Peaky Blinders: ‘The Company’ (Series 4, Episode 6 Review)

“Big fucks small”

So it turns out the ominous shadow of Alfie Solomons was not being followed by further shady characters. Not directly anyway. He just wants a chat and chats with Alfie are always a one sided affair, he regales Tommy of his plans to move to Margate and intentionally(?) offers some cryptic advice.

Meanwhile, back out in the boxing ring “gypsy boy” is taking a bit of a battering but it’s all for show. The ladies are getting merry and Arthur’s drug induced paranoia proves correct. In a dark corner of the venue he is jumped on, strangled and left for dead. Tommy arrives too late but fires shots in the ring out of fury. For what is essentially the second billing character to be killed off is a shocker and for the first time in a few episodes makes real the threat of the Mafia. Finn even comes of age in true Peaky fashion by taking the eyes out of a “wop”, glee covering his face as he does so. Welcome to the dark side, Finn. It’s exactly the sort of exhilarating set piece the show thrives off. Violence and intrigue matched perfectly.

“You can sign them on your knees”

Tommy has a new plan and it looks a lot like the white flag of surrender Changretta’s mother was just waving at him. In a move that gives an impression the series is going to end on a whimper, he agrees to sell over his businesses to Luca. The moment Tommy gets to his knees and starts reeling off a speech after minutes of silence is when you realise we’ve been deceived. Deception has played such a big role in series five, it really should have its own credit on IMDB. Heeding Alfie’s “advice”, they find someone bigger and turn the just thrown tables round onto Luca. The gunmen that have been trained on the Blinders now turn to their enemy.

That’s not all, though is it? From being redundant and then dead of all things, Arthur suddenly turns up to be the one who shoots Luca with his own bullet. We’ve been conned again but it’s all worth it for the shock value. Welcome back Arthur, though we didn’t get the chance to miss you.

“Alfie, stop talking!”

In a more gory and unromantic version of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Tommy meets Alfie on Margate beach. No ice creams, no seaside reminiscing, just penance for treachery. Even with death encroaching, Solomons still babbles on and only a bullet to the face stops him. Is he even dead? Even if the dog gave him mouth to mouth his chances aren’t looking good, frankly. Women might not fancy Tom Hardy so much with half a face.

“Distilled for the eradication of seemingly incuarable sadness”

Arthur’s words that the “war is over” don’t ring true though. The Mafia may be gone but the much bigger war still is playing on Tommy’s mind. On a self-imposed break he retreats back into the PTSD and no amount of gin is going to put a smile on his face. No matter how bad he felt, his strop at golf was perfectly justified. So, who do you call when you’ve got a really depressing montage to soundtrack? Radiohead, of course.

“Your cause is now my cause”

Tommy and Jessie reunite, get naked and fight for socialism together. Which sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? In a political twist more surprising than Jeremy Corbyn’s first Labour leadership victory, our main man runs for office and soon becomes the representative for Birmingham South. How much is for personal gain and how much is actually for social justice is up for debate and will surely be explored in the next series. It’d be great to see more of Jessie (we saw quite a lot of her tonight to be fair, nudge nudge) with a more substantial storyline.

Did the set up six weeks ago live up to its own billing? Probably not. The threat was never quite as bad as was made out. However, Peaky Blinders always serves up unexpected twists and thrills through the lens of incredibly shot, brilliantly acted television. If series five is the last, let’s cherish every minute because we won’t see its like again. 9/10

 

 

Peaky Blinders: ‘The Duel’ (Series 4, Episode 5 Review)

“Me and you, Tommy”

We pick up exactly where last week left off, Tommy being followed in slow pursuit by the Mafia and with a knowing look into the rear view mirror we know that our anti-hero is in on Polly’s plan. What follows is an epic, noisy opening few minutes of, let’s face it, very badly aimed gunfire. There’s more shots here than in the last half hour of Hot Fuzz as Tommy and Luca rampage through a housing estate.

Riveting though it most definitely is, it does raise some questions. Why did Changretta and his gang not carry out the deed on a quiet road en route rather than wait for the final destination? Why did Tommy not seek back up from either the Blinders or the gypsies to help him take on the hit squad? Is his death wish so strong? Hey, who cares, it looks amazing. There’s a murder committed through a white bed sheet and everything. An unlikely advertisement deal with Ariel is but a phone call away (“Killed someone on your linen again? Try new Shelby All In One”). The duel doesn’t last very long because it is crudely interrupted by the police.

“I don’t drink whiskey or gin anymore”

Lizzie delivers the news of her pregnancy in typical matter of fact Lizzie fashion and Tommy takes to the news as if he’d just won a tenner. He has got the shakes though, bless. He did kill three people, not sure if he mentioned it.

While pregnancy is causing one person to tone down on their vices, the same can’t be said for Arthur who is getting carried away with the white powder and not the kind Tim Henman would happily promote. That combined with his drinking means he’s slipping down a very slippery slope and falling down a very still table. He calls for Linda to save him but frankly, the man may be beyond redemption. Full marks for Paul Anderson’s drunk acting, it was convincing enough to conjure up images of Delia Smith shouting on a football pitch.

“I know ways back that will take forever”

Much to Michael’s delight, Polly arranges a little holiday for him with the gypsies. The idea is that he’ll be off map and avoid detection. While the son is away the auntie will play as she soon starts locking lips with Aberama Gold. Inappropriate men indeed. They may be getting it on but Gold knows full well that if any harm comes to her child, then he won’t have the equipment to get it on much longer.

“You just made a deal without a negotiation, didn’t ya?”

There’s another face to face duel as Luca squares up to an Alfie who conveys much more menace than the man stood opposite, even with his eyes closed. The negotiations involve an indecent proposal of sorts. Alfie will hand Tommy over at the boxing match if Luca runs his alcohol into New York. We don’t get the outcome of this intriguing conversation, but where would the fun be in that?

“Tommy Shelby is going to stop the revolution with his cock”

The pesky C word pops up again – communism. Ada is taken in for questions by the military who have a keen interest in her political past. As with most things, Tommy is responsible. His wheeling and dealing  climbs two further levels. Firstly, the military have offered him a lucrative contract and secondly, he reveals his plans to deceive and corrupt Jessie Eden for his own gain. Profit over principles. The very opposite of the socialist he once was.

They settle down for a dinner that wouldn’t have made the edit of First Dates. The tone is completely serious and worse still, Curly is the DJ. You can see Jessie’s guard falling by the wayside as Tommy works his charm once more but fair play, she doesn’t put out. Physically, at least anyway. In the end she does comes to an agreement she’ll soon regret.

“Take your bets”

And so to the ring and there’s nothing Peaky Blinders loves more than high octane drama around a boxing match. Out of the shadows Alfie appears in a blaze of mystery. Is he alone or did he strike a deal with Luca? The imagery of Tommy walking into the light suggests it’s actually a trap for the boys from New York. While the Mafia haven’t lived up to their early threat, next week’s finale still looks set to be an explosive, gory and satisfactory ending to the series and hopefully Changretta’s bloody toothpicks too. 8/10

Peaky Blinders: ‘Blackbird’ (Series 4. Episode 3 Review)

“In this sinful place there will be temptations..”

Women using their feminine charm is a through line in tonight’s proceedings. Firstly, it is Arthur who is caught in the sexy trap. Due to an “extraordinary” meeting (matter of opinion, that one) he is delayed by a lingerie clad Linda who insists it’s the job of a good wife to keep her man’s “balls empty and his belly full”. You can probably guess which one occurred in the office. He was literally “fucking busy” but not for that long, truth be told. Typical man. Despite Linda using her assets as a decoy, the real reason for missing the meeting was rogue staff “chucking paint around in the paint shop”. Unfortunate wording giving the scene in question.

Euphemisms aside, newly reborn Polly is on the lookout for some rude man action, preferably with someone “unsuitable” and lectures from Ada go down as badly as she wants someone to go down on her. Well, most euphemisms aside. Things get queasy when she teams up with Luca Changretta himself. More of that later…

“Spotted Dick. What is that?”

Speaking of Mr Mafia, we get more insight into Luca when he belittles his staff by shouting at them and shoving a scone in one of their mouths. No wonder they don’t like British food if they’re not consuming it properly. No jam? No cream? That’s barbaric. It’s a scene that feel slightly out of kilter from everything else. While it may have been reaching for Goodfellas, the reality was much closer to Dick Tracy. Of the non spotted variety.  Let’s hope Changretta is more of a background menace rather than one that’s too uncomfortably super imposed into this world.

“Fuck you and your revolution!”

Angry Arthur is back and the red paint from naughty workers is the least of his worries as two men enter through his open back door. It’s an innuendo laden sort of episode. Those two men are from the mafia and due to their incredibly bad aim (stop it) Arthur manages to defeat them. And burn them in a fire. Bet you couldn’t do that these days with all this heath and safety about, eh? Which is a good thing.

Still alive but still not happy, Arthur feels deceived by both wife and family and feels out of contract as the decision that it doesn’t have to be his gun that kills Changretta was made in his absence. With convincing from his god bothering wife he shoots his last bullet into thin air, which in an episode highlighting men’s weakness at the hands of powerful women, could be seen as an ultimate metaphor. “The modern way” of killing is to contract it out, let Aberama Gold do it. It’s like a primitive form of checkout staff losing jobs to self-service machines – just a lot more gory.  This is Arthur though, and even without the sense of lost manhood he currently feels, his devil will always win out..

“Blackbird, Blackbird, singing the blues all day”

Tommy’s not given too much to work with this week but he’s clearly finding it hard to trust anyone. Suspicion now falls on his own staff and he also has Jessie Eden in his sights. He pops by her house and their research into each other is impressive given there is no Google. The mind games between the pair ratchet up further as they reel of considerable knowledge of past loves and communist pasts. There seems to be more to Jessie at play than simple trade union business. She clearly got under Tommy’s skin and hurt his heart. His good side coming out as he sets out plans to set up institutes for children. Why? Because he promised someone way back when that he’d change the world.

With reference to the song she was listening to, in symbolism, Blackbirds actually represent knowledge. They are known to be carriers of intelligence and quick wit. The powers of a Blackbird are apparently “sacred messenger” and “feminine energy”.  Something to ponder. In an hour filled with subtle gender politics it could be telling.

“You need to be a fucking man”

As a treat, Finn is treated to a prostitute by his caring family (what happened to socks as a gift?) but comes back from the experience almost horrified, as if he’d seen a naked ghost. The fact that he apologised to her causes Tommy much bemusement. Fresh from two scenes where he’s clearly bottling up very raw emotions he tells Finn to man up. Men are men and women are women. It’s that black and white to him and Arthur who, ironically are two men who could do with giving Marley & Me a watch and having a proper good cry. Yes, women in the show are disrespected to an extent but the excellent writing shows male motives up for what they are and the fact it has such brilliantly written, multilayered women means they can get away with showing this old school mentality so blatantly.

“You take Tommy, spare the rest”

So, back to Polly then. Her motives are revealed and its quite a shock to the system. Supping a drink with Luca sat by her side they negotiate in the form of flirting. She offers Tommy as the lamb to his slaughter in offer for the freedom of the rest of the family. Is it a double bluff? Unlikely, as her main motive is to escape to Australia with Michael and that can’t be done with them both dead. Luca doesn’t specifically agree and if if he had, he’s clearly not to be trusted with promises. Or scones. ‘Blackbird’ put the stabilisers on the action but while the pace was more considered, it was an intriguing and strong mid series spectacle. 8/10