Peaky Blinders season 5 episode 6 review: Horrifying finale proves Tommy Shelby will never lose us

We’ve somehow blinked and an entire season of Peaky Blinders is over and done with for another season, but dear God what a way to go.

To use Blinders parlance, Tommy (Cillian Murphy), is absolutely f***ed, with his plan to assassinate Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin) going so horrifically wrong that the series ended with him having a gun to his own head.

The mental health of the Shelby boys has been at play throughout the past six episodes, but it seems that both Tommy and Arthur (Paul Anderson) have actually finally snapped, and with it goes an entire gangster dynasty.

Michael (Finn Cole) is already waiting in the wings with wife Gina (Anya Taylor-Joy) with an offer to get them out and take over the business in one fell swoop, something that for reasons of pure stubbornness it seems, Tommy declines.

Tommy is a headstrong man and what he says goes 90% of the time, but he’s not God, and he can’t control everything, and in his mind, he’s never wrong. It’s dangerous.

Even when his brother is begging him to stop, even when he loses his closest ally Polly, and even as he resorts to dealing with people he would normally avoid, he thinks he’s doing it right.

Saddest thing is, he is genuinely trying to be a better person, and create a better world, but his terms for that just aren’t going to come without consequences.

So when his plan to kill Mosley gets out and is heard by the wrong ears, fan favourite Aberama Gold (Aidan Gillan) is ultimately the one who pays the price.

Aberama was a joy this season and so it’s sad to see him go in such an ungraceful way, left to bleed out in a stage wing as the Blinders scramble to safety.

Then we have Barney Thompson (Cosmo Jarvis), who was only in the show for one episode, but has already become a meme and won over the hearts of the viewers. (It’s f***ing Wednesdayyyy.)

Unfortunately for him his time was brutally cut short, and before he had the chance to complete his mission and kill Oswald Mosley, he was shot in the head by a mystery assailant.

We barely knew ye.

Aberama’s fiancée Polly (Helen McCrory) is going to be hellbent on revenge, though who she’s going to take aim at remains to be seen. Even she can see that Tommy’s plans are melting faster than his capacity to keep things in order, and she’s had enough.

The assassination attempt which collapses within seconds because someone (read: more than likely Finn (Harry Kirton)) let it slip to the wrong person (in this case, it appears to be Billy Grade (Emmett J Scanlan) who’s quietly infiltrated the company).

Things aren’t complete doom and gloom though, with the delightful return of the best friend/worst enemy, comic relief/absolute horror that is Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy).

Back from the dead with nothing but a jippy eye and a nasty scar to show for it.

It’s a shame this wasn’t kept under wraps entirely with the nod to his still-being-alive dropping last week and making his reappearance all but an absolute certainty. But regardless, Hardy chews up every last bit of that dank Margate house scenery like he’s been there the whole time.

His tete-a-tete banter with Tommy is still there and as brilliant as ever, and it’s a real testament to both Hardy and Murphy over just how well they bounce off each other.

If he’s back for season six in its entirety, we won’t be mad at all.

After all, there is a lot to tie up next season between Mosley, the Billy Boys, the new mystery Big Bad and by the looks of it, the dissolution of the Blinders. It would be good to have someone around to take the sting out of the bleakness.