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We discuss Steven Knight’s six-seasons-and-a-movie historical crime show Peaky Blinders (2013-2026), featuring Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al. Does the show live up to its initial excellence? It’s got a great emotional premise (post-WWI PTSD), and there’s a ridiculous amount of gravitas among the cast (especially Cillian Murphy, but he’s matched by a couple of foils per season like Tom Hardy, Adrian Brody, and Tim Roth, and the supporting cast is great too). But do the various heists undermine this heft?
It’s OK if you haven’t seen the show; we hold off on spoilers for quite a while and warn you when we reach that point.
We talk about the progression along seasons: Would it have been better staying as “Birmingham Deadwood” or is abandoning that worth the Citizen Kane treatment of later seasons? Also, the historically based characters, the subordination of all other character stories to Tommy Shelby’s, the soundtrack, the treatment of Romani, the (sparse) humor, and more.
Follow us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @MarkLinsenmayer. If you can’t already reach Al, then you’re not the kind of person who SHOULD reach Al.
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