Everything You Need To Know About Peaky Blinders Season 6 - Men's Health Magazine Australia

Everything You Need To Know About Peaky Blinders Season 6

The new season is set to be released sooner than you think.

At a time where Netflix seems to churn through TV seasons with the kind of speed you’d expect of a TikTok video going viral, Peaky Blinders isn’t one to give in to our penchant for instant gratification. Instead, the show has continued to take its time between seasons, only to finally arrive to our screens with a cinematic experience that would seem just at home in the cinema as it would being watched on the small screen, wedged in the folds of the couch with crumbs staining our jumper. 

It’s been some time since we last saw Tommy Shelby and the Peaky Blinders on our screen, but it appears season six is on its way and arriving sooner than most anticipated. According to a recent tweet posted to the Peaky Blinders account, the series will be returning “early” next year. A video teaser was released with the tweet, showing Cillian Murphy’s Shelby walking down a dark, cobbled street with a large bag in his hand. Naturally, we can only speculate just what might be inside it. 

While a release date is yet to be confirmed, production and filming for the new season has suffered numerous setbacks due to the global pandemic. Still, things finally picked up again when filming began once more in northern England and the Scottish coast. As the countdown begins for the upcoming season, here’s everything you need to know about season six of Peaky Blinders, including rumours, speculation, and details revealed by cast and crew. 

Is season 6 the final season?

Few were expecting that season six would mark the end of Peaky Blinders on the small screen, but according to a BBC announcement on January 18, this season will be the last. Creator Steven Knight also confirmed the news, saying: “Peaky is back and with a bang. After the enforced production delay due to the Covid pandemic, we find the family in extreme jeopardy and the stakes have never been higher. We believe this will be the best series of all and are sure that our amazing fans will love it. While the TV series will be coming to an end, the story will continue in another form.”

Executive producer Caryn Mandabach added: “Along with our wonderful, supportive partners at BBC and Netflix, we have been working diligently to ensure we can get Peaky safely back into production; the safety of our cast and crew is always our priority. Thank you to all the Peaky fans who have been so unwaveringly supportive and patient. Steve’s scripts are incredible and mark the end of an epic story that has entranced audiences since it first started in 2013, but the world of Peaky Blinders will most definitely live on.”

Is there a trailer?

Just recently, a teaser for season six arrived courtesy of the Peaky Blinders Twitter account. It’s hard to know just what’s going on here – after all, it’s a short clip of Tommy looking very much like he usually does: haggard, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. More importantly though, the teaser suggests the new season will be with us in early 2022. 

When did production wrap?

As fans speculated via Anthony Byrne’s Instagram feed, filming wrapped in late May of 2021. The post showcased Byrne, his first assistant director Jon Midlane and cinematographer Mathieu Plainfosse looking satisfied with a day’s work, holding a Peaky Blinders clapperboard, all accompanied with the caption “Done & done & done.”

What’s going to happen in season six?

After failing to bump off Mosley, it’s believed Tommy will come up against a new fascist foe, with director Anthony Byrne suggesting a new female character will double Tomy’s burden. “There’s a great female character who is new, who is pretty dark,” Byrne told Digital Spy. I haven’t seen a character like her in Peaky before. I won’t say who she is, but she certainly gives Tommy a run for his money. She challenges him in a different way basically. She’s certainly not a protagonist and I don’t know if she’s an antagonist.”

Byrne added: “It’s similar to [Oswald] Mosley…she has a similar ideology, and that’s challenging for any character, live I’ve said before…he or she, they don’t have guns or a gang, but they have an ideology that’s like a virus and it’s more dangerous than anything. She’s a great character and we’re really close to casting her, as well.”

Season six will also pick up where the season five cliffhanger left off: which saw Tommy screaming and putting a gun to his head in a field. “It picks up directly [from season five], the very first image you will see will be back in that field, with Tommy with a gun to his head and then we will move on from there and resolve that amazing moment,” said Byrne. 

Speaking at the National Television Awards, Steven Knight said the threat of war would come to colour everything that occurs in the new season, and that this will be the point where WWII looms on the horizon. “It’s moving the story forward. We always jump in time so we are into the Thirties. Expect the unexpected. Because of the nature of the decade, the Thirties, we know what happened at the end – that war began. There are rumblings and rumours of war and that is overshadowing the whole thing. It makes it all the more…the stakes are higher.”

In an interview with NME, Knight said: “[Season six] is about the rise of fascism, nationalism and racism in the Thirties – and there are huge parallels with what’s happening in the world now.” He added, “I wanted to make that a major theme of series five and the next series, because we go on into the Thirties.”

“In series six, we’ll be looking at 1934 and things are worse,” Knight added. “The drum beat is getting louder, tensions are worse and Tommy is right in the middle of all that. Again, it will be an exploration of what was going on in the Thirties and how certain things transpired. I’m writing it at the moment, and it is a tragedy.”

By Jessica Campbell

Jess is a storyteller committed to sharing the human stories that lie at the heart of sport.

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