‘Peaky Blinders’ Recap: Season 2, Episode 1

Last season, the Peaky Blinders left us with the defeat of Billy Kimber’s clan and Grace Burgess (Annabelle Wallis) begging Blinders leader, Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), to run away with her to London. As she’s waiting for the train however, Inspector Campbell (Sam Neill) ambushes her and we’re left with him pointing the barrel of his gun directly at her head as the screen cuts to black. Warning: Spoilers ahead.

 

Season Two of the hit BBC series turned Netflix Original, Peaky Blinders, is back and picks up right where the razor-brimmed gang left off. Tommy flips a coin to decide whether he should leave the Blinders’ business behind to join Grace in London. Grace meanwhile, goes into fight or flight mode and pulls a fast one on Campbell, shooting him point blank.

Fast-forward two years and the Blinders’ business in Birmingham is booming. Literally. As soon as the opening credits start rolling, two inconspicuous characters posing as mothers push their carriages through the streets of Birmingham, park them right up against the Shelby’s beloved Garrison pub, and boom!

In an effort to find out who blew up his pub, Tommy heads over to the Black Lion, a rival pub full of Birmingham folks who want Tommy and the Blinders dead, more or less. There, he’s taken into a back room and threatened by a woman named Irene O’Donnell and a dude who refuses to disclose his name. Tommy seems to know him though, he just won’t say. “Shut your fucking Gypsy mouth and start listening to instructions,” she orders while No Name cocks a gun to Tommy’s head. We’re not fifteen minutes into the start of this season and already, someone has been shot, there’s been an explosion, and Tommy is being blackmailed into doing… something?

Oh, and Freddie Thorne is dead. A plague caught him and now poor Ada and baby Karl are living alone in London. Ada seems okay however, because now, all ties with her family are severed. “I’m no longer a Shelby, and I’m no longer a Thorne,” she says as a matter of fact. Ada wrote off Tommy and Polly after all of the Communist blackmailing last season and though now she’s a widow, she’s determined to make it on her own and keep her son out of the chaos she and her brothers know all too well.

Speaking of brothers, Arthur Shelby is all big and bad this season: jumping rope after beating the crap out of an apprentice and yes, he’s still as money-hungry as ever. Yet, who can blame his inflated ego him when Shelby Company Limited is raking in 150 pounds a day? Not sure if you’re aware of your post-WWI currency exchanges, but that’s a crapload of money the Shelby’s are making off horse races while the rest of the English countryside starves.

Though England isn’t doing too hot, the Shelbys are showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, they’re expanding Shelby Company Limited to London, but not everyone is on board, especially John, who has ill feelings lately toward his big brothers regarding the southern expansion. John’s wife, Esme, isn’t happy either, but she’s grown pair over the last two years and speaks her mind at one of the Shelby’s famous family meetings.

After Tommy grants Esme permission to speak (“This company is a modern enterprise and believes in equal rights for women”), she stands up and eloquently declares that the Shelby’s are in over their heads about London and they will no doubt be very small fish in a nasty, cutthroat pond of mobs and shady business moguls. Tommy, Arthur, and even Polly all but roll their eyes at Esme, who of course, is right.

Why the hell are the Blinders heading south to London when they can stay put and rule the North. (Kind of like what the Starks should have done. Winterfell would have never fallen!). Don’t let Tommy Shelby fool you though, he’s expanding to London, not just because he’s feeling his business oats, but because that’s where Grace lives. Though the coin flip already decided both their fates and she’s married now, Tommy’s soft side peaks through.

Speaking of soft side, Tommy is screwing John’s old gal Lizzie Stark (no relation) and eventually makes her the new book girl, which was Grace’s old job. Talk about a rebound.

At this point you might be wondering about the fate of Inspector Campbell, who, surprise! — is alive and well. A little limpy, but alive and more pissed off than ever. He’s shed his good cop act completely and to make a very dense episode a little simpler, asks Tommy and the Blinders to basically be his slaves in controlling Northern England and soon, London. Tommy will have to oblige too, especially after him, Arthur, and John tore up a London night club and broke the first rule of thumb: don’t fuck with Londoners, especially rich, powerful, mobbed up Londoners. The epic brawl nearly cost him and Ada their lives if the Inspector didn’t have his men tailing the trouble.

What to expect this season: Way more violence — that scene with the tooth, yikes! — and a fun guest appearance from Tom Hardy, who is the comic relief a period drama like this needs. Billy Kimber is replaced with a maniac named Sabini, who also wants the Blinders dead for even considering expanding South in his territory. Needless to say, this first episode of the new season was jam-packed and emotionally exhausting, but like every episode in the past, you find yourself clicking, ‘Next’ as soon as the boogie rock music takes you to the credits.

Notes:

1. Where is Jeremiah Jesus? He made it out of last season’s finale brawl, but he wasn’t seen walking the streets this episode.

2. The soundtrack is just as solid, if not better than Season One, and features remixes of The Dead Weather.

3. Polly is still an integral part of the operation but her past is haunting her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t given too much to do this episode, but it’s clear writers are slowly but surely making her the main character: building the Polly puzzle piece by piece. All you need to know about her in regarding this episode is she goes to a fake psychic after having a dream about her daughter.

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Photos/Gifs: BBC/Netflix