Peaky Blinders end: Film spin-off confirmed – It’s all about Tommy, Duke and Finn now

Drama, death and devastation wrapped up the final small screen series for the Birmingham crime blockbuster. There was also justice (or revenge) for Polly with her killers gratifyingly splattered against a wall. The makers have already confirmed it is not the end for the Shelby clan, with sweeping and exciting plans to take the story much further. Steven Knight and the producers had originally planned to make seven series. And he had a very clear plan of where he wanted it to end: “My ambition is to make it a story of a family between two wars, so I always wanted to end it with the first air raid siren in 1939.” However, he has now radically expanded his vision.

Series six closed with Tommy fighting desperately to ensure his legacy. After the devastating death of daughter Ruby, he soon also lost his wife and son. So, what next for the gangster and politician?

Before leaving, his wife Lizzy told him: You are cursed never to understand the limits that other people will expect. Never to be allowed in where everybody else is.”

His son Charlie begged to go with her. Tommy has not been a man to easily let anything go but he hadn’t told them that he was dying of a tuberculoma, with only 18 months to live.

As the final episode played out on screen, fans were already convinced that the scene is now being set for the next generation. Tommy’s illegitimate son Duke (Conrad Khan) has thrown his younger brother Finn Shelby (Harry Kirton) out of the Peaky Blinders.

Tommy shot his cousin, and Polly’s son, Michael Gray (Finn Cole) in the head before Tom Hardy’s Alfie Solomon swaggered back on screen to congratulate him on “justice and housekeeping long overdue.” He charmingly promises that Michael will still go to Heaven while Tommy is “truly f***ed.”

Tommy blows his own mansion up to make way for a new community housing estate and return the family to where they began, in the caravans. He tells Ada (Sophie Rundle) she should be the next family politician and whispers something to Duke.

After 14 years in the lives of the Shelbys and their friend and enemies there has been ending – but it’s not the one we expected. So what comes next?

An epilogue one year later reveals Tommy is about to kill himself before the vision of his dead daughter tells him “You’re not even sick, daddy.” He realises his own doctor, Holford (Aneurin Barnard) lied about his terminal illness and was in league with Oswald Mosley to try and force Tommy to take his own life.

But is a furious Tommy still a killer or has he changed? He tells the terrified doctor: “I am back. Back from under the ground.” He doesn’t shoot Dr Holford but returns to his caravan to find it going up in flames. 

He is not only back from the grave, he is literally a phoenix, rising from the flames with a world beyond going through momentous changes. And Tommy will be, once more, at the heart of the action.

Producer Knight said: “I… have revised the scope of what it is. It will now go into and beyond the Second World War because I just think the energy that is out there in the world for this, I want to keep it going, and I want to see how this can progress beyond that.

“I think of this sixth series as the end of the beginning.”