Naaah.Ĭurrently, however, the Italian mob’s being fronted by Adrien Brody’s Luca Changretti, out for revenge after the horrible deaths of his father and brother last series. And this hints at a return of previous antagonist Derby Sabini, played by the underrated Noah Taylor, who I hope it isn’t rude to say just has a naturally evil face. And the reason? Those letters they’re all getting with the jaunty air mail insignia are nothing to do with Ada’s triumphant return from America, rather they’re from the mafia – that more famous and photogenic organised crime group. Luckily Tommy knows this as well as we do, and breaks off the important business of drinking and prostitutes to arrange a family meeting back in Small Heath.

And the theme’s reference to ‘where the viaduct looms’, which was more or less spot-on in the heart of industrial Birmingham with factories and works towering in the background, now falls a little flat. To the point that a first-time viewer tuning in might mistake it for Downton Abbey until the first use of the word ‘fook’. So, yes, the gang’s reached some fairly dizzying heights – and while the political intrigue that goes to the heart of government is reserved for Tommy himself, when we rejoin the narrative proper a year later, they all now have incredibly large and nice houses. Without even being there, he leverages this to stop the gang from being executed for crimes they absolutely did commit, and, just for fun, to get himself an OBE – otherwise known as ‘a gong’, or the title of ‘Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’. After the last series left us on quite a cliffhanger – the old bill banging their way into Tommy’s palatial crime-mansion and arresting his nearest and dearest after he’d struck some particularly foul deal with the government, this series opens by resolving all that in record time.Īs the rest of the major Shelbys are marched off to the gallows, we discover – alongside one of the top judges in the land – that Tommy has hold of some top blackmail material on the king himself. The BBC’s gang-violence drama Peaky Blinders is back, and not before time.

Peaky blinders season 4 ep 1