u/Brigite66

They were awesome 🤣 so funny and badass; they didn't take shit from anyone, especially Tommy. I would have liked to see more of their friendship.

For me, Episode 1 is the best episode of the show. And is the last one to still have some funny scenes, from E2 through the end of S6, those moments ceased to exist..

And this season is when Tommy's soul dies, and the man without limitations is born

S1.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PeakyBlinders/comments/1v6s3fd/i_love_s1_its_the_only_one_ive_rewatched_its/

S2

https://www.reddit.com/r/PeakyBlinders/comments/1vav82x/now_s2_its_similar_to_s1_but_a_bit_darker_alfie/

I realized that whenever Tommy faces his own end, or wishes to find peace, he always thinks of Grace.

S2 – When he believes his time has come and faces his final moments in the field, his thoughts are only on Grace and the fact that he has almost everything.

S3 – After being severely beaten and suffering a head injury, the priest and the other man rouse him roughly; Tommy likely thinks he has passed away and calls out for Grace.

S5 – He is on the verge of ending it all and imagines Grace beside him, telling him it’s all over. There is also another scene where he sits in his car, hesitating to start it for fear of a bomb; he imagines Grace sitting behind him, telling him to push the button and come home with her—so he doesn't hesitate and pushes it.

S6 – The script for the scene where he is about to pull the trigger indicates that the last thing Tommy sees is a photo of Grace, and he says, "" This time, Grace".

The Immortal Man" – his final flashbacks are primarily of Grace.

So, when she is alive, he wants to live to build a life with her. When she is gone, his only wish is to cross over so he can finally be with her.

I loved those details; they simply show that Grace is the woman he loves and the only one who means everything to him.

Many fans find the dance scene between Tommy and Jessie Eden in Season 4 romantic, but if you look at the musical choices and the narrative context, it’s actually one of the coldest and most manipulative things Tommy has ever done. It proves that even in his dark schemes, he is completely haunted by Season 1.

During their dinner, Jessie mentions Grace’s murder, and we see a flash of genuine sadness on Tommy’s face. He is desensitized, but that wound is still wide open. However, instead of closing off, Tommy does something different : he decides to use his own trauma as a weapon of seduction.

When he goes to put on a record to dance, he chooses "The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery".Jessie Eden has no idea what that song means. She just hears a slow, romantic melody. But we, the audience, know exactly what it is.

It is the song Grace sang, the first time Tommy heard her sing.

Using that specific song to seduce Jessie Eden for political and business leverage isn't Tommy moving on; it’s Tommy desecrating his most sacred memory. He knows Jessie is a smart, tough union leader who won’t fall for money or power, so he creates an artificial vulnerability. By matching her tragic past (her first love who committed suicide) with his own ghost through that music, he traps her in an illusion of deep emotional connection.

I know some Grace fans didn't like it, but to me, it’s fascinating how the smallest details, like the use of a song, reveal that for Tommy to seduce a woman, he has to go to a place in his mind, to a memory of the only woman he ever loved and with whom he was vulnerable.

And the fact that he could talk about Greta but had to change the subject the moment Grace was mentioned speaks volumes about how deeply her death affected him and how much he still loves her.

There are plenty of people who justify Lizzie telling Tommy to try to commit suicide and helping him by handing him the bullets; they say she was right to do it.

But in reality, Tommy is a horrible person, so what does he deserve? To have a horrible person by his side, like Lizzie.

I don't think he was always that way; I believe that in Season 1, Tommy actually deserved Grace, someone who loved him and brought out the best in him. She was healing him, and with her, he really could have changed for the better.

But the show's writer said it himself: he killed Grace because she made Tommy happy, and he doesn't deserve that.

Instead, he had him marry his secretary, Lizzie, because that’s what he truly deserves.

We were shown two seasons of them treating each other like shit. But long before that, actually, right from Season 1, they brought out the worst in each other; the relationship was toxic.

In Season 1, Lizzie was cheating on John with various men, and she even tried to cheat on him with his own brother. Tommy knew exactly who she was; he tested her, and he was right about her. He was disgusted when she said yes. She hated him for it and tried to blame him for her own mistake.

In Season 3, Lizzie is the one who breaks the rules he set for everyone. Even though she knew she shouldn't, she wanted to bring one of Tommy's enemies to his wedding.

Angel Changretta met a horrible death; did she care? No.

Grace died, and, as Lizzie fans love to say mockingly, "Grace's body wasn't even cold yet, and Tommy was already sleeping with Lizzie." It’s true; Tommy was disgusting for doing that, but Lizzie was just as bad: she was sleeping with a man who had just buried his wife. She didn't even care that Angel had just died. I mean, hadn't she done all that, defying the Shelbys and Tommy, because she was in love with Angel? At least, that’s what she told Michael.

In Season 4, Tommy manipulated and used Jessie Eden; Lizzie knew this and felt proud to have "won" the man and to be having his baby. She took pride in showing Jessie Eden that she had beaten her.

Jessie Eden was a woman fighting for women's rights, whereas Lizzie was a woman obsessed with a man who used and manipulated her, and every other woman, except Grace. And yet, she thinks she’s better than Jessie, even better than May, whom she called a stuck-up whore.

In Seasons 5 and 6, Tommy weaponizes Lizzie’s past as a prostitute against her. He tells her that, in his mind, he is still paying for her services and calls her his property; he even mocks her for not knowing how to write well.

Lizzie admits she is with him for the money, confessing the same to Linda, and she is proud of having chosen that life. She knows what Tommy is like and enjoys the luxuries that come with that lifestyle.

Yet, she constantly tells him what a horrible person he is, complains about him, and mocks his Gypsy beliefs. When he tries to open up about the war, she rolls her eyes, as if weary of his trauma, and tells him that when he dies (whether by his own hand or someone else's), she will keep all the money; she only cares about the financial outcome and has no interest in hearing about his trauma. She even tries to kick him out of the house at gunpoint.

Throughout their marriage, Tommy sleeps with other women, avoids being at home, and never shows her affection; she accepts his infidelity as long as it happens outside the home, though she isn't affectionate toward him either.

And in Season 6, after all that, she complains in every scene that Tommy isn't a normal person and that he feels nothing.

Tommy was never a normal person; if he were, he never would have married Lizzie in the first place.

She took pride in the life she chose, choosing to be with a man who loved only one woman while using and manipulating all the others.

Jesse Eden realized too late who Tommy really was.

As for May, had she found out how he used and manipulated Jesse, I think she would have been disgusted by him; she certainly wouldn't have been proud of that.

Ultimately, Tommy and Lizzie deserved each other. They both used each other's pain to inflict hurt.

And before Lizzie's fans come after me, everything I mentioned refers to scenes that actually happened, so personal attacks won't change anything.

As most of you know (except for Lizzie/May stans and Grace haters), Grace was Tommy’s light. She was his equal, the only one he truly loved, protected, and prioritized. Next to her, he could finally sleep without hearing the "sound of the shovels" and the sun finally shined on his face. After she was murdered, the light went out forever, leaving nothing but dark, toxic, and transactional coping mechanisms.

We saw it mostly with Tatiana in Season 3, and with Lizzie from Season 3 to Season 6.

Tatiana : Tommy was so broken in Season 3 that he allowed Tatiana to drag him into absolute madness. He didn't sleep with her out of desire, but to numb his pain. He even allowed her to choke him in a dark room just to induce an oxygen-deprived hallucination of Grace’s ghost. He was willing to risk his life just to touch a memory. When Tatiana tried to claim an extra £5,000 for "helping him with his grief" , Tommy shut her down instantly: "You didn't even come close." Tatiana tried to compete with a ghost and failed.

Lizzie : She was never a romance; she was a business arrangement. S3, right before the family gets arrested, Tommy hands Lizzie a cash payment alongside the rest of evryone and tells her some nights she kept his heart from breaking. It wasn’t a love letter; it was an invoice for services rendered. S4, Tommy treats her like the prostitutes he rents at the hotel, even handing her cash on Christmas (E1). When he takes her to the cold tunnel (E3), the sex is shown strictly in shadows because it's completely empty of light. He hesitates when asked who he is kissing, because he is actually chasing the ghost of Greta, his pre-war love. (E5) When Lizzie announces her pregnancy, Tommy is alone in his office, traumatized after killing three men and staring at photos of Grace. His first reaction is to suggest an abortion. When she refuses, he coldly tells her: "I will buy you a house, and the company will pay you." Again, a business transaction. S5-S6, Their marriage is a toxic power struggle. Lizzie treats it like a financial contract (asking what she legally gets if he commits suicide), and Tommy openly reminds her: "In my mind, I still pay you." The scene where he claims "You are my property" before throwing her on the bed isn't romantic or passion, it’s a gangster asserting dominance over an asset and recreating the power dynamics from when she was a sex worker. While Tommy degrades his actual marriage by telling Lizzie she is his property, he spends his nights taking opium to talk to Grace’s ghost, confessing: "Our love still remains."

And in S4 to S6, Tommy has become completely addicted to sex as an escape mechanism, and he genuinely doesn't care who the woman is, they are all just a distraction to him.

S1 https://www.reddit.com/r/PeakyBlinders/comments/1v6s3fd/i_love_s1_its_the_only_one_ive_rewatched_its/

Two deaths that destroyed Tommy and Arthur.

He died in France, came back to life with Grace, and spent the rest of his life as a ghost.

After seeing several posts about the scenes between Tommy and Lizzie in S1, I found myself thinking about Tommy's life. He was married for a long time to a woman for whom he never felt any romantic love, someone who never made him happy and whom he was forced to marry.

Yet, with the woman he did love, the one who brought him happiness and peace, with whom he shared a genuine emotional connection and whom he actually let in, he had so little time with her. What a truly sad life he led.

He was never like that with any other woman.

There are plenty to choose from, ranging from the best villains to the funniest ones, or the ones that resonated with you the most.

My Top 5:

1- My favorites of course, Tommy and Grace.

They complemented each other perfectly. She was the calm in his chaos and they truly loved and understood each other, they could have become a very powerful couple.

2- Polly and Ada.

I love the mother-daughter relationship they shared; they understood each other and were always there for one another.

3-Arthur and John.

I loved the bond between Arthur and John, as well as the trio dynamic with Tommy. I loved the Tommy-and-Arthur pairing too, so it’s like more than just a dúo, I really love the relationship between the three of them, especially in Season 1.

4-Tommy and Alfie.

Because of the comedy in their scenes; my favorite would be the grenade one 🤣

5-Tommy and Ada.

I love the relationship they had, how Ada was so straightforward with him; I think she was the only one who really told him things exactly as they were. He adored his little sister, turned to her for anything emotional, and trusted her with everything, even when she had to step in and act as him because he couldn't.

A bonus would be Uncle Charlie and Curly—because there is no Peaky without the two of them; they are the most loyal and also bring a touch of comedy to the series.

As for duos I would have liked to see more of:

Grace and Polly.

Their scenes were among the most compelling; you wanted to see more of these two intelligent women vying for the top spot in terms of who held the most influence over Tommy.

Mosley and Diana.

They were an interesting couple, though I preferred Mosley in Season 5; together, they would have been far more powerful.

Ada and Jesse Eden.

I loved Jesse’s storyline, and I would have liked to see the two of them have a plotline of their own where they fought for women's rights.

Linda and Esme.

I would have liked to see what their relationship was like, and also to see all three wives together, including Grace, to observe the dynamic between them

Tommy is an intelligent, ambitious, a man of few words who is ruthless, dangerous, and unafraid of death. Yet, he is also a broken man, deeply traumatized and vulnerable, capable of profound love.

To reduce him to someone who only loves money strips away the depth with which he was written and portrayed.

His pursuit of money and power isn't born of a love for wealth itself, rather, it is his way of coping with his trauma and filling the void inside him.

His love for Grace is uncondicional, he forgave her deception and even considered leaving everything, including his family, to be with her, placing her above power, money, and business.

I believe the moment he thinks he is going to die is when he stops being the gangster, the businessman, or the power-seeker, and simply becomes Tommy, unmasked.

That is when we see what truly matters to him, it is the moment he realizes, and we discover along with him, what is truly important.

After Season 3, his ambition becomes a desperate attempt to fill those voids and to elevate his family’s status as much as possible, because he no longer cares about his own life.

Another scene where we see the unmasked Tommy is when he tells Polly, "Yesterday I almost lost my son. For what? For this?", laughing as he gestures toward the mansion.

He says that money is the only thing he has to offer everyone, not because he loves money or because it is his only love, but because it is the only thing he can give, given that nothing of his humanity remains. He has nothing left to offer but a secure life. I think that might be the one time he is truly sincere with his family.