Warning: This article contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season 6.
Tommy Shelby’s tragic Peaky Blinders ending has already been set up by season 6. Cillian Murphy’s bright-eyed Birmingham gangster was diagnosed with an inoperable tuberculoma in the base of his brain. That chilling diagnosis followed the tragedies of Polly’s death and Ruby’s death, which combined to make Peaky Blinders season 6 the darkest chapter of the Shelby story yet, and now Tommy has more tragedy to come. Looking at Tommy’s story, none of this should come as a surprise.
Peaky Blinders has long wrestled with the idea that Tommy himself and the Shelbys as a clan are cursed. The deaths of Grace (Annabelle Wallis) and John (Joe Cole) led to speculation that the Shelbys’ Romani blood was cursed, with further revelations about the suicide of Tommy’s mother adding to his belief in the curse. Despite Tommy’s rise in both the criminal and political worlds, everything seems to have come with a cost, as Tommy’s own fears over being dethroned by a rival like Michael Gray pulled the wolves in closer. While Polly warned Tommy that either he or Michael would die at the end of their war, a different Polly line actually explains why Tommy is doomed even better.
None of Tommy’s issues should have come as a surprise to anyone paying attention to Peaky Blinders‘ story. As recently as season 5, Polly Gray had offered a prophetic warning to any Shelby family member who sought to escape their life. Polly herself was looking for a way to escape “the life”, hoping to go to Australia with Michael as tensions rose within the Shelby family after Tommy’s fears of betrayal. She said: “We all try to get away. But we never do,” sadly, confirming the reality of the Shelby curse and foreshadowing Tommy Shelby’s death at the end of Peaky Blinders season 6. He’s always been doomed and the Shelby curse isn’t merely that their crimes are revisited on them, but rather that they cannot escape sinning even when they want to.
Why Tommy Shelby Was Always Going To Die In Season 6
Polly’s death at the start of Peaky Blinders season 6 was tragic on several levels, not least because of her long-running dreams of wanting to escape to Australia with Michael. And it’s all made more tragic by the fact Polly seemed aware it could never happen thanks to that line earlier in season 5. Her death confirmed her fears, but also confirmed ahead of Tommy’s fatal diagnosis that his attempts throughout Peaky Blinders season 6 to escape his life of crime – partly in search of forgiveness of Polly herself – were always doomed to fail. In Peaky Blinders‘ second last episode, Tommy admitted that his search for a legitimate life was just another side of his greed for power: the more he becomes aware of the intricacies of politics, the more he realizes it’s nothing more than a different racket. And in people like Mosley and Jack Nelson, Tommy has found even more dangerous villains than he’s ever known, who are made worse by the protection afforded to them by their legitimate roles.
In seeking an escape before Peaky Blinders season 6’s ending, Tommy has been confronted by two painful realities both centered around his fate. He will never “go straight” or get out, because he was never really seeking that, and even if he had, the curse that he fears would find him out in the end is closing its grip on him. Earlier in season 6, Peaky Blinders warned Tommy of a coming devil and the grey man, and even without Michael, Mosley and Nelson seeking to kill him, Tommy was always doomed to meet his death. Will it come at the end of Peaky Blinders season 6 or will it happen in the promised movie spin-off? Time will tell, but the end is coming and it will see Tommy’s bleak midwinter eulogy.
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