Why Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man had to end the way it does

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Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man ending spoilers follow.

Tommy Shelby is dead. In the finale of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, he orchestrates his own death, carried out by his son, Duke. While many viewers anticipated this outcome, it’s still a deeply emotional moment, particularly as the credits roll over a shot of Tommy’s funeral pyre burning.

Some fans probably hoped for a more dramatic ending for Tommy, either a heroic last stand or a chance to continue his story in the already-planned sequel. However, this conclusion was the only fitting way to resolve his arc.

To quickly recap, Tommy, Duke, and Hayden Stagg join forces to stop Beckett from a dangerous scheme: flooding Britain with counterfeit money to help Germany win the war. Their plan? Destroy the fake currency and eliminate Beckett, who was actually attempting this real Nazi plot.

It’s currently unclear what Duke’s next move will be, even though he’s assured Beckett he’ll follow through with the plan. He’s also being influenced by Kaulo, who, while at the Garrison pub, convinced him to kill Tommy, claiming it’s what his father desires to achieve peace.

Tommy understands the danger, and he tells Kaulo this before they put their plan into action. He sees Duke as a twisted version of himself and feels Duke will ultimately determine his fate. Kaulo’s warning – that one of them will kill the other – mirrors a previous prediction made by Aunt Polly about Tommy and his brother Michael.

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Things don’t quite happen that way, though. Actually, Tommy is the one who ultimately controls what happens to him – even if he doesn’t get it right immediately.

Once the money is scattered, Beckett attempts to escape in a car, but Tommy deliberately steps into its path. Beckett shoots Tommy twice in the abdomen, but Tommy manages to wound Beckett before choosing to sacrifice himself by standing directly in front of the car. Duke intervenes just in time, saving Tommy, but Tommy then asks Duke to end his life, and Duke reluctantly agrees.

Some fans of Peaky Blinders might see this as contradicting Polly’s earlier warning to Michael that Tommy wouldn’t die by a bullet. However, it can also be seen as Tommy finally taking control of his own fate, and realizing that only he himself could ultimately bring about his end.

In the series finale, he reveals to Doctor Holford that someone planned to falsely tell him he was dying in order to drive him to suicide. While Duke ultimately killed Tommy, it was Tommy’s decision to allow it, granting him the peace he had long desired.

Earlier in the film, Tommy says, “All of us are dead except the one who wants to be,” while visiting Ada’s body after Beckett kills her. While Tommy didn’t actively seek death throughout the movie—he still wanted to finish his book—he certainly didn’t avoid danger or risk his life.

Watching Tommy’s funeral pyre burn, we hear a passage from his memoir, appropriately titled The Immortal Man. He wrote, “We are reunited now in whichever place will have us… I am free.” These words echo his final moments on screen, where he repeats the phrase “In the bleak midwinter,” a recurring theme throughout the series.

This scene doesn’t just remind us of Tommy’s experiences in World War I – similar to how being in a tunnel mirrored his time setting explosives – it also shows how he sees life after the war, as the writer Steven Knight discussed in a podcast about Peaky Blinders.

He believed their shared experience in the tunnels was what truly brought them together. Trapped underground with no escape, facing certain death, they found solace in singing ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, he said.

We don’t witness this directly, but here’s what occurred: they sang, and then were unbelievably rescued. Afterwards, they realized something profound – they felt like they’d already died, and now everything was simply extra time. This realization became their driving force moving forward.

Tommy’s last words bring his story full circle, showing he’s finally found the peace and resolution he’s been searching for ever since his time in the war.

Any different outcome, whether Tommy lived or died in a way that wasn’t his choice, wouldn’t have had the same emotional impact. It’s still difficult to watch, but it feels like the only fitting conclusion.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is now available to watch on Netflix.

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2026-03-20 23:20