Sometimes, Killing Is A Kindness:Peaky Blinders S5.

"You don't get what you deserve. You get what you take" - Lizzie

"The corridors of Westminster are very dim lit and for those who make the rules there are no rules" - Tommy

"Sometimes, killing is a kindness" - Arthur

The fifth series of Peaky Blinders (BBC1/iPlayer, written - as ever - by Steven Knight and directed by Anthony Byrne, originally aired in August and September of 2019) takes us to 1929 where we pick up once again with the violent adventures and convoluted affairs of the Shelby family and their ever growing list of accomplices and enemies.

A line that is quite easily blurred in the world of Peaky Blinders. Tommy (Cillian Murphy) is now a Labour MP, Arthur (Paul Anderson) is as brutally out of control as ever and his wife, Linda (Kate Philips) is unhappy - to the point of potentially leaving, that Arthur has been left running Tommy's racket for him while Tommy does politics, Finn (Harry Kirton) has stepped up to a more senior role in the firm - despite being hapless at best, and Polly (Helen McCrory) is first seen having a pilot go down on her in Monte Carlo.

Further afield, the Shelby operation in Detroit is being run by Michael (Finn Cole). When the Wall Street Crash happens and the Shelby's lose a huge sum, it is revealed that Michael ignored Tommy's order to sell and instead held on. Michael, with American girlfriend Gina (the always excellent Anya Taylor-Joy) are called back to Birmingham where it soon becomes apparent that Tommy sees Michael as an almost existential threat.

A contender to Tommy's throne. Elsewhere, Ada (Sophie Rundle) is pregnant - and by a black man too (Colonel Ben Younger, played by Kingsley Ben-Adir, works in the intelligence unit but looking for communists and not fascists) and Lizzie (Natasha O'Keeffe) has a child with Tommy but still feels cut out of the family business. Her story has been quite an arc. 

Other old favourites appear in the form of Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee), Charlie Strong (Ned Dennehy), and Jeremiah Jesus (Benjamin Zephaniah). They're joined by the familiar faces of Aidan Gillen's Aberama Gold and, now living in Margate, Tom Hardy's Alfie Solomon's. As well as Tommy's first wife Grace (Annabelle Wallis) who appears to Tommy as if an hallucination.

Is it a sign of Tommy losing his marbles, doing too much opium, or is it simply a plot device to bring an old character back. Either way, that and some of the mumbo jumbo symbolism are the only parts of the fifth series that don't really work.

There's a lot of plot to take in but it is all, as ever, excellently brought together in a thrilling couple of final episodes. There are the Angels of Retribution - Chinese gangsters in the East End of London, a pimp who pimps kids, Kate Dickie as Mother Superior at St Hilda's Orphanage (set up bu Tommy yet found to be responsible for beating, racially abusing kids as well as overseeing child suicide), there are the Quakers of Bournville, and there is Brilliant Chang (Andrew Koji) who confidently proposes to Tommy and Arthur that they join him in his plan to export seven tons of opium from Poplar via Birmingham.

There's also an excellent Cosmo Jarvis as Barney Thompson, a former comrade of Tommy's from World War I now locked in a lunatic asylum whom Tommy has a big plan for, and Jimmy McCavern (Brian Gleeson) a gleeful bigot who runs Glasgow's Billy Boys. McCavern's opening scene, and our first introduction to the Billy Boys, is particularly brutal.

There are side stories and nods to the IRA, the fixing of football games, ballet, Nietzsche, and a trio of murdered goldfinches as well as hints that modernity, of sorts, is arriving in the form of fancy red telephone boxes, sportier cars, and a move away from Art Deco design to a more straight line aesthetic. 

There's even a brief mention that Tommy has become so well known that Charlie Chaplin (possibly the most famous person in the world at that time) knows who he is. The soundtrack is as reliable as ever:- Nick Cave (of course), Black Sabbath, Hotel Lux, Richard Hawley, Royal Blood, Nadine Shah, Idles, Radiohead, Joy Division, Tom Waits, Jehnny Beth, Cabbage, and Anna Calvi. Lots of Anna Calvi.

But, for me, the most fascinating and important story that weaved its way through series five of Peaky Blinders was the political one. A particularly eloquent speech in the House of Commons brings Tommy to the attention of Sir Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin) whom Tommy believes, and he's not far off, to be "the devil".

This doesn't stop Tommy forming a strategy which involves making a deal with Mosley whom we see ranting about 'Britain first' and 'false news' and receiving huge applause for his terrifying populism. It's strange to think a couple of episodes earlier I was thinking that Claflin was playing Mosley like Freddie Mercury. 

The question being asked is is this just business as usual for Tommy, striking deals with anyone - even 'the devil' - to advance himself or has he, finally, developed a conscience. In an early scene we see Tommy cry when his horse dies. But as for people? You'll have to wait and see.