A Look Back at Peaky Blinders Season 5's Shocking Finale

Peaky Blinders season five may have just hit the U.S. airwaves via Netflix, but both American and U.K. fans are already in a furor online over one particularly shocking twist from the show's season finale. For those who haven't made it through the latest season yet and want to avoid being spoiled, now is the time to look away.

Spoilers below for Peaky Blinders season 5.

Alfie Solomons is back, and fans of the Jewish mobster are officially freaking out. Solomons, a longtime fan favorite played by Tom Hardy, made his triumphant return in the series final of season 5—a major surprise considering the character made his apparent exit from the show at the end of season 4 when he was shot in the head by series protagonist Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy.)

For most shows that would seem like a pretty definitive end—even we at T&C predicted that Hardy wouldn't be showing back up in the role this season—but fans of the foul-mouthed gangster started positing theories soon after Solomons's apparent death that he could, in fact, have survived the injury, considering that the audience is never actually shown Solomons's body.

Of course, that wasn't the only evidence backing them up. Back in January of 2018, Paul Anderson, who plays Arthur Shelby, stoked the flames of speculation, telling Digital Spy, "I didn't know [Solomons's death] was coming. We were unsure... there was a whole thing about whether or not Alfie would live or die, or get shot or not. It was up for debate and discussion."

When asked point-blank by the Birmingham Mail in 2018 if Solomons was really dead, creator Steven Knight responded succinctly with, "Pass."

Then prior to the season five debut, Knight raised the hopes for fans of Alfie Solomons further, saying to JOE that "I don’t like to kill any characters off." He tempered expectations slightly, adding that most of the time the character deaths on his shows are prompted by an actor being unavailable—an issue that was very much the case with Hardy, who has been busy filming for Venom and the Al Capone biopic Fonzo. Nonetheless, the show was obviously able to make the scheduling work, since Solomons did indeed return in the last episode of season five to once again pitch in with the plans of his sometimes-enemy, sometimes-ally Tommy Shelby.

Solomons's state was briefly hinted at during the season, when Tommy responded to a question by another mobster, Jimmy McCavern (Brian Gleeson), about organizing men in London by saying, "I would suggest the most competent organiser of men in the south is Alfie Solomons." McCavern countered that Solomons was dead and Tommy, never one to show his cards, remained silent on the matter.

When Solomons did finally make his reappearance in the last episode of the season, fans were positively beside themselves with excitement, taking to Twitter to share their joy.

While Solomons is looking a little the worse for wear after meeting with Tommy's bullet and the issue of his potentially terminal cancer remains unresolved, for fans of Camden's premiere Jewish gangster, season six is definitely looking up.

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