With the upcoming release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man on Netflix this week many may not realise that it has been four whole years since Tommy Shelby was on our screens.
Cillian Murphy is set to return to the role of Tommy along with Sophie Rundle as Ada, Stephen Graham as Hayden Stagg, and newcomers Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth, and Barry Keoghan, who is set to play Tommy’s son Duke. The film released in a limited theatrical run earlier this month and will finally be available to watch on Netflix March 20.
The Immortal Man sees Tommy return after years away, having departed Birmingham at the very end of Peaky Blinders season six, leaving behind the gang he had built.
Early trailers have shown Barry Keoghan’s Duke now the leader of the Peaky Blinders, with Ada telling Tommy that he’s running the gang ‘like it’s 1919’.
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Many fans with terrible memories (such as myself) will want to rewatch the show to remind themselves what on earth led to this set-up for the film, but of these fans several will not want to watch six seasons of TV in a week.
Thankfully for them Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has the revealed the three episodes of the show that are an essential rewatch before the film comes out in a YouTube video for Netflix.
The Pilot – Episode 1.1
As probably makes sense, to watch the end of this iteration of the Peaky Blinders Knight suggests going back to where it all began.
He said: “It really lays out what this whole series is about. It introduces Tommy Shelby in a way that I think makes it pretty unequivocal about who this person is. We see him riding on a horse in an industrial landscape, no words, just his look.
"It really says so much about what Peaky is going to be about and the whole episode is essential to know exactly what this family is and what they do and why they’re so fearsome.”
The first episode introduces the Shelby family, with Tommy stealing a shipment of guns which elevates his position as a gang member but also brings the attention of Sam Neill’s Inspector Chester Campbell. With Tommy returning to Birmingham in the film it almost feels like a re-debut of the Shelby gangster, so it makes sense to go back to the pilot episode.
Season Two finale – Episode 2.6
Interestingly the season two finale is one of the three most important episodes to rewatch according to Knight, with the writer saying it features his ‘favourite sequence of the series’.
Season two culminates in Tommy being forced to assassinate a high-level military official by Campbell, who plans to have Tommy killed even if he succeeds.
Whilst the Shelbys kill Campbell and the military official Henry Russell Tommy is still kidnapped by men working for the Ulster policeman. As he is taken out to a field by three men with guns he prepares to be killed, with Knight saying of the sequence: “They’ve already dug his grave. He asks for time to smoke a cigarette and in that time he reviews his life. His regrets. The things he wishes he had done. I think as an audience we think this is it and then there is a twist.”
Two of Tommy’s captors are shot by the third who relays a message that Winston Churchill himself will want to speak to the gangster soon, with Knight adding: “What that gives us is: Here is a man who is not sure if he wants to live or die… [in this moment] we can see that he actually chooses life.”
Lock and Key – Episode 6.6
The third episode is perhaps the most obvious as Knight recommends watching the final TV episode of Peaky Blinders, the season six finale. Season six mostly centres around two things, the death of Aunt Polly at the hands of the IRA and Tommy discovering that he had a brain tumour.
In the final episode Arthur gets revenge on the IRA members who killed Polly, her son Michael is killed by Tommy after he tries to come after his own family, and the youngest Shelby brother Finn is excommunicated from the gang by Duke.
Tommy, however, discovers he didn’t really have a brain tumour and had been tricked by a doctor who was working with Oswald Mosley (if you don’t remember how Oswald Mosley became involved, maybe it’s worth giving season five and six a rewatch).
Ultimately Tommy ends up standing over the doctor with a gun to his head, but doesn’t shoot him. Knight says of this: “He decides not to, the Tommy previous to that would have done that. He puts the gun away, goes back to his horse, and he rides away into the sunset.
“The horse he rides away on is a white horse. The horse he arrived on at the beginning of the series was a black horse. I think there is a contrast between the two moments and maybe we believe that Tommy is cured, that he’s better, that he’s riding away to have a simpler life.”
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man releases in cinemas 6 March and on Netflix 20 March.
Topics: Peaky Blinders, Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Netflix, TV, Film, TV and Film
Michael Slavin