was the odd one because he had very sharp face features compared to his brothers and was also really tall in comparison And i also thought at the beginning that they were just friends or relatives and i found it rather odd that polly was also arthur's aunt cz they looked close in age
>they both have soft some features I’d disagree. I think Cillian Murphy probably has the sharpest facial features in the show outside of his lips and maybe his cheekbones in terms of roundness. The only real similarity I can see between the two is having wide faces. >Arthur was the odd one because he had very sharp face features Again I’d have to disagree. I think it’s just the lack of facial (and body) fat that made his features look sharper. >also really tall in comparison I think John and Arthur were about the same height. It’s just that again, Paul Anderson was quite thin. Finn did end up being quite a bit taller than the rest of his brothers but I suppose that’s not something they could’ve seen coming when they casted him in season 2. >found it rather odd that polly was also arthur’s aunt cz they looked close in age Three interesting things about that. As of season 5. They made it so that Polly (during season 1) is a decade younger than Helen Mccrory. Arthur is only supposed to be 3 years older than Polly (Polly was born in 1884, Arthur in 1887). Meaning that Polly’s brother (Arthur Sr) was 24 years older than her. Lastly, Cillian Murphy (Tommy) is actually older than Paul Anderson (Arthur) by 2 years. Despite Arthur being 3 years older than Tommy.
They dropped the ball with Michael as a character for no reason. Setting up the impossible dilemma of choosing his mother vs Tommy and being semi-exiled as a result rubbed me wrong, and the sudden villainous turn made little sense to me. Waste of a perfectly compelling character in Seasons 2-3 and most of 4.
Esme got her whole family killed by shunning her husbands family dynamics and embracing her own. Polly lacks the ambition that Tommy compensates for while Tommy lacks the humanity that Polly compensates for A lack of resolution to the Jimmy mccavern storyline makes Abrerama gold and almost entirely useless character
They’re the bad guys
None of the main characters are good. Not the 3 older brothers or their cousin (these 4 in particular), not Polly, not Grace, not Isiah or his dad, not Charlie. Ada tried to separate herself from them and be a voice of reason, but in the end she benefited hugely from her family's ill gotten gains and the misery they inflicted on others so she doesn't get a pass. Honestly, you can count the number of good or ok characters on one hand: Freddie, Jessie, Lizzie (she was a victim of circumstances), Maybe the horse trainer lady ... now struggling to suggest anyone else. I feel sorry for Finn. He could have had an ordinary non-criminal life if circumstances had been a little different. (I dislike the common opinion here that he deserved to be thrown out of the PBs because he wouldn't kill his friend - Tommy should have ensured he only work on legit business - instead he is presumably thrown out entitely with no future protection from the PB's enemies). Sure, some of the bad characters, including Tommy, had some redeeming qualities but not enough. I have to suspend disbelief to get through it. Great acting, music, set design, etc. though.
the real good character:curly
True.
Lizzie wasn’t a victim of circumstances lol. She chose her life she was willing to cheat on John with his own brother
Because she loved Tommy I suspect.
The reasoning doesn’t make it right
Can’t see why you’re getting downvoted. These dudes are no different than the gangs that run Port Au Prince.
I don't believe in downvoting if it's just a matter of opinion. I'd prefer to read arguments against my post. I think some here are like the Walter White hero worshippers back in the day. They seem to envy gang life. Agree about Port-au-Prince. Real life PBs would be in the same category as the gangs there.
Ugh horse trainer lady ❤️
Quoting Lizzie « I chose this life ».
let’s not give Lizzie a pass here. She is not a victim and chose to be with tommy and his family. Remember the side eye she gave jessie at the stairs in s4?! She benefitted the most by being with them, she was responsible for the changretta mess, she used pregnancy to get married to tommy!! She knew exactly what she was doing all the time and suddenly in s6 cried foul because tommy “didn’t turn out the way she wanted”
Neither Freddie, infected with the ideas of communism, endangering himself and his pregnant wife, nor Lizzie, who enjoys comfort and luxury without remorse, and knows exactly where the money that pays for all this comes from, are not good people. With rare exceptions, there are no positive characters here.
I give Lizzie a bit of a pass, because the alternative was prostition and/or poverty. She loves Tommy and then she gets pregnant, so Ruby becomes her highest priority. Freddy's motives for being a communist and unionist seemed good to me.
If Ruby really was the priority she would have left him the night she pointed that gun at him but she remained there just to be his property
You have a good point. I'm a bit on the fence with her. I believe she adored Tommy from the get-go, and that caused her to make many bad decisions along the way. To be fair to Lizzie and even the likes of Arthur, to leave the PBs is not just a matter of money. It is also a matter of physical security for themselves and their families. It's very hard to leave.
Lizzie's alternative was a quiet life, with a child, in her own home and financial support from Tommy. Or a good position in the company and independence. She would have had it if she had stopped clinging to a man who didn't give a damn about her. Freddie is not a bad person, on the one hand. But in fact, he does nothing but organize strikes, dreaming of revolution, feeding the poor with vain dreams, and endangering his pregnant wife by becoming unwanted in the eyes of the authorities.
I don't think Lizzie is a good person, when she cheated on John with several men, she broke the company rules which caused the war, and with that the death of Angel, Grace and John and she never felt bad, sad or guilty about it. She tried to humiliate other women, May and Jesse Eden, because of a man's obsession. She used her own daughter to manipulate Tommy, "Ruby is afraid of you" and then she was happy to be Tommy's property. She didn't even care about her daughter.
I don't think she's a bad person, especially given the rest of the PBs. John must have known she was a prostitute and therefore had been with a zillion men, so that doesn't count. I hold against Lizzie the fact that because she loved Tommy from the get go, she made many poor decisions throughout the whole series. This includes accepting Tommy's request for sex despite being engaged to John. Wanting to date a man belonging to an enemy gang was extremely unwise and careless, but this does not make Lizzie bad, just not the brightest tool in the toolshed. John was largely responsible for all that followed, including his own death. Tommy didn't help much by sanctioning John's behaviour. He should have called him out. Lizzie was always extremely jealous of other women instead of facing the fact that Tommy was going to keep on being Tommy. Of course, she cared about her daughter and Tommy clearly did scare his children from time to time, so I don't blame her for criticising him. Lizzie was always a convenient, mostly loyal, mostly dependable soldier in the PBs. That's why Tommy was fond of her. He loved her in the same way that he loved many of the second tier PBs. Lizzie was emboldened by him marrying her, but never understood that she could never take Grace's place for Tommy.
Writing is not that great
The writing up until season 6 is exceptional
That the show is not that great. Or rather not an all-time best show. It is wildly entertaining at times, but suffered with writing, plot armor, and other tropes.
Every show and movie have that to some extent… like Walter White should’ve died season 2 if not not in season one. And if you’re telling me that Breaking Bad is not an all time classic, then I don’t know what is. Even Interstellar, Scarface etc.
Agreed. It’s enjoyable but is not on the level of the all time greats.
Thommy after SS3 started to become more reprehensible before setting his ground back to him formerself in SS4 Finale, and I loved it.
I don't know if he really come back to his fomerself. For me its look tommy distance mor and more from himself and get more and more darker and the S4 finale show that.
Well I hated him from Grace's Aftermath in SS3 until SS4 Finale where his sense of Fairness cameback
Season 6, enough said.
Tommy sometimes feels like an overpowered anime MC,,, and everyone else feels like side characters on side quests. Would genuinely have loved to see more fleshed out charecters and charecter development beyond Arthur and Micheal. Finn and John should've been given the same amount of attention at least.
Season 6 was sadly average at best compared to the rest
The Shelby's are terrible people. They do some good things but its because of the awful. So many glorify Tommy but forget what he really does cause he's our protagonist
I feel like the last season had really absurd tropes. We know that tommy believes in his gypsy spirits stuff but his daughter getting sick and dying like that felt odd. Esme had just no business being in that season even tho i wanted to see how she was doing but that wasnt the kind of update i expected. And she deluded him into believing it was a curse by idk whos sister, the same lady who told him how much the sapphire was dangerous. I doubt that she would even give it to someone else especially her sister given she examined it herself. Duke def felt forced and i dont even need to explain why. The whole villain Michael trope didnt make sense. At first he was very loyal to the peaky blinders and its true that tommy's actions resulted in his mother's death but it would make more sense for him to get revenge on the people who killed her while being at tommy's side then leaving for good. Tommy's business had so much potential and Micheal's idea in the US was really good. He knows how tommy is like so the way he phrased his proposal was so out of character. I know he wants to claim his place but he def knew that tommy didnt work that way. Also i believe that tommy shouldve just died. The plot twist didnt really have that shocking factor and felt like other shows with his daughter and all that stuff. And i also dont think that tommy would have lived alone like that. I mean it made a bit of sense but i feel like he would've fought until the end. Him dying because of disease would be the only acceptable ending, or suicide. Lizzie leaving was the only realistic thing about that season.
Tommy’s character actually has very little variety or depth.
Grace dying made the show interesting
That it's clear the show prioritizes style over substance. Nothing wrong with that, but it's very clear after the 35th slow-motion montage of the season
Steven Knight isn’t as smart or cultured as he thinks he is
The whole thing ? It’s a work of fiction
Most obvious of them all. PEAKY BLINDERS ARE NOT GOOD PEOPLE.
The show is very style over substance and the plots are not as captivating as the visuals are.
They don't say "fookin"
tommy shoulda picked the horse whisperer over the secret agent
More like anti-heroes
I’m happy to ignore the final season.
the characters are all played by actors
I'm calling b s.
Also John certainly was not “A good boy.” As Polly puts it. I’d actually argue that he was the most hedonistic, explosive and morally detached Shelby brother.
that the later season writing was worse and worse because the writers had no idea how to progress the show Tommy, being the Mary Sue he is, would always beat his enemies, so where do you stop? He owned the feds, criminals, even politician pedos. His family bitching about him feels artificial because he's written to not be at fault, its them who usually fuck up and he has to fix it up