Peaky Blinders is back for a sixth season. Aunt Polly is no more, and the first episode was poignantly dedicated to Helen McRory who sadly died before the season was filmed.
All of the Peaky Blinders traits that make the series so damn good were present and correct; moody lighting, slo-mo walking to heavy music, spontaneous brutal violence, double crosses and period atmosphere to die for. Or were they?
But a teetotal Tommy Shelby?
Weeeell that’s a twist for sure, but are we ready for it? It could rapidly get tedious if Tommy Shelby is going to be forswearing every drink plonked in front of him. To be fair, you can see why it wasn’t good for him, a few drinks and he’d have a gun to his head before his glass could be refilled (how many seasons have ended like that?).
As if to ram home the point, Arthur Shelby had little more than a cameo as a drunk Santa (sorry, I’m spoiling it if you haven’t seen it yet, but you probably think I’m joking anyway). Undoubtedly this is a PLOT POINT and Tommy will have a spectacular cliff hanging descent back into the bottle in a later episode.
Another anomaly; no ‘Red Right Hand’ for the theme music, possibly signalling that Tommy is in a very different (sober) place now, although Steven Knight has indicated that it will be back later in the season. Maybe this will be an clue for Tommy getting his mojo back. I’m all for sobriety and temperance (liar) but it’s pretty dull, give me some booze and drug fuelled mayhem anyday.
Upping the stakes
A huge amount of the brilliance of this series created and written by Steven Knight has been the way it gives Birmingham the stylings of a noir gangster movie. Watching these effortlessly cool characters fight, con, connive and shoot their way to the top and outsmart the law, government and other criminal gangs in the process has been truly gripping TV.
There is a scene in the first season that signalled just how cool this was going to be; The Shelby’s walk into a two-up-two-down terrace house and we discover that about four of the houses have been knocked through into one to make an illegal bookmakers. Then there is the soundtrack, the cinematography and the relentless pace of the plot…
Fag? Tick, Drink? Tick. The Tommy we didn’t get in season 6 episode 1.
But then with the success of the series there is an inevitable upping of budgets (a good thing) and the stakes in each season (not always so good). Season 1 felt like a whirlwind, racecourse gambling , stolen machine guns, the IRA and Winston Curchill all get a look in and made for unmissable drama. By season 5 Tommy is a member of Parliament and coming up against fascist scumbag Oswald Moseley. We’ve also dealt with the Mafia on the way here. My point is that these bigger historical events don’t necessarily make the drama better, it loses the claustrophobia of being set in a grimy midlands town. Plus with the Moseley plot we knew the plan to assasinate him would fail because we have actual history, so the tension was defused from the get-go.
Then there are points where we get a style overdose, such as the scene below where Michael Gray and his Boston Irish gangster stooges all look up in unison. It wouldn’t have been out of place if they had spontaneously burst into song and a synchronised dance.
Of course, Knight could just do a Tarantino and rewrite history, but that would be a step too far for a series like this. So have we reached peak Peaky yet? No of course not, it is still one of the best TV dramas in the world.
All Hail Alfie Solomons
One of the best characters in the series is surely Tom Hardy playing Alfie Solomons. By turns menacing, viscious, untrustworthy, yet also hilarious, clever and every bit an equal for Tommy Shelby. It is a delight seeing Hardy and Cillian Murphy share scenes, the frame can barely contain the charisma and acting chops. It looks like Alfie will be in the second episode of season 6, the BBC tease for the episode says that ‘Tommy visits an old ally in Camden’.
So it seems that Alfie has departed his beloved Margate and headed back to Camden. Shame really, as it was a treat hearing Hardy enunciate ‘MaaaargaTe’ in Alfie’s voice. Hope they don’t try and kill him off again, or maybe he is earmarked for one of the spin-offs that are being teased?
Where will Season 6 take us?
We could end up in Nazi Germany if the trailer is to be believed. After this there will be a film, if Steven Knight’s vision for the Shelby family pans out. Oh and a musical. Er Hmm…
