Peaky Blinders’ Shock Return May Confirm Our Biggest Fears About Thomas Shelby

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In the announcement video, we fast-forward to 1936 – 1953. Though this may be great news for fans of Peaky Blinders in general, it doesn’t bode well for the gang’s family patriarch, Thomas Shelby.

The Shelbys are back in business. 

A new era, a new generation, a new story. A new series. With the Shelby family right at its blood-soaked heart.#PeakyBlinders #Shelby #DramaSeries #StevenKnight #Birmingham pic.twitter.com/qsZuuLUwbC

— Peaky Blinders (@ThePeakyBlinder) October 2, 2025

Peaky Blinders’ Time Jump Hints at Transfer of Power

Based on the real urban youth crime gang that ruled the English city of Birmingham at the turn of the 20th century, Peaky Blinders begins in 1919, a few months after the end of World War I. The show focuses on the cunning crime boss Thomas Shelby, played to perfection by Cillian Murphy, as he expands and consolidates his gang’s power and influence both at home and abroad. The series, which enjoyed much critical and fan acclaim, ran for six seasons, with the last season of the show taking the Shelby and the Peaky Blinders into the early 1930s.

In March 2024, a follow-up feature film to Peaky Blinders was announced. Taking place in the 30s, a few years after the show’s haunting, ambiguous conclusion, where Thomas Shelby fakes his own death and rides off into the English countryside to start a new one. The Immortal Man will see Murphy reprising his role as Shelby, along with Stephen Graham, Sophie Rundle, Ned Dennehy, Packy Lee, and Ian Peck reprising their roles from the show. Murphy’s starring role in the film seems to imply that perhaps Thomas wasn’t able to completely start fresh and will explore the consequences of his disappearance.

It appears that The Immortal Man will take place firmly in the 1930s as the world reels from the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe. Given that the new Peaky Blinders series will pick up nearly twenty years later, there’s a good chance Thomas isn’t running the show anymore. In 1953, Thomas Shelby would either be a very old man or worse, dead. Along with the fact that the show’s announcement states that “a new era, a new generation” will be at the center of the new Peaky Blinders series, it seems our worst fears about Shelby’s fate in Immortal Man may be confirmed; Thomas isn’t making it out of the movie alive.

What is Peaky Blinders Without Thomas Shelby?

If Shelby is indeed killed for good in The Immortal Man, we’re presuming that Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight will choose an heir apparent in the film to lead the next generation of the gang as they face another World War. Or, there’s a chance that Immortal Man ends with Shelby’s real death, and we meet the new leader of the gang at the start of the series that kicks off in the early 50s.

As Peaky Blinders evolved, it became a rich ensemble piece, featuring a murderer’s row of British and Irish actors filling out its cast. Even so, Murphy’s mesmerizing performance as Shelby was always the series’ center. Don’t get us wrong, we’re excited by the prospect of more from the Peaky Blinders, especially since the show has already secured a two-season order from Netflix. But we’re having a hard time imagining Birmingham and beyond without Shelby.

Although Murphy will be executive producing the new show alongside Knight, the return of Peaky Blinders feels like the latest runaway hit that’s being mined to death for “content”. Crime and family drama may never go out of style, but the fact that a six-season show is getting a movie and a two-season spinoff points to Hollywood’s current obsession with risk aversion and refusal to invest in new stories and creators. Knight has a few other offerings in the period crime genre, with House of Guiness and A Thousand Blows also having been released this year, but the return of Peaky Blinders, likely without its lead, makes us ask ourselves if Knight’s time would be better spent on those new series.

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