When You Take The King's Shilling:Peaky Blinders S3.

"When you take the king's shilling, the king expects you to kill" - Tommy Shelby

By series three of Peaky Blinders (BBC2/iPlayer - originally aired in May/June 2016) such is the power that Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) holds that he's began to refer to himself as if he's a monarch. Not, of course, that increased wealth and influence has made life any more comfortable, or less violent, for the Shelby family.

It's 1924 and Tommy and Grace (Annabelle Wallis) are getting married (the service officiated over by Benjamin Zephaniah's Jeremiah 'Jimmy' Jesus). Her family consist mainly of Cavalrymen, Irish soldiers who fought, not particularly well apparently, for Britain in World War I and they turn up at the wedding in their uniforms, much to the Shelby family's irk, and soon start complaining that the reception is "full of gypsies and blacks".

This, inevitably, causes some trouble but far more comes when Polly (Helen McCrory) meets, at that same wedding, a Soviet refugee - Anton Kaledin (Richard Brake), or at least someone who appears to be, and who puts the Shelby clan in contact with a group of Russian dissidents from Tbilisi in Georgia who are preparing an uprising. It seems, with the full backing of both the King and Winston Churchill, the Peaky Blinders are expected to work with these 'Soviets' to ensure that uprising succeeds.

Though, nominally, headed up by Arch Duke Leon Romanov (Jan Bigvoet) and Grand Duchess Izabella Petrovna (Dina Korzun) it soon becomes apparent that the real power is wielded by their fiendishly brilliant, and seductive, daughter Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna (Gaite Jansen). A wild and morally unaccountable force of nature who plays Russian roulette, strips, and claims that she knows exactly what Tommy's weakness is.

With Tatiana as our guide, we're dragged into a world of vodka, Cossacks, Faberge eggs, and orgies that is even wealthier, and far more dissolute, than the huge stately home - regularly juxtaposed with dirty industrial Birmingham - with its fancy little tea cups and tea sets, that the Shelbys now call home. When Tommy, after becoming a father to Charlie (Billy Marwood), suffers a great loss he becomes so angry and violent that Arthur (Paul Anderson), Arthur the psycho!, has to do something about it.

It may affect the family. It may affect the business - and business is, for the most part, going well. There's even plans to buy a wharf in Boston docks which, along with accidentally topical mentions of Crimea and Russian duplicity, only adds to the slightly more internationalist feel of the third season of Peaky Blinders. 

Although the series drags a bit in the middle and, at times, looks too much like a theatrical set, writer Steven Knight's (and director Tom Mielants') attempt at making a Gothic Brummie version of Goodfellas, The Godfather, or The Wire does pay dividends in the end as the series transforms into a gripping thriller of international intrigue.

I couldn't help worrying if they'd incorporated too many diverse strands too quickly to be able to pull them together but I needn't have been concerned because the final episode was an absolute tour de force, as astonishing piece of television, and an emotional rollercoaster ride in which you're never quite certain what will happen next.

Will Johnny (Joe Cole) causing unnecessary upset to the Italians (in a way even Arthur can see is bad) be his downfall? Is Ada (Sophie Rundle), via her connections with the London based Bolsheviks, anything more than a useful idiot? How will Polly's relationship with the painter, Ruben Oliver (Alexander Siddiq), work out? And will Michael (Finn Cole) move on from his role as Chief Accountant for the Shelbys, in a nice but smoky office, and fulfill his wish to get involved in the more, er, physical side of the business?

There's a story about a dog eating a toe and another about some potentially cursed jewellery, and there's even a scene where Impressionist art is roundly dismissed as rubbish, and there are great supportiong performances from Aimee Ffion-Edwards as Esme Shelby, Packy Lee as Tommy's loyal friend Johnny Dogs, and Tony Pitts as bent copper (aren't they all?) Moss.

There's a tense, and terrible, scene under the pier at Liverpool docks, there's the threat of some very gruesome torture, and, as ever, there's a great, anachronistic yet fitting, soundtrack provided by David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, The Doors, Radiohead, The Kills, PJ Harvey, The Last Shadow Puppets, Dickon Hinchcliffe, Tom Waits, Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, and, of course, Nick Cave.

Even better there's the return of Tom Hardy's recklessly violent gang leader Alfie Solomons and the introduction of Linda Shelby (Kate Phillips) as Arthur's wife and mother of his child. Linda's a Christian and purports to live by Christian values. She expects Arthur to do so too and, loving her and knowing he needs saving from himself and his family, he accepts her decision to make plans to move to California.

Some of the scenes between Arthur and Linda are genuinely touching. Which is not something you can say for perhaps series three's most interesting new character. Father John Hughes (Paddy Considine - excellent as always) is obsequious, deceitful, and, possibly, many worse things than that. Early on we hear Hughes claim "a priest with an empty glass? Let's get back to the party" and it's clear, already, that we're in the territory of Graham Greene's whiskey soaked, and morally corrupted, monsignors.

Which means, of course, that Father John Hughes fits right in to the world of Peaky Blinders. A world where nobody's intentions are ever fully revealed until, often, it's too late. A deadly poker game where people refuse to show their hand and where people die so that others can live. Or sometimes just die for no reason. I await series four with no little intrigue.