Supernatural 'Peaky Blinders' Season 5 Moments You Might Have Missed
This article contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders series 5, episode 1, 'Black Tuesday'.
Peaky Blinders season 5 introduced the most paranormal twist in the show's history, as Tommy Shelby's dead wife, Grace Shelby, came back to haunt him for a spooky cuddle around the fire.
While it's likely this is more of an insight into Tommy's shattered psyche, rather than a handbrake turn into some kind of gangster Ghostbusters show, this isn't the first time things have gone a bit otherworldly in the Peaky Blinders.
Generally Peaky stays fairly grounded in reality, y'know, aside from when a cutthroat criminal becomes pen pals with Winston Churchill and characters shrug off gunshot likes gnat bites.
But the show has delved into supernatural plots before from cursed jewels to Polly's pregnancy premonitions, it's safe to say if the nefarious activities ever dried up for the Blinders, they could cobble together a fairly convincing magic show.
Tommy and the magic horse
The show's penchant for dabbling in magic started from the very beginning, as Peaky Blinders opens with Tommy Shelby trotting into Chinatown to have red smoke blown at a horse in a bid to trick the locals into thinking it's blessed to win an upcoming race.
We learn Tommy is reusing the "powder trick" with a local girl and tells Arthur "the washer women say she's a witch". He plans for the horse to win a couple of times once, then lose so the Peakys can pocket the winnings. Sure, it's all an obvious trick, but it's the first of many times the show delves into superstitions.
Aunty Polly predicting all the babies
Polly Gray is basically Peaky Blinders' answer to Mystic Meg. Thanks to her 'second sight' she's often reading tea leaves for the Shelby ladies, or using her precognitive abilities to predict who's the latest to be up-duffed with a new baby.
She quickly guesses Ada is pregnant with Freddie Thonre's baby way back in the first series by examining her chest. Sure, that seems like a plausible way to notice she's with child, but later in season 4, a frustrated Lizzie asks Polly to read her tea leaves, before she shortly tells her to: "Switch from whisky to ale, you're pregnant."
Terrible medical advice, but accurate baby detection
Polly also correctly predicts that Lizzie is having a baby girl in the series 4 finale, as we find out that Tommy had a little girl called Ruby by the time series 5's premiere rolls around.
Aunty Pol predicting her daughter's death
Okay, so far, coincidental. But things get weird when Polly visits a medium in series two. Aunty P has been having dreams that her daughter Anna died, since she was snatched away by the parish authorities along with her son, Michael.
She explains: "Lately I’ve had a feeling… like a feeling, I can’t put it into words. And I keep having a dream. I see a pretty girl, about 18-years-old and she’s standing across the street and she tells me she’s passed over. Now my daughter would have been 18 this year.
"And this girl has dark eyes like mine. And she shouts and shouts. And she tells me, she wants to talk to me because I’m her mother. Now I don’t even know what name they gave her after they stole her from me. But if she does want to say goodbye, I thought this would be the place."
The medium claims to be able to contact the dead and confirms Polly's suspicions that her daughter has died - but later Esme claims the woman is a fraud, who simply set up shop to trick distraught widows whose husbands died in the war.
However, when Tommy looks into it, he discovers that Anna did in fact die, she kept escaping the family she lived with and was eventually taken to Australia, where she died of spring fever. Polly replies: "So my little Anna travelled all the way back across the world to be with me in my dreams."
Speaking to Digital Spy about Polly's second sight, actress Helen McCrory thought it is genuine, as she said: "I think she has got second sight. I don’t think it’s this weird alien thing that’s to do with a Ouija board and water… she might bring in the theatricality of that a bit, for other people, if she really wants to make her point across, but I think the truth of it is that she is very instinctive.
"She’s very sensitive about people and I think that’s very true. Women often say ‘I knew, I felt it in my bones’. But, yeah, definitely for me, Polly has sight. It’s not a way of manipulating other people. It’s something she truly believes in."
Grace's cursed necklace and the Russian family jewels
"Does your wife know that sapphire she's wearing has been cursed by a gypsy? Nothing on earth would make me wear it."
These were Tatiana's chilling words moments before Grace is shot dead by Angel Changretta's men as vengeance for Jon Shelby's attack and taking over their pubs.
But Tatiana was pretty barmy, right? Surely that sapphire wasn't really cursed, as she goes on to spend most of the series trying torment Tommy.
Well, Tommy travels all the way to Wales to visit Madame Boswell, a wise gypsy who tells him it is indeed cursed. But odds are she just wanted to ease his conscious… and pocket the expensive jewel.
He even tells Johnny Dogs there's going to be "one hell of a big f***ing party" at their camp tonight once he leaves.
While at the end of the season Tatiana says that all of her family's jewels are cursed, along with her and Tommy.
The director of series 3, Tim Mielants, confirmed the curse was actually real during the show's official podcast, Obsessed With Peaky Blinders.
He said: “Yes, of course it was. I love Steve Knight’s dark magic about - going deeper into the gypsy underground in a way and I want to take that very - I want to respect that kind of element. Yep, we believed in it.”
Grace's ghost coming back to haunt Tommy
Yep, in series 5, episode one, 'Black Tuesday', Grace Shelby returns from the dead to comfort Tommy Shelby around the fire.
His psyche is totally battered from his PTSD from World War 1, years of near-death experiences and losing the love of his life.
So the return of Grace Shelby to comfort him around the fire in is likely just an example of fractured mental state and longing for his dead wife.
However, she ominously tells him: "You have to listen to the voices that you hear. Do what they tell you to do." Before disappearing while Tommy is still speaking to her.
Real or not. It seems Grace's ominous words are only going to make things worse in the times to come.
Peaky Blinders seasons 5 returns to BBC One on Monday, August 26 at 9.30pm. Then every Sunday at 9pm after that.
Obsessed With… Peaky Blinders hosted by Digital Spy's Editor, Laurence Mozafari, is out now and available to listen to on BBC Sounds.
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