Well, it's rare indeed that a series on as high a level as Peaky Blinders surprises me at the end as much as the final, sixth season of Peaky Blinders did, but, yes, indeed it did, big time.
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
What I'm talking about, of course, is Tommy not really dying of some kind of tubercular infection of his brain stem, as his doctor told him and even showed him on (by our standards, primitive) X-rays. Turns out that doctor is a Nazi, and convinced Tommy he was dying as the key to a nefarious Nazi plan to get Tommy to take his own life. Given Tommy's seeming invincibility to bullets fired by his enemies, the fascist plan of getting Tommy to die by a bullet fired by his own hand, as a way of ending his own existence, as a way of avoiding needing care that could only be given by those who loved him very much, was pretty ingenious. But Tommy figured it out, just in time.
How did he manage to do that? Not completely clear, but the likely explanation is Tommy wasn't feeling as sick as he should have, if he was really dying of natural causes. And there's also this: maybe Tommy realized he was suffering from tremors and hallucinations before he picked up the lethal bacillus from his sweet little daughter Ruby, who did succumb to it. One thing is clear: Tommy hasn't lost his mastery of strategy, including his capacity to recognize a brilliant piece of work by the Nazis that almost succeeded, which included doing everything they could to separate Tommy from his wife Lizzie, who might have at least been a little suspicious of the doctor who broke the bogus news to Tommy.
As always in Peaky Blinders, the surrounding characters were played perfectly. The scene between Tommy and Arthur, when Tommy tells his older he's dying, was nonpareil. Cillian Murphy and Paul Anderson were once again just perfect in the roles. And so were the Naziss -- of the British and American variety -- played with subtle to conspicuous despicability. At the end of the final episode, though their plan was foiled, they're still at large and riding high. Good to see there'll be a a final Peaky Blinders movie coming up. Stay tuned, at least a few years, for my review.
See also Peaky Blinders: Peak Television ... Peaky Blinders Season 3: Still Peak ... Peaky Blinders Season 4: Best So Far ... Peaky Blinders Season 5: New Window on Fascism
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