Whatever your issues with Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, no one can deny that the movie is not afraid of killing off the characters we know and love.
The Peaky Blinders movie picks up in 1940, six years after the events of the finale of the BBC TV series, and we find out that in that time Arthur Shelby has died.
This is later revealed to have been Tommy’s doing, but the tragedies for the Shelby family do not end there.
Ada Shelby, played by Sophie Rundle, is tragically shot in the head by the Nazi-aligned John Beckett despite Tommy’s son Duke trying to warn her.
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Steven Knight has defended the deaths in the film, including Tommy Shelby who also ends up dying by the end of the movie, but now Sophie Rundle has spoken out about her character’s death.
Sophie Rundle appears to have complicated feelings about Ada’s story coming to an end
Rundle, who has played the character since 2013 throughout all six seasons of the show and The Immortal Man, spoke in a new interview about her character’s journey coming to an end.
Speaking to Radio Times, Rundle was wary of getting too deep into spoilers but made her feelings pretty clear on Ada’s death.
She said: “I was pleased, that’s what you want to happen in these big mythic pieces. You want it to be as explosive as the character has been.
"I’m trying to speak in code, but it’s a fitting punctuation to the past 14 years of my life."
She went on to add: "I do kind of wish I could go back and start from the beginning now, with all that I am and all that I know now and do it again. But then it wouldn’t be what it became. So maybe that ignorance and that 'Let’s just f*cking do it' energy is what is powerful."
Whilst Ada’s actor Sophie Rundle may be pleased with her death however, fans are pretty livid at it.
Fan reaction online has been very critical of Ada’s death scene in the movie, and they’re right about it
One fan on Reddit penned a lengthy post about how ‘stupid’ Ada’s death was. Ada goes into Birmingham to take statements from civilians who witnessed Duke and the Blinders stealing guns from a factory intended for the war, leading Beckett to worry this will disrupt his plan and ordering Duke to shoot her.
When he fails Beckett walks up to her and shoots her in the head in broad daylight.
The fan pointed out a major issue with the death, how it paints Ada. They said: “The latter half of the series spent time building her up to be almost as clever as Tommy, but then she decides it’s a good idea to walk around with information that could end the Peaky Blinders, with no security?
“She probably had the worst and most pointless death of all the Shelbys… Completely unearned and nonsensical death.”
Other criticism online has pointed out how disappointing it is that Ada, a character whose independence from her brutal brothers and intelligence was a major focus, ultimately dies to serve as the motivation for Tommy to return, making her just another part of her brother’s story. Fans are probably
One fan account posted on X: “The more I think about it the more upset I get about the way Ada died, she deserved so much more.”
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is available to stream on Netflix now.
Topics: Peaky Blinders, Netflix, TV and Film, Film, TV, Celebrity
Michael Slavin