Peaky Blinders season 5 recap: including all the enemies, plots and parties to remember for season 6
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Almost 10 years after the Shelbys first burst onto our screens, the sixth and final series of Peaky Blinders is about to land. It's safe to say that this fictional family has been through a lot; births, death, marriages and a lot of whiskey and even more fighting. So, as we get ready for series 6 - the first instalment since 2019, and the last ever series (until the film, that is), here's our handy recap of all of season five's biggest drama.
The Wall Street Crash
Okay, let's start where the series itself begins, in 1929. In the first episode, titled 'Black Tuesday', we see the family grappling with the fallout from the 1929 Wall Street crash.
Michael Gray (Finn Cole), Polly's son, was in New York looking after the business's finances and unfortunately had ignored Tommy (Cillian Murphy) when he foresaw the crash and told Michael to pull their money and investments.
As a result the Shelby business has lost a huge amount of money and a wedge has been driven between Tommy and Michael after the latter refused to take instruction from the head of the family.
Michael Grey
Having wound up Tommy (never a wise move), Michael returns to England to plead his case. He brings with him his new American wife Gina (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is pregnant with their first child.
When Michael returns to the Shelby family many of whom are convinced he is a traitor, especially Tommy. After encouragement from Gina, who seems to be pretty power hungry and fearless, Michael makes a bid for power towards the end of series 5, suggesting that the rest of the family should step down from the company and he and Gina take over. Clearly, this doesn't go down well with Tommy who banishes the pair from the family and company, telling them never to return.
Tommy's Political Career & Oswald Mosley
While the company finances have taken a beating Tommy's political career is going from strength to strength. Now MP for Birmingham Tommy is spending a lot of time debating in The Houses of Parliament and working late hours in his MP office.
While he wants to do right by the people of his community he is also spending a lot of time working for the British intelligence services, feeding them information about an increasingly popular fascist called Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin), who he has worked to get close to.
Tommy has worked his way up in Mosley's party, planning to take over and change the ideological direction once he has overthrown him, but when that doesn't work, and as Mosley's dangerous ideology gains traction Tommy takes matters into his own hands. Believing that the intelligence services aren't doing enough, he hatches a plan to have Mosley assassinated.
However, right at the end of the series we see that Tommy's assassination attempt of Mosley has gone wrong, due to youngest Shelby brother Finn accidentally spilling the beans to the wrong people.
Polly's engagement
After striking up a connection back in series 4, Polly and Romany Gypsey hitman-for-hire Aberama Gold get engaged early on is season 5. Aberama, played by Game of Thrones star Aidan Gillen, and Polly's romance is one of the happier parts of series five.
However towards the end of the series Aberama is ambushed and killed by The Billy Boys, rival gang from Scotland who earlier in the series killed Aberama's son Bonnie Gold.
Helen McCrory, who played Polly, sadly passed away back in April 2021 and as a result her character will not appear throughout the whole series. Speaking to Radio Times Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight explained:
"To begin with, Polly was in the series and then incrementally bit by bit, it became apparent that there was less and less she would be able to do. And so in the end, we'd reached a point where we knew that she couldn't be in it at all."
Instead viewers should expect a tribute to Polly and to Helen herself which the cast and crew worked on for some time.
"It was really moving. It was really moving, especially actually filming that moment because it's all tied up with the character and with Helen herself," explained Sophie Rundle who plays Ada Shelby.
Ada and Ben Younger
Season 5 saw Ada Shelby (Rundle) strike up a relationship with Colonel Ben Younger (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Tommy's British Intelligence contact, and the happy couple quickly fall pregnant.
However,in further proof that Ada cannot catch a break, Younger is killed by a car bomb placed in his vehicle. Even worse, he is killed directly after Tommy has given him a crucial piece of intelligence.
Peaky Blinders series 6 will return to BBC One at 9pm on 27 February. Series 1-5 are available on BBC iPlayer now.
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