Kaka

Success in business, loss of motivation, exhaustion, burnout. Shelby not only has new adversaries in the form of the Billy Boys, but also a new battle with himself in a grimmer episode. Slightly different Peaky Blinders so far, but it's good. The writers have captured the natural evolution of the main characters well.

So, the Shelbys made it to high politics after a long time. So far, it is “only” a very attractively written story, with he exception of the murder by the end. Let’s see what happens. So far it looks like a meandering plot at the expense of pace and dynamism.

Most people will remember the fourth season mainly for the duel of two extremely charismatic blokes. On the one hand, the cool, smart businessman Shelby, and on the other, the somewhat cocky, cool mafioso Luca, played by the always terrific Adrien Brody.

The boxing match was worthy both as a backdrop to the heated finale and in itself. The backstage scenes were of course suitably suspenseful, with all the main characters interacting properly, but the final twist was very simplistic and, while charismatic, felt more for effect than as a sophisticated and elaborate plot progression. Still an excellent episode, but I wouldn't say it’s a good series finale.

Alfie vs Luca in a memorable scene and a quite creative shootout in the tenements in the city. All three strong personalities meet in this unique gangster masterpiece, where there are perhaps more Thompsons than shooters.

The British mafia vs the Italian mafia. Plus the return of Hardy and May. Also worth mentioning is the communist activist Jesse Eden.

Understandably, they could not keep the pace, so the third episode as it’s usual ties up the first striking half with the second, which closes everything appropriately. In addition to the romantic storyline, it offers a fantastic performance by Hardy.

The second episode delivers a clean vendetta. We have the interesting character of Aberam Gold on scene, as well as Brody as the fancy gangster.

A fractious family, one excellent scene in the kitchen and of course Adrien Brody as Luca Changretta arriving on the scene in a perfectly flamboyant, typically Italian posh style. And with a good accent. It is clear from the start that this will be a more than capable adversary.

The Shelby family is clearly benefiting from being dealt higher cards and climbing up the food chain. The natural growth in technical quality thanks to the audience success of the previous episodes is a matter of course, and so the third season delivers a a truly great gangster drama, with a style by the standards of the series. It’ll be very interesting to see what happens next.