Peaky Blinders begins in Birmingham in 1919, following the first World War, and tells the
story of the Peaky Blinders gang, consisting mostly of the Shelby family. Decorated veteran
Thomas Shelby is the leader of the gang, which also includes his brothers Arthur, John, and Finn,
and their Aunt Polly. When Tommy comes across an assortment of guns that he thinks he can
use to his advantage, Winston Churchill sends Inspector Campbell to retrieve them.
To help with his mission, Campbell assigns Grace Burgess to go undercover working at the Garrison,
a pub owned by the Peaky Blinders, to gain intel. Of course, as Grace gets closer to Tommy,
the two begin to actually fall in love. This leads to Grace eventually going to
Campbell to resign from her position and trade information on the guns for Tommy’s safety.
But this is slightly complicated when Campbell professes his own desire to marry Grace.
And it’s not just the guns that cause trouble for the Peaky Blinders.
Tommy begins fixing horse races, putting him in opposition with Billy Kimber,
leader of the Birmingham Boys gang that ran the horse tracks.
Elsewhere in series one, the Shelbys’ sister Ada marries and has a son with Freddie Thorne,
Tommy’s best friend. The Shelbys’ father, Arthur Sr., returns to town after abandoning
his family a decade prior and tricks Arthur Jr. into loaning him a large sum of money
before running off again. This sends Arthur Jr. into a bout of depression.
John announces his intentions to marry former prostitute Lizzie,
but when Tommy hires her for himself to prove she wasn’t actually retired from that line of work,
John calls off the wedding. Tommy then arranges for John to marry Esme, daughter of the rival Lee
family, to secure an alliance between the Shelbys and Lees in the fight against Billy Kimber.
In that confrontation between the Peaky Blinders and Billy Kimber, the Peaky Blinders win,
with Tommy putting a bullet in Billy Kimber’s head. As series one comes to an end,
Grace professes her true love for Tommy, but he’s unsure if he can trust her. As he flips
a coin to decide whether or not he should be with her, Grace is confronted by Campbell at gunpoint.
In series two of Peaky Blinders, it’s revealed that Grace shot Campbell,
but he survives. Two years later, Grace has moved to America and gotten married, Freddie
has died from pestilence, and Tommy has plans to expand the Peaky Blinders operations into London,
putting him at odds with Italian gang leader Darby Sabini. Tommy also begins working with the Irish
Republican Army, or IRA, which wants to unite Ireland under one state not under British control.
In Tommy’s attempts to expand operations in London and take down Darby Sabini,
the Peaky Blinders forcefully take control of Darby’s club, The Eden,
and form an alliance with Alfie Solomons, leader of a Jewish gang.
Elsewhere in series two, Arthur’s PTSD from the war sends him spiraling into addiction, leading to
erratic and sometimes violent behavior. Lizzie is hired by Tommy to serve as his secretary. Polly’s
long lost son Michael, taken from her at the age of five, returns home and joins the family
business. And Tommy strikes up a relationship with horse trainer May, which is complicated
when Grace returns to town with her husband, but falls back into bed with Tommy and gets pregnant.
To combat the Peaky Blinders expansion, Darby Sabini offers Alfie Solomons his own deal to
align, causing the Jewish gangster to backstab the Shelbys. This results in both Arthur and Michael
being arrested. Campbell forces Polly to sleep with him in exchange for the release of Michael.
Tommy returns to Alfie Solomons to try again to form an alliance. Alfie was dissatisfied
with Darby’s deal, and agreed to once again unite with the Peaky Blinders.
Alfie manages to get Arthur out of prison as Tommy sets his sights on taking down Darby.
He sends the Peaky Blinders to the Derby Day horse races where they
collect and burn the licenses of Darby’s bookies and steal all of the bet money.
Tommy is then kidnapped on the order of Campbell and taken into a field for execution.
But one of Tommy’s kidnappers turns on the others,
killing them and informing Tommy that Winston Churchill would soon be in touch.
Meanwhile, Polly gets her revenge on Campbell, killing him.
In series three, two years have passed and Tommy and Grace get married. To prevent Lizzie from
bringing her shady new boyfriend Angel to the wedding, the Peaky Blinders burn down
Angel’s restaurant. When Angel’s father Vicente vows to enact revenge on the Shelby family,
a hotheaded John threatens Vicente and beats up Angel. In his own act of revenge,
Vicente orders his men to murder Grace. The death of Grace sends Tommy into a spiral,
resulting in the deaths of Angel and Vicente.
Tommy also finds himself in a business partnership with Arch Duke Romanov,
who has fled to England after the Russian revolution, and the shady Father Hughes,
who tries to threaten Tommy and Grace’s infant son Charlie to keep Tommy in line.
The Russians want the Peaky Blinders to steal guns from a train to aid in their rebellion,
and then blow the train up to cause an international incident. The Russians would
then pay the Peaky Blinders in jewels. Fearing the Russians will betray them,
Tommy also plans on breaking into their vault to steal the jewels. To assist in the heist,
Tommy brings in frenemy Alfie Solomons. Michael also reveals to Tommy that he had
been molested by Father Hughes as a child and asks permission to kill him. Polly,
not wanting her son to commit murder, warns Tommy to not let her son go through it.
Unfortunately for Tommy, Alfie alerts Father Hughes of the Peaky Blinders’ plan.
Hughes kidnaps Charlie and demands Tommy go through with both the train heist
AND the jewel heist, delivering the jewels to Hughes as ransom.
Michael tracks down Hughes and kills him, saving Charlie, John and Arthur blow up the train,
and Tommy leads a team to steal the jewels. The Peaky Blinders plan was pulled off successfully.
Elsewhere in series 3, Arthur marries and has a child with a woman named Linda,
and Ada is made head of the Peaky Blinders’ future office in America.
As the series comes to a close, Tommy begins distributing the loot to his family,
but then drops a massive bombshell on them. Warrants had been made out for the entire
family’s arrest. Tommy assures them all that he had made a deal with someone more
powerful than their enemies that would ensure their release. But that obviously
does little to comfort the Shelby family as the police arrest them and Tommy looks on.
In series 4 of Peaky Blinders, just as the Shelby family are about to be hanged for their crimes,
Tommy secures their release by agreeing to destroy evidence of his working relationship
with Winston Churchill. After the family are rewarded their freedom,
the Shelbys become estranged and go their separate ways.
A year later, each member of the Shelby family receives a letter from Luca Changretta,
marking them for death as retribution for the murders of his father and brother,
Vicente and Angel. John and Michael are gunned down in the street. Michael survives his injuries,
but spends the series recovering, while John tragically succumbs to his wounds.
The Peaky Blinders agree to set aside their differences and come together again
to enact their revenge on Luca and his Sicilian Mafia. They hire professional
killer Aberama Gold to help in their quest for revenge, and Gold agrees to help in
exchange for his boxer son Bonnie being inducted into the Peaky Blinders gang.
Tommy sets up a boxing match for Bonnie to fight Alfie Solomons’ nephew, Goliath. Luca comes to
Alfie to strike a deal in killing Thomas Shelby, which is planned for the upcoming boxing match.
During the fight, Luca’s men seemingly kill Arthur. Defeated, Tommy calls for a meeting
with Luca in his distillery and agrees to sign over his assets to the Sicilian Mafia. But,
of course, this was all a trap set up by Tommy and a very much alive Arthur shows up and kills
Luca. Tommy then pays a visit to Alfie, confronting him for yet another betrayal.
Alfie reveals he has cancer and only took Luca’s deal in the hopes that Tommy would
seek revenge and put him out of his misery. Tommy obliges, shooting Alfie and leaving.
Throughout series four, Polly and Aberama Gold develop a romantic relationship,
as do Tommy and Lizzie, who have a baby together. As the series comes to an end, Tommy decides to
run in the upcoming election to become a Member of Parliament, an election which Tommy wins.
In series five, more years have passed and Thomas Shelby is trying to focus on
being a Member of Parliament and his legitimate businesses
over the business dealings of the Peaky Blinders. He begins meeting with fellow MP Oswald Mosley,
but Ada warns Tommy that Mosley is moving toward Fascism. Tommy decides
to join Mosley’s Fascist movement with the intent of taking them down from the inside.
In America, Michael has been placed in charge of the Shelby’s business and gotten married
to a woman named Gina. When Wall Street crashes, losing most of the Shelby fortune,
Michael and Gina head back home to Birmingham. Rumors begin to circulate that Michael was
trying to overthrow Tommy to take over as head of the Shelby family, but Michael
proclaims his innocence and that a rival gang known as the Billy Boys were the real danger.
And a danger they were! The Billy Boys shoot Aberama Gold and kill his son Bonnie to send
a message to Tommy that they were taking over now. But with their finances in a very precarious
place, the Shelbys and the Peaky Blinders were in no position to go to war with the Billy Boys and
instead call for a truce with Billy Boys leader Jimmy McCavern. This angers the vengeful Gold, but
Tommy offers the killer Polly’s hand in marriage in return. Gold proposes to Polly, who accepts.
To generate more income for the Shelby family,
Tommy strikes a deal with a Chinese Triad businessman named Chang to help him smuggle
opium. At a Shelby family meeting, Michael proposes taking full control of the business,
pushing Tommy into a more background role. Tommy rejects this proposal and banishes
Michael for his attempted coup. With her son out of the family business, Polly decides to resign.
Meanwhile, Arthur and Linda’s marriage begins to fracture, leading them to divorce.
When Mosley’s Fascist agenda begins receiving support from the government,
Tommy realizes the political leader needed to be assassinated, so he recruits his old army
buddy Barney to do the job. Tommy then pays a visit to a very much alive Alfie Solomons and
asks him have his men stage a riot that would serve as a cover for Mosley’s assassination.
The assassination attempt at Oswald Mosley’s fascist rally turns into a complete disaster.
New Peaky Blinders member Billy Grade tips off an unknown person to Tommy’s plans.
This leads to Barney being killed by an unknown assassin before he can kill Mosley.
And when Aberama Gold tries to kill Jimmy McCavern, he is stabbed to death.
Oswald Mosley leaves his successful rally, alive and well, while Tommy is left defeated.
At his lowest point, losing against his toughest enemy yet, Tommy contemplates suicide.