Peaky Blinders is the most operatic of television dramas, every event pumped up for maximum emotional impact, dialogue a sort of gutter Shakespeare. Created by Steven Knight, Peaky Blinders is about a criminal organization comprised of Catholic Gypsies and cast-offs that starts in the slums of Birmingham in the twenties as the Peakys, led by Thomas Shelby (the perfectly cast Cillian Murphy,) claw their way up from their Gypsy caravans and slums to seize control of the drug, liquor and gun trade. Shelby is a war hero and first just seems like an ambitious thug, but as he rises higher and higher in society, eventually becoming a member of Parliament, a funny thing happens. He acquires a conscience, while brutally destroying anyone who stands in his way. Family is everything and the Shelby family is both elegant and grotesque, starting with his brother Arthur (Paul Anderson,) and his Aunt Polly (Helen McCrory.) Arthur drinks, shoots heroin, snorts cocaine, and loses his shit. He mutilates a man who was an innocent friend of his wife Linda, for which she can never forgive him. She tries to shoot him.
In the early seasons, Sam Neill appears as, Inspector Campbell, with an Irish accent you could cut with a knoife. One of Neill’s greatest roles. Peaky Blinders began on BBC and moved to Netflix. Every scene is cast in the most dramatic light, with characters dead center surrounded by elaborate sets, as the characters bludgeon, threaten, and shoot their way to power. Real people, such as Winston Churchill and Oswald Mosely appear. The despicable Mosely was a British fascist who believed the future lay with Nazism. At first, Tommy seems to embrace Mosely, but it’s all part of his plan. He flirts with socialism. Elected to Parliament, he spouts a populist line, while taking care of business behind the scenes, even as he funds housing for widows and orphans. He moves into a fabulous country house and marries Elizabeth (Natasha O’Keeffe,) a refined former prostitute who once slept with Mosely. Mosely won’t let Shelby forget it. Polly’s bastard son Michael (Finn Cole) joins the clan as an ambitious schemer, eerily similar to Finn Cole’s role in Animal Kingdom, where he joins the San Diego-based Cody family, playing another bastard child come home to roost, and scheming to take over the family which consists of three party-hearty Southern California beach boys. Except for Pope, who’s as deranged as Arthur Shelby. Anya Taylor-Joy (Gina) plays Michael’s wife. You may have seen her in Queen’s Gambit or The Northman. She’s everywhere, and mesmerizing. Thomas Hardy plays Alfie Solomons, leader of the Jewish gang, and the unlikliest Jew of all time. COVID shut down production and it took forever for Season 6 to drop, but drop it did, and it was worth the wait.
The final season ties up loose threads, with a surprise ending. But the saga isn’t over. Steven Knight is planning a Peaky Blinders movie to provide a proper coda, as they did in Deadwood and Breaking Bad (El Camino.) The only sore point is the musical score, loud, intrusive, inappropriate, like pots and pans clanging down stairs. Now we wait for the final season of Animal Kingdom.
If this is as good as Breaking Bad and Deadwood, I’m on it. Still need to see the Deadwood movie as well.