Warning: Contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season 6, episode 1.
In Peaky Blinders season 6, episode 1, the series transitions several years into the future in a time jump that can perfectly setup the Peaky Blinders movie. Peaky Blinders was originally planned to run for 7 seasons; however, it was announced that those plans had changed and a final movie would replace the seventh season. While the movie will end the main Peaky Blinders story, there is word that a selection of spin-off series set in the same universe might arrive in the future.
Peaky Blinders season 6 picks up where season 5 left off as, after his attempt to assassinate Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin) went disastrously wrong, Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) contemplates suicide. Returning to his house, he learns that Aberama Gold (Aidan Gillen), Barney Thompson (Cosmo Jarvis), and Polly Gray (Helen McCrory) were all killed. During a funeral for Polly Gray, her son, Michael (Finn Cole), swears vengeance on Tommy, setting the tone for the series. A title card then announces that the show is moving forward in time, saying “Four Years Later.”
This four-year time jump in Peaky Blinders season 6 places the new season in 1933, following on from Tommy’s assassination attempt in 1929. While this gives plenty of time for Tommy to have become a new man and Michael to gain power to set them up as interesting rivals for each other, it also prepares the series for the final Peaky Blinders movie. Creator Steven Knight has revealed that the plan was always to have the show span the time between the two World Wars, starting with the end of World War I in 1919, and ending with the first air raid siren of World War II in 1939. By giving Peaky Blinders season 6 a full four-year time jump, Knight has moved the timeline close enough to the start of the Second World War that the movie will be able to reasonably take place at the time with its own time jump without being too far removed from Peaky Blinders season 6.
While every season of Peaky Blinders has included a time jump to transition the Peaky Blinders and the Shelby Corporation into a new era, season 6’s time jump is the largest yet. Peaky Blinders season 1 was set in 1919, series 2 jumped forward two years and spanned 1921 to 1922, and season 3 jumped forward another 2 years to 1924. Peaky Blinders season 4 broke with tradition by starting in 1924 and then jumping forward two years to 1926 with a similar framing to season 6, while season 5 jumped three years to 1929. As well as opening with the biggest time jump of the series Peaky Blinders season 6 still has the scope to include more time jumps that will move it even closer to 1939 and the fated end of the Peaky Blinders timeline.
While it will be necessary for the Peaky Blinders movie to end in 1939 to fulfill Steven Knight’s original plan, it does not need to start there. 1939 is still six years ahead of Peaky Blinders season 6, meaning it would still open with a new record-breaking time jump for the franchise. However, it is hard to know how much time the movie will cover. It is possible that the movie will be an intense look at a short period in the life of the Shelbys', or it could bring the Peaky Blinders narrative to a close-by starting earlier and seeing a series of time jumps through the years up to a finale in 1939.
Peaky Blinders releases new episodes Sunday on BBC.