Peaky Blinders has come a long way from its season one roots in Birmingham. Now Tommy Shelby is a socialist MP, and he lives in a stately Manor in Warwickshire. There’s a feeling that, with the trade up to greater focus on politics and the world at large, something has been lost in regards to the characterization of the Shelby clan.
Season 5 tries to rectify this, with greater focus on family drama. It also ramps up the stakes, introducing a great new villain in the form of fascist politician Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin).
The story starts off with the Shelby’s losing big on Black Tuesday, the day the stock market crashed. Tommy (Cillian Murphy) blames Michael (Finn Cole) for losing the money, as he had advised Michael to sell off the assets, which Michael had refused to do. Tommy sets the Peaky Blinders to recoup their losses by dipping their toes into more criminal activity. Soon, however, the Shelbys find themselves contending with a sinister new razor gang called the Billy Boys, who have an insidious connection with Mosley. Mosley soon contacts Tommy, inviting him to come onboard for his new political agenda: creating a new political party called the British Union of Fascists.
The story focuses on a Tommy that’s becoming increasingly isolated. He has grown an addiction to opium, which causes him to see visions of Grace, his dead wife. He is fighting suicidal tendencies and refuses to listen to his current wife, Lizzie (Natasha O’Keeffe). As he deals with Michael’s ambitions to replace him as head of the family, he also has to deal with Mosley and his accomplice, Jimmy McCavern. Mosley is, perhaps, the best antagonist in Peaky Blinders since Major Campbell. He’s untouchable in a way other threats aren’t, which means, of course, that Tommy tries to assassinate him at a fascist rally.
There are are problems on the home front, too. Arthur’s wife, Linda, tries to convince him to leave violence behind, and Michael’s new fiancé, Gina, tries to persuade him to move to America permanently. There has always been family strife within the Shelbys: it’s just that the stakes are now higher than ever. Consequently, these family disputes sometimes detract from the larger narrative at play.
You have to maintain a fair amount of suspension of disbelief to absorb every obstacle the show throws at its cast, but as usual, it pays off with a solid climax. Things don’t go all well for the Shelbys, and that leaves the gang in a tricky place for the next season.
The main cast were solid, as usual; Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of the troubled, intelligent gangster is already iconic, and both Paul Anderson and Helen Mcrory do fine as his confederates in crime. Showrunner Stephen Knight continues to plot a kinetic, intense story that is guaranteed to run for at least two other seasons.
So far, Peaky Blinders has been consistently solid through its five season run. Here’s to hoping this consistency holds in the future.