Tom Hardy Vs Cillian Murphy Face-Off steals Peaky Blinders Series 3 Finale

This is an episode review, so here be spoilers folks!

It’s farewell to the Peaky Blinders and thanks for all the bloody violence as series three came to an explosive end last night. This third season might have got off to a slightly slow start, but it was always building to a blinding conclusion. If you were worried the creators had lost their way at the beginning of the six episodes of series three, you were fortunately proved very wrong by the end of last night’s episode.

The question is, how to pick a highlight of an episode so full of high drama, knuckle-gnashing tension and testosterone-fueled face offs between acting giants? How about the intercutting of Michael finally taking on Father Hughes with Arthur’s drunken bombing of the train? How about the snatching of Tommy Shelby’s boy Charlie?

‘This is our city’ said Tommy at the opening of the episode. But as the hour of brilliant TV drama passed, it was painfully obvious that by order of the Peaky Blinders or not, this ain’t really their city. Father Hughes had been one step ahead all the way through the season and thanks to a leak in Tommy’s closest circle (or not?), he was way ahead of Tommy’s plans.

It will be sad to see Paddy Considine leave the show after such a short run, but at least we still have Tom Hardy to hopefully return in the fourth and fifth season as the wonderfully psychotic Alfie Solomons. Because the real fireworks, despite the explosive train set-piece, went off between Hardy and Murphy last night. Hardy, who could never be accused of holding anything back in his performances, was off the chain, spitting venom in the face of Murphy and maintaining his position as the most dangerous man to be around in Peaky Blinders.

There was no closure between the pair, but their fury at each other was palpable. The resolution between these two is yet to come and will be a huge reason to tune in to the fourth season. More excitingly, the episode ended with the beginnings of a mutiny within the ranks of the Peaky Blinders. With Tommy laying blame on those closest to him earlier in the episode, there are some bitter resentments starting to boil. Another highlight of the episode was the women folk finally finding their voice and starting to take a stand to Tommy’s dictatorship.

But with the cops rocking up before the credits rolled, and Radiohead bringing the gloom on the soundtrack, the episode ended on a tantalising cliff-hanger. Where next for the Peaky Blinders, and is this the beginning of the end for the Shelby family?