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Hello there.
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In anticipation of the long-awaited Season 5 of Peaky Blinders,
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we thought it would be good to catch everyone up on what's happened with the Shelby family
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and their gang over the past several years.
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It has been quite a tumultuous time, after all.
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Right then, so, we're going to run through the main characters of Season 1 before we dive in,
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and we're going to do it quickly.
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Very, very quickly.
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And here we go:
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Tommy Shelby is the second oldest brother, in charge of the family
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and more importantly, the family business.
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And for the sake of summary and concision here,
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he's the main character of this particular program.
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Arthur Shelby is the eldest brother, and Tommy's right-hand man.
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John Shelby is the third oldest, and he is also deeply involved in the family business.
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Then we've got the sister, Ada Shelby,
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her communist fiancé, Freddie Thorne,
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and also their aunt Polly Gray.
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Polly ran the business while the three boys were over in France fighting the Huns.
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On the other side of the fence you've got Chief Inspector Chester Campbell,
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who is a massive prick to the Shelby family,
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his beautiful undercover agent, Grace Burgess,
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and the racetrack-running gangster, Billy Kimber,
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who – if we're being forthright here – is also a fairly huge prick.
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Oh, and also, they're called the “Peaky Blinders” because they sew razorblades
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into the brims of their caps to use as a weapon.
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Properly badass.
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OK, onto the meat of the matter.
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We start in 1918 Birmingham, England
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in the charming neighborhood of Small Heath,
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with the Shelby family,
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an Irish-Romani family of bookmakers.
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But you already know about them.
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As we discussed, the three eldest brothers run the Shelby Company Limited
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after all returning from fighting in France during the Great War–
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you probably know it as World War I,
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where Tommy won several medals for valor.
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Birmingham is an industrial and downright gritty place,
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and most of the people who live there are hard laborers–
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steel workers and boatsmen and the like.
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But not the Shelbys.
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The Shelbys have shirked their humble beginnings
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and are de-facto bosses of the city in which they were raised.
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Tommy wants to knock off the main racetrack bookmaker in the region,
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Billy Kimber, to make the Blinders the largest bookmaking operation around,
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and sets out an elaborate plan to enact this.
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Beginning, of course, with stealing an enormous cache of machine guns–
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which are quite new and fancy and very hard to come by at this time–
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as well as a full lorrie's worth of ammunition, from the local BSA factory.
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Since it is suspected that the Peaky Blinders were behind the robbery,
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“If you see any guns,
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check the serial numbers against that list.”
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the IRA, communists, and British government (in the form of Major Campbell)
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are all in town looking for them,
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and looking for them very hard indeed.
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With great purpose.
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“What bloody guns, Tommy?”
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Now at this juncture, Tommy purposely starts a war with the Lees,
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another travelling Romani family,
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and proceeds to use the hidden guns as leverage to play all the parties off against each other.
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“What's our mission, boy?”
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“To stick it to the Lee family, Arthur!”
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Basically, everyone wants the guns,
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but only Tommy knows where they are hidden away,
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and well, you get the idea.
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He's basically untouchable under this particular arrangement.
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“I'm in your hands, completely.”
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“But if you marry her,
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our family and the Lee family will be united forever,
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and this war will be over.
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Now, it's up to you, John.
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War... or peace.”
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But after an encounter with the IRA at the Peaky-owned pub,
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The Garrison goes awry and ends with two extremely dead Irishmen on the floor.
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Tommy is betrayed by his barmaid Grace,
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who as I mentioned earlier was an undercover officer
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working for the Chief Inspector and the fuckin' Crown.
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So the government recovers the guns, effectively destroying his hand.
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Tommy is properly fucked.
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With the investigation into the missing guns all wrapped up,
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Major Campbell declares his love for Grace,
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but she rejects him
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as he later learns that she has fallen for Tommy during her time undercover.
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Which, of course, the Major is not too pleased to hear.
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With the IRA dealt with
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and Winston Churchill recalling the Chief Inspector to London,
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but also with no leverage to speak of,
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the Shelby family seeks a new way to protect themselves from Kimber
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and his frankly much larger operation.
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After much rumination and whiskey,
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Tommy settles on John marrying a Lee daughter–
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unbeknownst to John, unfortunately.
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But meaning that the Shelbys and the Lees are now allied–
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which is fantastic news from an organizational-security standpoint.
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“Yeah, all right.”
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The boys seek to stand off against Kimber at the racetracks way out of town,
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but are betrayed again,
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and with the Lee clan en route to the wrong location,
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Kimber and his men come to Birmingham, right to Small Heath,
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to kill the Blinders.
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And of course there are no coppers about
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because Major Campbell has recalled them all from the streets.
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A tense standoff in the street is ended when Kimber opens fire,
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clipping Tommy and killing Danny Whizbang, a good man.
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Tommy promptly puts a bullet in Kimber's head,
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declares that they had fought this war one-on-one,
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and that Kimber had lost.
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Everyone then disperses.
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Now for the big Season 1 cliffhanger,
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which I for one don't think anyone saw coming.
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In the final scenes, we see Detective Campbell,
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humiliated and furious that Grace has fallen for Tommy and not him,
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raise his pistol to her face on the train tracks,
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cutting to black before we hear a single gunshot.
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What the fuck?
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Did he kill her?
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Apparently, we will have to wait.
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But no need to wait too long because, hey, we're already back with Season 2 of Peaky Blinders,
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or at least a brief little retelling of it.
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We've got all the same characters as Season 1, with a few new additions:
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Finn Shelby, who is no longer a small child but a teenager,
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nearly a man, learning the family business.
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Michael Gray, Polly's estranged son,
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and Esme Lee, now Shelby, the shotgun bride of John from the previous season.
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We've also got Alfie Solomons, the leader of the Jewish gang down in London,
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and of course, Darby Sabini,
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the volatile leader of the Italian gang that controls most of England's capital city,
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and just a nasty little fellow all-around.
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Remember a few minutes ago when I told you that Chief Inspector Campbell tried to shoot Grace at the train station?
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Well, guess what?
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That sneaky lass has a hidden purse-gun and she shot first,
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seriously – but not mortally – wounding him such that he walks with a limp and a cane now.
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Sometimes that's the way it goes.
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And he's a complete tosser anyways.
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So, onto the main event.
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Several years later, we find the Peaky Blinders in Birmingham's Small Heath,
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with Shelby Company Limited running smoothly and making a lot of money.
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But almost immediately – and I mean, like, first few minutes of Episode 1 –
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The Garrison, Tommy's pub, is blown up by the IRA,
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who, it turns out, are interested in having him commit a murder on their behalf.
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Hell of a way to get a man's attention.
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Tommy also decides that this, of all times, is the time for the Blinders to move into London,
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where the rival Italian and Jewish gangs are engaged in a brutal turf war.
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Suffice to say, there's a lot going on for the Shelbys at the moment...
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“You blew up my pub.”
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...which is not lost on Polly and Esme,
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who are not really on board with the rapid expansion plans that Tommy has unilaterally begun.
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On a brighter note, Tommy discovers the child that Polly had taken from her when she was young,
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a teenager named Michael,
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and the two are – with some trouble – reunited.
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“I think she might be my mother.”
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After a tense negotiation, Tommy agrees to ally with Alfie Solomons and his Jewish gang,
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and the Blinders start taking over London swiftly and without mercy.
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To borrow a phrase from Mr. Sabini,
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Alfie had “invited a horde of wild animals, and unlocked the fucking gates.”
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“My face is the last thing you'll ever see on earth.”
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In the meantime, a faction of the IRA has allied themselves with Major Campbell,
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who is tasked by Winston Churchill with the assassination of a British military official,
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and who has decided that Tommy is to be the triggerman.
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“There are fucking rules for a fucking reason.
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Quite simply they have to be obeyed.
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All right?”
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The gang heads to London to buy a horse and carry out the task at hand,
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“Thomas Shelby!”
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and are attacked by Sabini's men, killing or wounding all of the assassins.
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As it turns out, Sabini's triggermen were no match for Arthur and John's rage.
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“The pro-treaty Paddies and the King want the same man dead.”
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After a night of violent revenge against Sabini,
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“This place is under new management
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by order of the Peaky Blinders.”
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the Blinders are betrayed by Alfie in favor of Sabini,
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and Arthur is framed in London for the murder of Billy Kitchen, a Blinders lieutenant,
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and sentenced to the gallows.
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Back in Birmingham, Michael is arrested by Campbell due to the spite he holds for Tommy and his brothers.
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Tommy is able to strike a deal with Major Campbell for Michael and Arthur's freedom,
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even though his eventual plan is to betray Tommy upon the completion of his assasination task.
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You see, Campbell is intent on blaming the assassination on a specific faction of the IRA,
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which would spark an all-out civil war back in Ireland.
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John blows up the residence of Tommy's target,
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making it possible to move the actual assassination to the location of Sabini's biggest horse race.
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At the race, Tommy is approached by Grace,
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who has returned from America to tell him that the child she is pregnant with is his.
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Tommy departs to kill the military official,
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while Polly corners and kills Major Campbell with a single shot to the heart.
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“Don't fuck with the Peaky Blinders.”
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The ensuing panic draws all the police away from the track,
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and the Blinders move in to take over the betting operations.
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Unfortunately, Tommy is abducted by three IRA members in police uniforms,
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under the orders of the now-deceased Campbell.
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But as he stands over a rural grave, waiting to be shot,
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one of his would-be assassins shoots the other two,
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informing Tommy that Churchill still needs him in the future.
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Overwhelmed with emotion,
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Tommy sets off home to propose to Grace,
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telling no one of what just happened.
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And there we have Season 2.
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You get to catch up on it right fuckin' away, don't you?
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You lucky bastards.
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As we open on Season 3, two years later, things are going very well for our boy Tommy.
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He lives in a palatial estate outside of the city – I mean this thing looks like a proper castle –
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and it is the day of his wedding to the love of his life, Grace.
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The wedding is beautiful and joyous, but at the reception following the ceremony,
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we learn that Tommy has business plans tonight, too,
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plans with the Russians.
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And a little killing, too.
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For students of history, around this time there was something in Russia called the Bolshevik Revolution.
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Communists took over the government, created the USSR, and oh yes,
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killed off as much of the Royal Family as they could find.
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Some of the Romanovs managed to escape to the West,
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and these are the ones Tommy finds himself meeting with on his wedding night.
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The Russians tell him they are interested in protection,
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given their precarious political standing in the country,
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and while feigning poverty for the government,
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have a copious amount of jewels and treasure they smuggled into the country.
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As payment, Tommy is offered a truly enormous sapphire necklace, which he gives to his new wife, Grace.
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Prior to the wedding, the Blinders burn down an Italian-owned shop in town,
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to dissuade its owner, Angel Changretta, from attending the wedding as Lizzie's date.
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Angel's father confronts them about this,
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and John responds by blinding Angel.
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This will come up again in a bit.
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Around this same time, Tommy is approached by a priest,
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a very odd priest who claims to represent a very odd group: The Oddfellows.
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The Oddfellows, otherwise known as the Economic League, is a shady group of wealthy right-wing elites in Britain,
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who are very interested in making sure that labor movements like that of the Bolsheviks don't take hold in the West.
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In Tommy's case, they are supposedly interested in facilitating an arms deal
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between the Blinders and the Russians, but we'll talk more about that later.
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At a party the following evening, Tommy is laughingly informed by the Russian princess, Tatiana,
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that the necklace he has been paid with bears a curse.
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He rushes to find Grace, who is wearing it,
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but it is too late,
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and an Italian gunman hired by Angel fires a shot meant for Tommy directly into her heart.
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Furious, Tommy retreats to his home,
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but not before sending John and Arthur out to kill Angel and his parents.
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But since Mrs. Changretta had been the boys' schoolteacher growing up in Small Heath,
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they allow her to leave on the condition she not tell Tommy.
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Tommy plans to torture the old man,
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but Arthur takes pity, and puts a bullet in his head before he can.
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Meanwhile, Tommy sits down with the Russians to negotiate the terms of the planned arms deal.
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With the help of Alfie, an accord is struck whereby the Blinders will be given 70,000 pounds in jewelry
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in exchange for a fleet of armored tanks.
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But it quickly becomes clear that Tommy has larger plans than that –
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he does not trust the Russians one bit, and plans to rob them blind, taking everything.