Cancel your Friday night plans. The writer and creator of Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight, has just assigned some essential homework to get us up to speed before watching the show’s first full-length film on Netflix this weekend. Don’t worry, you won’t need pen, paper and a working knowledge of the Pythagoras' theorem for this. All that’s required is a BBC iPlayer or Netflix subscription, and three hours on the sofa.
In a recent interview with Netflix, Knight revealed the three most important Peaky Blinders episodes to watch to prepare for Tommy Shelby’s return to screens. Given the fact that it’s been four years since the sixth and final series aired, this is a welcome whistle-stop recap to help jog our memories and make sure we don’t miss any vital nuance in the new film.
With Cillian Murphy returning as the Birmingham gang boss, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man promises to take us deep into Tommy Shelby’s psyche, including “lots of revelations” that might surprise viewers. But obviously, you can only be surprised if you have some idea of what’s already happened. Here are the facts to brush up on.
What is the new Peaky Blinders movie about?
Taking us to the criminal underbelly of early 20th-century Birmingham, Peaky Blinders is based on a real-life street gang that dominated the city at the time. They were known for their style as much as their exploits – namely, their signature flat cap, nicknamed “peaky”, which they’d pull over victims’ faces so they could get away scot-free. Over six seasons, the TV show fictionalised their crimes and turned them into a global sensation, with Cillian Murphy at the helm as the gang’s leader, Tommy Shelby. The last series was set in the early 1930s, as the Nazis ascended to power in Germany. Now, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man shows Britain in the throes of World War II.
We meet Tommy in exile, having retreated to a secluded mansion with just his henchman for company. But when he hears news of how his son Erasmus, played by Barry Keoghan, is running the Peaky Blinders, Tommy is forced to return to Birmingham to put things right. This isn’t just a case of saving face during gang wars; this is about being on the right side of history as the Nazis hatch a plan to weaken Britain. As the film’s synopsis teases, “With the future of the family and the country at stake, Tommy must face his own demons, and choose whether to confront his legacy, or burn it to the ground.”
Do you need to watch the series to get the movie?
If you’re going into the movie completely blind, all hope is not lost. The Immortal Man was created with newbie watchers in mind, too. During a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything session, Knight was quizzed on how accessible the film would be to first-time Peaky Blinders viewers. His response? “You can come to the movie without ever seeing the series and still get it and hopefully love it.” So even if you don’t have time to cram in his three recommended episodes, you can still enjoy The Immortal Man as a standalone film. That being said…
The three key Peaky Blinders episodes to watch in advance
If you want to get the most out of The Immortal Man, Knight has kindly provided a cheatsheet for your recap binge. There’s no need to lock in for a 36-hour marathon – jump to these three suggestions instead.
That’s right – it’s time to rewind back to the very beginning. Peaky Blinders’ first ever episode drops us right in on the action, while revealing key information about Tommy Shelby and his inner circle. “It really lays out what this whole series is about,” explains Knight in his Netflix interview. “It introduces Tommy Shelby in a way that makes it pretty unequivocal about who this person is.” And although the episode itself is action packed, one of the key scenes doesn’t involve any violence or crime at all. "We see him riding on a horse in an industrial landscape. No words. Just his look, the way he is, the attitude,” says Knight. “It really says so much about what Peaky is going to be about. The whole episode is essential to know exactly what this family is and what they do, and why they are so fearsome.”
Next on Knight’s watchlist is series two’s finale, which sees Shelby come close to death. The writer’s particularly fond of this episode because it “features [his] favourite sequence of the whole series.” The scene in question sees Shelby kidnapped and taken to a field, where it seems like he might take his last breath. “There are three people around him with guns, he's unarmed, they've already dug his grave,” Knight explains. “He asks for time to smoke a cigarette and, in that moment, he reviews his life: his regrets, the things he wishes he had done. I think as an audience we think maybe this is it.” Of course, there’s a twist that enables him to live on for another series. But the significance of the scene runs much deeper. “What that gives us is: here is a man who is not sure if he wants to live or die, and in this moment, at the end of episode six, we can see that he actually wants to choose life.”
The last task on your pre-cinema to-do list is a rewatch of Peaky Blinders’ final episode, providing a neat full circle moment from series one’s opening. “It ties up a lot of things. It resolves a lot of things,” explains Knight. “But at the end, it is a resolution of a sort, in that Tommy is confronted with someone who has attempted to kill him and deceive him, and he has a gun in his hand and he can shoot that person.” The way Tommy responds to this moment reveals a lot about the journey he’s been on over the six series. “He decides not to [kill him]. The Tommy previous to that would have done that,” says Knight. “He puts the gun away, goes back to his horse, and he rides away into the sunsight.” Eagle-eyed viewers will notice a symbolic detail in this moment, too. “The horse he rides away on is a white horse. The horse he arrived on at the beginning of the series was a black horse. There is a contrast between the two moments and maybe we believe that Tommy is cured.”
