Get Ready for Peaky Blinders Season 5: Recap of Seasons 1-4 | Netflix

Subtitles section Play video

Hello there.
In anticipation of the long-awaited Season 5 of Peaky Blinders,
we thought it would be good to catch everyone up on what's happened with the Shelby family
and their gang over the past several years.
It has been quite a tumultuous time, after all.
Right then, so, we're going to run through the main characters of Season 1 before we dive in,
and we're going to do it quickly.
Very, very quickly.
And here we go:
Tommy Shelby is the second oldest brother, in charge of the family
and more importantly, the family business.
And for the sake of summary and concision here,
he's the main character of this particular program.
Arthur Shelby is the eldest brother, and Tommy's right-hand man.
John Shelby is the third oldest, and he is also deeply involved in the family business.
Then we've got the sister, Ada Shelby,
her communist fiancé, Freddie Thorne,
and also their aunt Polly Gray.
Polly ran the business while the three boys were over in France fighting the Huns.
On the other side of the fence you've got Chief Inspector Chester Campbell,
who is a massive prick to the Shelby family,
his beautiful undercover agent, Grace Burgess,
and the racetrack-running gangster, Billy Kimber,
who – if we're being forthright here – is also a fairly huge prick.
Oh, and also, they're called the “Peaky Blinders” because they sew razorblades
into the brims of their caps to use as a weapon.
Properly badass.
OK, onto the meat of the matter.
We start in 1918 Birmingham, England
in the charming neighborhood of Small Heath,
with the Shelby family,
an Irish-Romani family of bookmakers.
But you already know about them.
As we discussed, the three eldest brothers run the Shelby Company Limited
after all returning from fighting in France during the Great War–
you probably know it as World War I,
where Tommy won several medals for valor.
Birmingham is an industrial and downright gritty place,
and most of the people who live there are hard laborers–
steel workers and boatsmen and the like.
But not the Shelbys.
The Shelbys have shirked their humble beginnings
and are de-facto bosses of the city in which they were raised.
Tommy wants to knock off the main racetrack bookmaker in the region,
Billy Kimber, to make the Blinders the largest bookmaking operation around,
and sets out an elaborate plan to enact this.
Beginning, of course, with stealing an enormous cache of machine guns–
which are quite new and fancy and very hard to come by at this time–
as well as a full lorrie's worth of ammunition, from the local BSA factory.
Since it is suspected that the Peaky Blinders were behind the robbery,
“If you see any guns,
check the serial numbers against that list.”
the IRA, communists, and British government (in the form of Major Campbell)
are all in town looking for them,
and looking for them very hard indeed.
With great purpose.
“What bloody guns, Tommy?”
Now at this juncture, Tommy purposely starts a war with the Lees,
another travelling Romani family,
and proceeds to use the hidden guns as leverage to play all the parties off against each other.
“What's our mission, boy?”
“To stick it to the Lee family, Arthur!”
Basically, everyone wants the guns,
but only Tommy knows where they are hidden away,
and well, you get the idea.
He's basically untouchable under this particular arrangement.
“I'm in your hands, completely.”
“But if you marry her,
our family and the Lee family will be united forever,
and this war will be over.
Now, it's up to you, John.
War... or peace.”
But after an encounter with the IRA at the Peaky-owned pub,
The Garrison goes awry and ends with two extremely dead Irishmen on the floor.
Tommy is betrayed by his barmaid Grace,
who as I mentioned earlier was an undercover officer
working for the Chief Inspector and the fuckin' Crown.
So the government recovers the guns, effectively destroying his hand.
Tommy is properly fucked.
With the investigation into the missing guns all wrapped up,
Major Campbell declares his love for Grace,
but she rejects him
as he later learns that she has fallen for Tommy during her time undercover.
Which, of course, the Major is not too pleased to hear.
With the IRA dealt with
and Winston Churchill recalling the Chief Inspector to London,
but also with no leverage to speak of,
the Shelby family seeks a new way to protect themselves from Kimber
and his frankly much larger operation.
After much rumination and whiskey,
Tommy settles on John marrying a Lee daughter–
unbeknownst to John, unfortunately.
But meaning that the Shelbys and the Lees are now allied–
which is fantastic news from an organizational-security standpoint.
“Yeah, all right.”
The boys seek to stand off against Kimber at the racetracks way out of town,
but are betrayed again,
and with the Lee clan en route to the wrong location,
Kimber and his men come to Birmingham, right to Small Heath,
to kill the Blinders.
And of course there are no coppers about
because Major Campbell has recalled them all from the streets.
A tense standoff in the street is ended when Kimber opens fire,
clipping Tommy and killing Danny Whizbang, a good man.
Tommy promptly puts a bullet in Kimber's head,
declares that they had fought this war one-on-one,
and that Kimber had lost.
Everyone then disperses.
Now for the big Season 1 cliffhanger,
which I for one don't think anyone saw coming.
In the final scenes, we see Detective Campbell,
humiliated and furious that Grace has fallen for Tommy and not him,
raise his pistol to her face on the train tracks,
cutting to black before we hear a single gunshot.
What the fuck?
Did he kill her?
Apparently, we will have to wait.
But no need to wait too long because, hey, we're already back with Season 2 of Peaky Blinders,
or at least a brief little retelling of it.
We've got all the same characters as Season 1, with a few new additions:
Finn Shelby, who is no longer a small child but a teenager,
nearly a man, learning the family business.
Michael Gray, Polly's estranged son,
and Esme Lee, now Shelby, the shotgun bride of John from the previous season.
We've also got Alfie Solomons, the leader of the Jewish gang down in London,
and of course, Darby Sabini,
the volatile leader of the Italian gang that controls most of England's capital city,
and just a nasty little fellow all-around.
Remember a few minutes ago when I told you that Chief Inspector Campbell tried to shoot Grace at the train station?
Well, guess what?
That sneaky lass has a hidden purse-gun and she shot first,
seriously – but not mortally – wounding him such that he walks with a limp and a cane now.
Sometimes that's the way it goes.
And he's a complete tosser anyways.
So, onto the main event.
Several years later, we find the Peaky Blinders in Birmingham's Small Heath,
with Shelby Company Limited running smoothly and making a lot of money.
But almost immediately – and I mean, like, first few minutes of Episode 1 –
The Garrison, Tommy's pub, is blown up by the IRA,
who, it turns out, are interested in having him commit a murder on their behalf.
Hell of a way to get a man's attention.
Tommy also decides that this, of all times, is the time for the Blinders to move into London,
where the rival Italian and Jewish gangs are engaged in a brutal turf war.
Suffice to say, there's a lot going on for the Shelbys at the moment...
“You blew up my pub.”
...which is not lost on Polly and Esme,
who are not really on board with the rapid expansion plans that Tommy has unilaterally begun.
On a brighter note, Tommy discovers the child that Polly had taken from her when she was young,
a teenager named Michael,
and the two are – with some trouble – reunited.
“I think she might be my mother.”
After a tense negotiation, Tommy agrees to ally with Alfie Solomons and his Jewish gang,
and the Blinders start taking over London swiftly and without mercy.
To borrow a phrase from Mr. Sabini,
Alfie had “invited a horde of wild animals, and unlocked the fucking gates.”
“My face is the last thing you'll ever see on earth.”
In the meantime, a faction of the IRA has allied themselves with Major Campbell,
who is tasked by Winston Churchill with the assassination of a British military official,
and who has decided that Tommy is to be the triggerman.
“There are fucking rules for a fucking reason.
Quite simply they have to be obeyed.
All right?”
The gang heads to London to buy a horse and carry out the task at hand,
“Thomas Shelby!”
and are attacked by Sabini's men, killing or wounding all of the assassins.
As it turns out, Sabini's triggermen were no match for Arthur and John's rage.
“The pro-treaty Paddies and the King want the same man dead.”
After a night of violent revenge against Sabini,
“This place is under new management
by order of the Peaky Blinders.”
the Blinders are betrayed by Alfie in favor of Sabini,
and Arthur is framed in London for the murder of Billy Kitchen, a Blinders lieutenant,
and sentenced to the gallows.
Back in Birmingham, Michael is arrested by Campbell due to the spite he holds for Tommy and his brothers.
Tommy is able to strike a deal with Major Campbell for Michael and Arthur's freedom,
even though his eventual plan is to betray Tommy upon the completion of his assasination task.
You see, Campbell is intent on blaming the assassination on a specific faction of the IRA,
which would spark an all-out civil war back in Ireland.
John blows up the residence of Tommy's target,
making it possible to move the actual assassination to the location of Sabini's biggest horse race.
At the race, Tommy is approached by Grace,
who has returned from America to tell him that the child she is pregnant with is his.
Tommy departs to kill the military official,
while Polly corners and kills Major Campbell with a single shot to the heart.
“Don't fuck with the Peaky Blinders.”
The ensuing panic draws all the police away from the track,
and the Blinders move in to take over the betting operations.
Unfortunately, Tommy is abducted by three IRA members in police uniforms,
under the orders of the now-deceased Campbell.
But as he stands over a rural grave, waiting to be shot,
one of his would-be assassins shoots the other two,
informing Tommy that Churchill still needs him in the future.
Overwhelmed with emotion,
Tommy sets off home to propose to Grace,
telling no one of what just happened.
And there we have Season 2.
You get to catch up on it right fuckin' away, don't you?
You lucky bastards.
As we open on Season 3, two years later, things are going very well for our boy Tommy.
He lives in a palatial estate outside of the city – I mean this thing looks like a proper castle –
and it is the day of his wedding to the love of his life, Grace.
The wedding is beautiful and joyous, but at the reception following the ceremony,
we learn that Tommy has business plans tonight, too,
plans with the Russians.
And a little killing, too.
For students of history, around this time there was something in Russia called the Bolshevik Revolution.
Communists took over the government, created the USSR, and oh yes,
killed off as much of the Royal Family as they could find.
Some of the Romanovs managed to escape to the West,
and these are the ones Tommy finds himself meeting with on his wedding night.
The Russians tell him they are interested in protection,
given their precarious political standing in the country,
and while feigning poverty for the government,
have a copious amount of jewels and treasure they smuggled into the country.
As payment, Tommy is offered a truly enormous sapphire necklace, which he gives to his new wife, Grace.
Prior to the wedding, the Blinders burn down an Italian-owned shop in town,
to dissuade its owner, Angel Changretta, from attending the wedding as Lizzie's date.
Angel's father confronts them about this,
and John responds by blinding Angel.
This will come up again in a bit.
Around this same time, Tommy is approached by a priest,
a very odd priest who claims to represent a very odd group: The Oddfellows.
The Oddfellows, otherwise known as the Economic League, is a shady group of wealthy right-wing elites in Britain,
who are very interested in making sure that labor movements like that of the Bolsheviks don't take hold in the West.
In Tommy's case, they are supposedly interested in facilitating an arms deal
between the Blinders and the Russians, but we'll talk more about that later.
At a party the following evening, Tommy is laughingly informed by the Russian princess, Tatiana,
that the necklace he has been paid with bears a curse.
He rushes to find Grace, who is wearing it,
but it is too late,
and an Italian gunman hired by Angel fires a shot meant for Tommy directly into her heart.
Furious, Tommy retreats to his home,
but not before sending John and Arthur out to kill Angel and his parents.
But since Mrs. Changretta had been the boys' schoolteacher growing up in Small Heath,
they allow her to leave on the condition she not tell Tommy.
Tommy plans to torture the old man,
but Arthur takes pity, and puts a bullet in his head before he can.
Meanwhile, Tommy sits down with the Russians to negotiate the terms of the planned arms deal.
With the help of Alfie, an accord is struck whereby the Blinders will be given 70,000 pounds in jewelry
in exchange for a fleet of armored tanks.
But it quickly becomes clear that Tommy has larger plans than that –
he does not trust the Russians one bit, and plans to rob them blind, taking everything.
In a late-night, let's say rendezvous, between Tommy and Tatiana,
Tommy tells Tatiana that he needs to kill the Priest, who has been lying to them
and is acting as a spy for interests other than their own.
She agrees.
The next day, he places a bullet with Father Hughes' name on it in his pistol
and sets out to kill the bastard, but Hughes anticipated the attack,
and Tommy is beaten within an inch of his life by the Priest's men.
The Priest and the rest of the Oddfellows allow Tommy to live,
under the condition that he apologize to him in front of the Russians,
and also with the threat that failure to do so will result in the death of Tommy's only son.
A bleak situation indeed.
After a truly crazy night of revelment at the Russians–
the goal of which was to access the floorplans–
the boys return home and begin laying out plans for a tunnel from outside the grounds,
directly into the vault.
Tommy was a tunneler in France, remember.
The following morning, as Grace's funeral service wraps up,
Father Hughes approaches Tommy to inform him of the Oddfellow's plans for him.
As it turns out, the arms deal was indeed a set-up,
with the larger goal of blowing up the whole sale, killing several rail workers,
and pinning it on the new Bolshevik government,
which would in turn cause the British government to cut off diplomatic ties with the Communists.
And guess who is tasked with this whole mess of a plan?
To ensure Tommy's compliance, the Oddfellows kidnap his son,
“We have your son.”
leaving him with no choice but to carry out the Economic League's wishes.
It's a race against the clock however,
as the robbery and bombing are set to take place literally minutes apart from each other.
As a good heap of the Blinders, led by Michael, take off looking for Tommy's young son,
Tommy himself heads to the tunnel, and Arthur, John, and Finn head to the railyard
to set up the dynamite.
The plan is: if the child is rescued before the bombing is set to occur,
it is to be called off.
But if not, well...
Boom.
The robbery goes off without a hitch,
and the Blinders find the Priest with Tommy's son before the explosion as well -
but Michael, impetuous to kill the Priest himself due to abuse he had suffered
at Hughes' hands as a young boy - takes a very long time to finish the job
almost dying himself at one point
“Who wants to be in heaven when you can be sending men to fuckin' hell?”
and by the time Finn is informed of the child's safety,
“Charlie's safe!”
the train is blown to utter smithereens.
Well, at least one thing went according to plan this evening,
as Tommy returns with all of the Russian royal's treasure, having completely cleaned them out.
And his son is safe, which is worth even more.
It's revealed that all of this was a plan he had cooked up with Princess Tatiana,
who is the mystery buyer Tommy had lined up for the jewels all along.
Back at his estate, Tommy gathers the family to distribute the large piles
of cash they have all been promised from the proceeds of the robbery.
Unfortunately, he also informs everyone gathered
that due to the influence of the Oddfellows in the British government,
they are all to be arrested and sent to the executioner for their various crimes.
As the season comes to a close, Tommy swears that he will get them all out before
they are hanged. And all the Shelby's, except for him, are hauled off by the Police.
Guess what? We've got a whole season left, Season 4.
To start off we see Arthur, John, Michael, and Polly all being led to the gallows,
where despite Tommy's explicit promises at the end of Season 3,
it appears they will meet their fate at the end of the hangman's rope.
However, at the last moment, they are saved,
as Tommy has ransomed letters from the King implicating the Crown
in the previous season's train bombing fiasco for their safety.
Oh, and Tommy also gets a knighthood for himself as a little cherry on top.
“Thomas Shelby has asked for the king to award him an OBE, sir.”
Jumping forward a year later, the Shelby family is in utter disarray.
John and Arthur live out in the country with their families,
and Polly is back in her peaceful townhome, drinking herself positively mad.
It seems like everyone was permanently fucked up from their brush with the executioner,
which is reasonable,
but that doesn't keep the demons of the Shelby family from coming back to haunt them.
If you'll recall, a few years back the brothers killed a man named Vincente Changretta,
the husband of their old school teacher.
Well,
Vincente's son, Luca, is now the head of the New York Mafia – yes, that mafia –
and has come to England to declare vendetta on the Shelbys,
and heralds this by delivering a “black hand” to everyone.
It's a mafia practice whereby if you receive one,
you are properly fucked.
After killing a Mafia spy in his estate's kitchen staff,
Tommy makes the decision that the entire family is to move back to their old neighborhood of Small Heath in Birmingham,
where they can be protected by the locals, who are loyal to the Blinders.
Everyone but John agrees, and while Michael visits him at his rural home to convince him to change his mind,
they are ambushed by Luca's Tommy-Gun wielding hatchetmen,
leaving Michael seriously injured and John dead.
Tommy also enlists the help of a fellow Romany named Abarama Gold,
who we quickly learn is a ruthless killer and the father of an excellent young prize fighter.
Abarama sets out to kill as many Italians as he can, and quickly dispatched four of Luca's men,
two at John's funeral
and two in an outright ambush on the Changretta car as it passed through the woods.
Luca himself escapes unharmed,
and absolutely spitting mad.
The next day, a labor dispute leaves one of Tommy's factories unguarded,
and two Mafia hitmen enter through the back door looking to kill Arthur.
Luckily, Arthur is a fuckin' maniac and kills them both–
one of them by hitting him with a hammer and then drowning him in paint!
Very Arthur, I think we can all agree.
Tommy has also recently grown his liquor exportation business–
remember, there's prohibition in the U.S. at this time–
and is now making gin, a popular drink amongst wealthy American women at the time.
But more on this in a tick.
The family learns of a plot to lure Arthur to an apartment of a family enemy,
and sets up a trap for the Mafia assassins.
Sometimes even the Blinders get their information wrong,
and it turns out Luca has taken his men to the hospital where Michael is convalescing.
Killing the guard posted by the room, Luca storms in and places a pistol to Michael's forehead,
but instead of pulling the trigger informs him that he is to be spared.
Although it is somewhat unclear at this point,
it seems that Polly has struck a deal to give up Tommy in exchange for her and Michael's lives.
“The boy in the hospital is out of bounds.
And I'll ask you to spare Finn and Arthur.”
“In return for what?”
No action is without equal and opposite reaction,
and following the threat on Michael's life, Tommy sets up a trap in the familiar alleys of Small Heath,
luring the Changretta crew into an open courtyard before firing on them
with a truly gigantic machine gun he never gave back in Season 1.
A firefight occurs throughout the town and its tenements, with Tommy killing all but one of Luca's men.
As the two leaders seemingly agree to duel with pistols in the street,
the police show up, and Luca flees.
At this point, Luca reaches out to Alfie Solomons, in hopes that Alfie will give him better access to the Shelby clan
than he's been able to achieve thus far on his own.
Alfie's nephew is set to square off against Abarama Gold's son in a boxing match,
and Luca pays Alfie for access to the venue – where the entire Shelby family will be.
As the day of the bout approaches, the family is tense but generally excited for the fight.
Aware of the still-present threat, after the match begins.
Arthur follows a suspicious looking man into a back hallway and is ambushed and seemingly killed.
A wild-eyed Tommy bursts in and shoots the assassin,
and then storms back into the arena to furiously announce that Arthur is no more.
Later, the family is approached by Mrs. Changretta,
who claims that her son will end the vendetta in exchange for all the Shelby businesses and assets.
Absolutely all of it.
Tommy agrees, and the next day he meets Luca and his men at the Shelby Gin distillery to sign the papers.
Unbeknownst to Luca however, Tommy has made a deal with the other Mafia families of New York,
and now Luca's men work for them.
Just like that, the other families can take over all of the Changretta territory without a fight,
because it appears Luca was killed in a personal feud with a random bookmaker all the way over in England.
Everybody wins.
Except Luca of course, because moments later Arthur bursts into the room,
his death having been a hoax,
and shoots Luca right in the forehead,
as he had promised he would in vengeance for John's murder.
With the war over, Tommy decides it is time to move on to new business.
Offering valuable information on the Communist Party – and betraying a few close friends in doing so –
Tommy is granted a role in Parliament.
In the final moments, we see him and his family descending the steps of the state house,
prepared to take on this new chapter in the Shelby family's future.
And that's that folks!
We will see you soon, in the first episode of the much awaited Season 5–
by order of the Peaky Blinders.