Face of Revenge, Campbell in a close up reminiscent of Bronson's in "Once Upon a Time in the West"
PEAKY BLINDERS : EPISODE
6 (Finale) : THE DAY OF RECKONING
The season finale of Peaky Blinders is a “special day”, a Day of
Reckoning in different ways for all
involved ; “wake up”, says Tommy as he brings his gang together, “This is the
day/ we’re doing it today”. Polly prays reverentially “make the day pass well”,
but Campbell derides it spitefully, “Enjoy your day”.
For Tommy this is the day he has anticipated and calculated, “I’ve
worked so hard for this day”.”This is the day we take out Kimble and his men” ,he
says, “You all knew this day was coming, I just didn’t give you the date, this
is the day we become respectable, turn things around, make a successful
business”. By the end of the episode he will say, “today was a good day, we are
the 3rd largest legal track operation in the country and all my
family is here to celebrate.”It’s a moment of power and status for Tommy and
Polly; family pride in the Shelby name.
But it’s a hollow victory because it’s also the day he discovers
who Grace really is. This is her day of judgement and atonement as she is
exposed for being an agent of the crown who has fallen in love with the enemy, and
in doing so betrayed both. She wakes up to face all this betrayal of the
principles of her birth and the man she loves.”I’ve done something terrible”,
she says in remorse, outcast by both sides. This is the day where she accounts
for her conduct and actions. She admits her guilt and her love, and there is a
moment when Tommy should have passed sentence and shot her when she says, “Here
it is Tommy, I love you” and he says “And there it goes, there’s no chance”. But
there is no accounting for Love and he is unable to shoot her. “Ive learnt to
hate my enemies, but Ive never loved an enemy before” he says, leaving his
decision to the chance flick of a coin. The coin toss is cut and paste with Campbell
poised to pass his own sentence on Grace, holding her at gunpoint. We hear a
gunshot but do not know if he was able to pass his sentence or not. Polly
however does pass sentence on Grace in the show down between the two women, a
discharge of words, not bullets, “Men go where ever their dick is pointing and
there’s no changing their Minds, but we women have more sense. I run the
business of the heart in this family and I will never forgive you. She passes
sentence on Grace;exile or execution.
It’s a day of settlement for Ada too. “I want you to forgive
Tommy”, Polly tells her, “because he brought power to this family. There’s
something about today you need to know.” She explains that today Tommy will
make amends for the mistakes of the past by ensuring Freddy, Ada’s husband, breaks out of custody. In
return for that gesture Freddy will join to fight with the Peaky Blinders, making
amends for his squabble with Tommy. Tommy saves Freddy and Ada makes peace with
Tommy.
Ada will also save the day for Tommy and the Peaky Blinders.
Tommy might go on theatrically about the importance of the “ one minute” in war,
how everything “happens in that minute”, but its actually Ada who demonstrates
what happens in that minute as she wheels her pram out between the two opposing
gangs to interrupt their special moment. “I believe you boys call this no-mans
land” she says ironically since she is a woman standing where they cant go,
literally and psychologically. The men on both sides are taking themselves very
seriously, full of their own grandeur. Tommy has just done his Henry Vth
motivational speech with his swaggering boy soldiers and the posturing tension
of the two gangs is escalating into the competitive “my gun is bigger than your
gun”.
In that moment Ada
appears with a crying baby in a pram and their moment is deflated so that they
just look ridiculous.Its a deliberate anti-climax. “I want you all to look at me”, she says, “I’m wearing
black in preparation. Think of your families etc”. The mood changes and instead of a blood bath
the two leaders shoot at each other, “one on one”. And this is where Danny
Whizzbang has his day of reckoning as he takes the bullet for Tommy, saving
him, as Tommy previously faked Danny’s death, saving him. So the epic last battle
is also ridiculous, bitter sweet.”Its over” says Tommy, go back to your
families. The day is ours”. But even as he celebrates that victory Inspector
Campbell has ensured he feels it as a loss, the loss of Grace.
Because this is a special day for Campbell too, the day he takes
revenge and becomes a force for evil, morally corrupt, a man “who came to clean
up a city but ends up sleeping with its whores.” His shadowy violent encounter with a prostitute is his
prostitution too, a scene juxtaposed with footage of Grace, indicating his fall
from grace. Tommy and Campbell are moving in opposite directions, Tommy towards
the legitimacy of a Good life, and Campbell degenerating into a lawless
depravity of Evil. They appear to switch places, and that sense of a mirror
image runs through the episode in mirrors or polished work surfaces or
reflections in street puddles. It seems that Good and Evil only appear
different, or as Grace says, “circumstance is not important; it’s just uniforms”.
Campbell says, “You and I are opposite and also the same, like an image in a mirror
.Before the day is out your heart will be broken like mine; enjoy your day.”
The clear definitions between Good and Evil are being reassessed.
Campbell spends his day avoiding his duty as a police inspector to maintain law and
order, taking revenge on Tommy and Grace.”You gave yourself to the enemy” he
says to Grace, as he gives himself to his enemy of corruption, “Im looking at
the events of the day and I like what I see”. His corruption enables a return
to the lawless anarchy of street gangs, the very thing he was sent to eradicate
and now serves. In ultimate despair and revenge he faces Grace, faces the last
representation of decency left in him. His decision to shoot her will be a
reckoning with his own nature, about erasing its capacity to feel or love .Both
men, Tommy and Campbell, face the same dilemma. We do not know the outcome.
It’s is also a special day of reckoning for the Epic Drama as
Peaky Blinders accounts for itself within this genre. This is Birmingham’s
Beowulf or Mahabharata, an epic narrative that intensifies with ceremonious
grand tones and elevated grandeur, a story of legendary male heroics engaged in
great battles and moral victories. All the components of the epic are there
from the grand gestures to the elevated speeches to the role of the gods or
Fate. But there is something else here too that turns the epic on itself. We
are presented with contradictions. This epic is in praise of the ordinary, not
the extraordinary, “let them find ordinary work like ordinary men” Tommy says. It’s
a period drama that constantly steps outside its period with modern music or
costume or modern references .The usual male heroism is out classed by strong women
who have more sense and practical wisdom. Here the hero and antagonist, Good
and Evil, are not diametrically opposed but interchangeable. The language mixes
sonorous declarations and elevated speeches with colloquial conversation and
understatement. The drama is atmospheric, ominous, mysterious, even sublime,
but also ironic and humourous, even ridiculous. The women are equally if not
more important; Polly gets most of the best lines and Ada shines in her extraordinary
“ordinariness”. The psychological show down with Polly and Grace is more
menacing and powerful than the physical showdown with the two gangs. The
ridiculous sight of the crying baby on the battlefield is more disturbing than
the arsenal the gangs carry, because it’s absurd. Here the epic Last Battle is
magnificent, out there in the street with the two gangs, but it’s also intimate,
inside the characters where they struggle in a battle with their psyche.
Although this epic is full of humour, the tone is never mocking
or cynical. It empathises with all the characters and all the situations
depicted, sensitive to the humanity of it all, caring about the complexity of
the human story. These are small lives facing large issues about love and
morality, fate and family, all lovingly portrayed. The adventurous life might
be the one that goes off to war to fight the good fight in grand gestures, but
it can also be the one that holds a community steady with small gestures of
defiance and common sense.
Peaky Blinders was an epic undertaking deliberately undermining
itself, reappraising the role of the epic as it entertains and enlightens, with
an effect that was uplifting and challenging. I learnt so much from watching
it. The Finale was indeed a “special day” for everyone but not in the way
anyone expected, including the audience. I suspect that ending won’t be what
anyone expects either!
The Last Battle with Ada's pram
........
It seems right that the final song of this episode is “Love is Blindness”,
the Jack White cover of the U2 song used in the recent version of “The Great Gatsby”.
U2 is the archetypal big band with the epic sound that can also produce a song
as intimate as this. Love and Fate; forces we cannot control, intervening out of
nowhere, amoral.▶ U2-Love is blindness (Lyrics) - YouTube
