Warning: This post contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season 6 episode 2.
Here's who the gray man of Ruby's visions is in Peaky Blinders season 6 and why Cillian Murphy's Tommy Shelby should be scared of what his daughter sees. Only an episode after Peaky Blinders revealed the Tika More O Beng mystery, the second episode ends with another bang, with Ruby in grave peril and her parents worried for her health. Things are not looking good for Ruby, and her visions of a gray man are bad news for Tommy: "it's the gray man. Says he's coming for me. And he's coming for Daddy as well."
Though Peaky Blinders is rooted in real-life history, Steven Knight's show has increasingly embraced fantastic realism in a wholly uncynical way. All of season 5 was dedicated to Tommy Shelby's visions of a black cat warning him of someone close to him betraying him, and Polly Grey's influence on her nephew was partly aided by her second sight and gift of foresight. It seems that Peaky Blinders is replacing Polly with Ruby, in particularly worrying fashion given the cost it's coming with for Ruby herself. While Tommy ended Peaky Blinders season 6's first episode pleading with Polly and assuring her that he was trying to "get out", there may well be dark twists in his tale yet to be revealed.
Here's who the gray man is in Ruby Shelby's vision in Peaky Blinders season 6 episode 2 and what it could mean for the rest of the show before it ends. With warnings of the devil and death already ringing in Tommy's ears after episode 1, it doesn't look like the near future is going to be good for the Shelbys.
Who Is The Gray Man? Symbolism & Meaning Explained
Ruby's "gray man" vision is almost certainly a warning to Tommy Shelby. Interestingly, the symbolism of "the gray man" appears in folklore a couple of times. In South Carolina mythology, the Gray Man appears to warn of coming disasters - specifically storms - and in Scottish folklore, the Greyman, or Am Fear Liath Mòr is a supernatural presence who haunts the second highest peak in Britain, Ben Macdui. More generally, gray figures speak of supernatural symbolism, which underpins the idea of the tall gray look of supposed alien sightings: whether linked to the supernatural, the undead or the extra-terrestrial, gray is unnatural, hence Tommy's appropriate fear when he hears of Ruby's vision. On a slightly deeper symbolic level, grayness hints at the unexpected, perhaps of an enemy who will appear to blend in. With Tommy already wary of rats, that will not help his mental condition.
Interestingly, after Tommy has returned home, Lizzie finds drawings that Ruby has clearly done, which show images of the man with the green eyes from her first vision, as well as haunting sketches of the devil. For Ruby at least, the imagery of the Devil is tied to her visions, and from her drawings, it's obvious that he is a figure of terror for her.
What Tikna Mora O Beng Means - Peaky Blinders' Biggest Unanswered Mystery
Along with the reveal of Ruby's new vision in Peaky Blinders' tense second episode, there's an ominous reminder of the untranslated Romani words that compelled Tommy to leave America and come home believing his daughter to be in grave danger. But what does "Tikna Mora O Beng" mean, and why is Tommy so fearfully reminded of it when Lizzie confirms that Ruby is very ill? According to the best available material on the elusive Romani language, the gypsy phrase "Tikna More O Beng" means "daughter, death/friend, the Devil". It would appear that Ruby's feverish words were not a complete sentence, but they were haunting enough to make Tommy fear the worst. And they're an important enough part of her visions that Peaky Blinders is actively hiding the meaning to draw out the drama.
Who The Gray Man Could Be In Peaky Blinders Season 6
There's a second element to Ruby's "gray man" vision that makes the warning to Tommy Shelby all the more chilling. Even more literally than the symbolic, supernatural connotations that Tommy may fixate on, Michael Gray is literally "the Gray man". Ruby warning that he is coming for Tommy fits perfectly with Michael's episode 2 vow to be the one to kill Tommy for causing the death of Polly Gray (Helen McCrory). It makes a lot of sense that Michael Gray is the "Gray man" in Ruby's vision, even with the other details of her original vision, which may seem to contradict it. After all, Ruby's vision in Peaky Blinders season 6's first episode mentioned a "green-eyed man" and Michael does not have green eyes. Nor would he fit the supernatural element of her "Tikna Mora O Beng" warning.
But looking at this figuratively, there are answers to both contradictions. Ruby mentions "green eyes" in her vision, but that could be symbolic, given the traditional meaning of green eyes - as a marker of jealousy. Michael may be driven by rage and loss, but his "business plan" to take over the Shelby Company Ltd was seen by Tommy as his attempt to usurp him and take the spoils for himself. There is certainly an element of envy to it, as Michael coveted Tommy's power and riches, and Anya Taylor-Joy's Gina seems to be feeding those ambitions.
Also as Gina reminded viewers again this week, it's particularly interesting that she and Michael refer to Tommy as "the Devil" given the meaning of "Tika Mora O Beng". Because rather than Tommy being warned against the coming of a Devil and the threat to his daughter, the phrase could just as easily be interpreted to mean Ruby is the daughter of the Devil herself. Peaky Blinders is also setting up a major clash between Tommy and Michael, with episode 2 opening with a reminder of Polly's season 5 warning that one of them would kill the other in a war that was inevitable but which she couldn't predict. That would play into the idea of Michael Gray being the gray man in Ruby's vision.
Why Ruby Coughs Up Blood - What Is Wrong With Tommy's Daughter In Peaky Blinders Season 6?
The more emotionally devastating part of Ruby's visions is that they seem to be tied to her ill-health, which took a dramatic turn for the worse in Peaky Blinders season 6 episode 2. After rallying before Tommy's return from Boston, Ruby's fever spikes again to above 100 and she coughs up blood, with the doctor warning that Tommy and Lizzie should try and stay away from her. Ruby's symptoms suggest that she has contracted TB (tuberculosis), which wasn't vaccinated against in the UK until World War II, though even then on a small scale. The fact that the doctor insists Tommy and Lizzie stay away from Ruby also suggests TB, given the disease's mode of transmission, and that could be a hint at how Tommy Shelby eventually dies. Unfortunately, without vaccination, and at her age, Ruby stands little chance of survival, which could mean even more trauma for the Shelbys as Peaky Blinders season 6 plays out.