It hit cinemas earlier this month and has been on Netflix for all of two days, so pretty much everyone and their dad has seen Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man by now.
With Cillian Murphy donning his flat cap once again as the legendary Tommy Shelby, some new faces were brought into the fold. That includes the debut of Barry Keoghan as gypsy son Duke and Rebecca Ferguson as his aunt, the Romany Kaulo Chiriklo.
However, while other OGs like Sophie Rundle return as Ada, some are missing – notably, Paul Anderson as Arthur.
And the creator of Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight, has spoken out in defence of the controversial reveal surrounding this character. The actor also previously told us that he thinks it’s ‘great’ even if it is ‘sad’.
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Warning: The rest of this article contains a pretty big spoiler for Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
So, it isn’t quite a simple ‘Arthur isn’t around anymore’ story, it’s unfortunately far darker.
It’s made very clear early on that the Shelby brother is dead and we basically assume it was by his own hand.
However, it’s eventually revealed that Tommy actually killed his brother, his very own right-hand man, in a drunken grapple after Arthur stole his car. He insists it was an accident and it’s clear that the guilt eats away at him.
“He will never, ever be at peace until he’s no longer on this world because of that,” Murphy said on Netflix's Immortal Man podcast.
But many fans just can’t quite get their head around the idea Tommy would do this to Arthur with Knight admitting he’d been ‘avoiding saying that for so long’.
Apparently, it wasn’t always the plan that this would be the outcome for the brother.
“Sometimes something occurs to you that explains what you’ve been writing,” Knight added.
“I was writing this intense guilt. And then you think, ‘Well, that’s why he’s so guilty. Because it was him.’”
Anderson adores the creator, who he said told him of this storyline, and has no complaints about what happened to Arthur.
“Well, what can you do eh? It is how it is. I thought I’d just leave them to it,” he told LADbible.
The actor went on to praise the idea of Tommy killing Arthur as he admitted fans were in for a bit of a shock.
“I think it’s great,” Anderson explained. “I mean, it’s such a powerful thing to do. It’s something you don’t see on TV.”
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is now streaming on Netflix.
Topics: Peaky Blinders, Cillian Murphy, Netflix, TV and Film
Jess Battison