Last we saw him, Thomas Shelby was holding a gun to his head as he broke down and met with hallucinations of his first wife, Grace, suggesting that “ending it” would be so much easier.
Many believe it only makes sense that Thomas Shelby dies in the sixth season, allowing him to reunite with his true love. But I don’t think they could be more wrong. Tommy may not love a woman the same way he loved Grace, but there’s still a shot at romance — and there are two potential candidates lined up.
With the show promising a season that’s better than all those preceding it, there’s thick excitement coating the wait. Of course, this season’s plot will be focused on Tommy uncovering the identity of the “black cat” and recovering from his failures. Still, with Tommy’s marriage with Lizzie at the brink of failure, fans can’t help but wonder if Tommy might finally find love again.
1. Who Does Thomas Shelby End Up With?
Throughout season five, we witness the miserable marriage that Thomas Shelby and Lizzie Stark are struggling to keep. Lizzie even goes so far as consulting a lawyer for divorce but later decides to stay with Tommy, suggesting that she does have feelings for him.
Season 6 could either see Tommy divorced from Lizzie or finally realizing how essential she is to his sanity, but there’s no way to tell what direction the show writers might take.
1.1 Who Is Tommy’s Current Spouse?
By 1929, Thomas Shelby marries Lizzie Stark after learning she’s pregnant with his child. They raise their kids Ruby (born of Lizzie) and Charles (from Tommy’s first wife Grace) in their lush mansion. However, we see their marriage slowly falling apart due to Thomas’s continued ill-treatment of Lizzie as he still mourns over Grace.
1.2 Speculation for Season 6
Season six could take two different routes, the first one being that Thomas and Lizzie finally work through their issues and stick together. Many (like me) are partial towards this route. Because despite the struggle, both Lizzie and Tommy have their sweet moments.
“Some nights, it was you who kept my heart from breaking.”
Thomas to Lizzie
Unlike Grace, Lizzie doesn’t expect Tommy to change. She stands by him, supporting him to the best of her abilities. Tommy is often shown depending on her — from taking care of Charles to helping him through his dark nights — and many hope that Tommy finally recognizes just how much he needs her. Lizzie already shut down the prospect of divorce before, so it’s not highly unlikely she does it again.
The second route involves Thomas and Lizzie finally separating and Tommy getting together with Jessie Eden to strengthen his political stronghold. Tommy already charmed Jessie into revealing the functions of the Communist party to him. As infuriated as she was to learn how he’d used her, it’s possible that Jessie still harbors feelings for him.
Even though it’s doubtful that a formidable woman like Jessie would fall for Tommy’s tricks again, it’s still a possibility. Besides, if Tommy is to face off against Oswald Moseley, he’s going to need Jessie’s help.
2. All of Tommy’s Relationships
Throughout the show, we’ve seen Thomas engage in complicated relationships with several women. Here are the topmost important relationships in Tommy Shelby’s life:
2.1 Grace Burgess
It’s a widely accepted fact that Grace is Tommy’s true love. They both first met in season one, when Tommy was conspiring against Inspector Campbell, and Grace used a barmaid’s disguise to hide her identity as Campbell’s spy.
Despite the heartbreak, both of them eventually get married after Thomas finds that Grace is pregnant with his child. However, two years later, Grace is killed by an assassin sent on orders from the Italian mafia Vicente Changretta.
Grace’s death affects all the relationships Tommy later finds himself in. He becomes unstable in ways, and this only escalates as time passes. By season five, Tommy is seen hallucinating Grace. He mourns her death and tries to fill the void of her absence by marrying Lizzie Stark, but her death is too intense for him.
Fans have noted that Grace brought out a tenderness in Thomas that’s entirely lost after her death, symbolizing how he’s lost a part of himself in losing her.
2.2 May Carleton
At the beginning of season two, we see May Carleton, a rich widow, immediately attracted to Tommy when she lays eyes on him at an auction. She is, in fact, so infatuated that she offers to train his horses for him.
Thomas, being a gypsy, doesn’t need her to do that. But he agrees nonetheless because he’s after the power and influence May could provide him.
The two immediately start an affair, and though Thomas had only been after her powerful associates, we see him develop genuine adoration for the lady. He starts admiring her bold personality, and being the criminal with a conscience, he decides to come clean to May. He confesses that he’s still in love with Grace and suggests that they separate.
“You’ve told me about her like a gentleman – now kindly behave like a gangster for me again,”
“I will win you over.”
May tells Thomas
However, when Thomas learns that Grace is pregnant, he ends the affair with May.
After Grace’s death, we again see Tommy try to seduce May when he needs her influence, but she turns him down.
2.3 Lizzie Stark
After the war, Thomas becomes one of Lizzie Stark’s regular clients. However, when Grace leaves for New York, Thomas asks Lizzie to fill her role as his secretary. He tells her to stop her work as a prostitute for good, and she happily complies.
This becomes symbolic, I suppose, as, after Grace’s death, Tommy once again finds himself looking for Grace in Lizzie. They both start a sexual relationship, and Tommy continues to fill Grace’s absence with Lizzie’s presence.
Two years later, Lizzie finds herself pregnant by Thomas. She confronts Tommy about this and says, “And yes, it can only be yours, the day by the canal when you were fucking somebody else in your head. Except it wasn’t her who got pregnant.”
His response to this is devoid of the happiness he showed when he found out Grace was carrying his child. But he marries Lizzie nonetheless.
Lizzie and Tommy both appear to care dearly for each other, but Grace’s death continues to haunt Tommy, which strains their relationship. Thomas also continuously cheats on Lizzie, which later results in her telling him (rather firmly) to not touch her children after he’s touched other women.
2.4 Jessie Eden
Jessie Eden, a union convener, walks up to Thomas Shelby and demands equal pay for the women working in his factory. Thomas gives her a sarcastic remark as a reply, and the two engage in a conversation that immediately leads them to hate each other.
However, when Thomas learns of Jessie’s influence among the Communists and devises a plan to extract information from her.
He invites her for dinner as a peace-offering, and the two find that they both still mourn the deaths of their past lovers. Jessie soon reveals she knew Thomas’s first girlfriend from before the war. Jessie had heard from a common friend that when the girl had fallen sick, Thomas had stayed by her bedside for three months, holding her hand until she passed away and Tommy was called to war.
Jessie eventually begins to trust Tommy and confides in him about the Communist’s plans and moves. Thomas takes this opportunity to report an upcoming communist revolution to the government, who reward his loyalty by making him a member of the Parliament.
By the time Jessie realizes what he’s done, it’s too late. Tommy sides with the Fascists.
3. About Peaky Blinders
Peaky Blinders is a British period crime drama television series created by Steven Knight. Set in Birmingham, England, the series follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family and their leader Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) in the direct aftermath of the First World War.
The fictional family is loosely based on a real urban youth gang of the same name, active in the city from the 1890s to the early 20th century. It stars Cillian Murphy, Sam Claflin, Aidan Gillen, Helen McCrory, Paul Anderson, Finn Cole, and Tom Hardy
Netflix, under a deal with Weinstein Company and Endemol, acquired the rights to release the show in the United States and around the world. In January 2021, it was announced that the sixth series would be the last, followed by a spin-off film. The final series was broadcast in 2022.
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