Peaky Blinders Season 5 Episode 1 Recap – Black Tuesday

[00:01:00] Tommy rode a horse to a phone booth up on a hill. He called Arthur and discussed a letter that he had received. Tommy tossed his coin and decided to call Finn. He ordered him to tell Aberama and Isaiah to go introduce themselves to their new enemies. The letter Arthur had received stated that they didn’t know who the Peaky Blinders were. Tommy also told Finn to stay out of the fight. After the call, Finn signaled Aberama and Isaiah that their mission was a go. Tommy left the phone booth and returned home.

[00:03:00] A woman in her undergarments was laid on the carpet of Shelby Company LTD in Detroit, USA. The ringing telephone awakened Michael. He staggered to answer it, but all he got was bad news. Meanwhile, Polly was having the time of her life in Monte Carlo. She was busy having an affair with Peter, who she called her pilot. Ruby and Lizzie were in a gypsy camp waiting for Tommy to get back. They saw him riding his horse on the horizon, and Lizzie assured Ruby that everything would be alright with the return of Tommy. Aberama, Finn, and Isaiah arrived at Limehouse in London. They wasted no time and forced their way into a house. Back at the US office, Michael panicked as he called Arthur. He immediately asked for Tommy, but Tommy wasn’t there.

[00:07:00] Michael told Arthur that they had lost a lot, and Tommy needed to know immediately. Arthur released the call and phoned Polly. She didn’t believe Arthur, so he explained what had happened. The New York stock exchange had crashed that morning, and they had lost a lot of money. Finn and Isaiah continued into the rooms while Aberama split off and went outside. While the three of them were busy finding their enemies, Polly and Michael were headed back to Birmingham. The woman lying on Michael’s office was Gina; she wanted to go back to England, despite Michael’s disapproval. Finn and Isaiah reached another door and were met with gunfire as they tried to enter it. Finn was hit in his left arm as the gunman continued firing on them. Isaiah was unable to enter the room, so Aberama busted through the wall and killed the gunman.

[00:10:00] Aberama and Isaiah brought Finn back to take the bullet out of his left arm. Finn told Aberama to just take the bullet out and stitch him up. Aberama asked for Isaiah’s blade. Isaiah asked Aberama if he knew what he was doing, and Aberama confirmed. He told the two of them that he had once taken a bullet out from between two ribs and about an inch from the heart. Aberama added that he had done it on a horse and it had eventually died, but still, he knew what he was doing. Finn winced in pain as Aberama sliced his arm to take the bullet out. Ada arrived just in time for the main event. She ordered Aberama and Isaiah to leave as she took over Finn’s injury. Ada ended up scolding Finn as Tommy told everyone that Shelby’s keep out of harm’s way.

[00:12:00] Finn wanted to prove himself so badly that he had nearly died. Ada told Finn he would be dead if the bullet had hit its mark. She reminded Finn that he didn’t need to prove anything to them. Meanwhile, Tommy arrived at the gypsy camp where Ruby and Lizzie welcomed him. Lizzie told him that Charlie was inside the wagon. Charlie wouldn’t come out as he had overheard Johnny talking about Tommy shooting his horse. Tommy asked Charlie to come out so that he could explain what had happened. He explained to Charlie that his horse was sick and neither the vet nor Curly could do anything to cure it. Tommy added that it was what they did when things couldn’t be cured. Charlie couldn’t accept Tommy’s decision.

[00:13:30] Charlie told Tommy that it was what he did, shoot horses and people, and not him. He went back into the wagon, disappointed in his father. Tommy left Charlie to himself as he went to see his horse one last time before they buried it. Ruby accompanied her father as he said a few words over the horse’s grave. Tommy hated putting horses down as he remembered how he had had to put down another horse. Johnny Dogs apologized to Tommy as he didn’t know that Charlie understood gypsy. Tommy didn’t mind as it was an honest mistake and just let Johnny continued burying the horse. Arthur arrived at the camp to tell Tommy the bad news. He knew Tommy wouldn’t believe what had happened, so he brought the morning paper to him as proof. Tommy opened the paper and read the headline “Billions lost in Wall Street crash”.

[00:16:00] Tommy wasn’t worried because he had already told Michael that the crash would happen last week. Arthur told Tommy that Michael hadn’t listened to him but instead listened to their broker. The broker told Michael that the prices would rebound, so he had held on, which in turn lost them a lot of money. Now Tommy couldn’t believe what happened. Arthur kept telling him that Michael had held on. At this point, Tommy was mad. Tommy called Charlie to come out of the wagon, but he didn’t. Tommy shouted as he no longer knew what to do to make people listen to him, first Michael and now Charlie. Tommy ordered Lizzie to go back with Arthur to Birmingham. He also ordered Arthur to schedule a meeting with the board of directors tomorrow. Arthur wanted to do the meeting today, but Tommy needed some time to think.

[00:18:00] He rode off on his horse, but before he left, Tommy told Arthur to make Charlie understand that death was sometimes an act of kindness. Tommy camped in the middle of nowhere. He continued to drink some kind of medicine out of a vial. Out of the blue, Grace appeared on the other side of the campfire. She asked Tommy if she was now his genie, who could be summoned by his vial of dope. Tommy told Grace that he only took the dope to take his pain away. Tommy asked Grace what to do, but she was no longer there by the time he opened his eyes. The next day, Arthur went back to the office to find Linda. They were arguing about Arthur being named chairman of the company and his attitude towards the promotion.

[00:22:00] Arthur told Linda that he knew who he was and had come to terms with his identity. He wanted Linda to do the same and accept him for who he was, but she couldn’t. Linda didn’t want Arthur to end up being the fall guy. Tommy made him chairman so that he could continue running the operations with assurance that his name wouldn’t be tarnished. If all else failed, Arthur would end up getting the blame and serving the time in prison. Linda wanted Arthur to resign as chairman and use the stock market crash to do so. Everyone arrived for the meeting. Arthur tried to facilitate the meeting, but things weren’t going so well for him. Polly suggested that they just wait for Tommy to arrive. Linda told Polly that Arthur was now the chairman of the board, but she didn’t care.

[00:22:00] There was a new member of the board, Mr. Greene. He tried to lighten the tension between Polly and Linda by expressing his gratitude and adoration to the board. He also pointed out that majority of them were female. Arthur responded that Shelby Company LTD is a modern company who considers woman. Polly still tried to find an argument with Linda, but Tommy arrived before anything could escalate. Linda tried to regain control of the meeting through Arthur, but he didn’t want to proceed. Arthur told everyone that they were screwed. Tommy neither confirmed nor denied his statement. Linda knew that the money they had lost wasn’t through stocks, and investments weren’t everything they had hoped it would be. Linda told everyone that only the money that went through the books was approved by the board.

[00:26:00] Arthur couldn’t control or contain Linda; Tommy tried to ask him for help, but Linda wasn’t having any of it. Tommy told Linda that they would have a separate family meeting after the board meeting. Tommy explained that although they had lost a boat load of money through their stock investments, the banks were willing to pay them a couple of cents per dollar lost. Polly saw the payout as insult to injury. Tommy had a plan and asked the chairman if he could present his plan to the board. Arthur agreed without any hesitation, only proving to everyone that he really didn’t have any control over the company and that he was just a front. Linda was pissed off with what Arthur had done and left the meeting. No one tried to stop her as Tommy continued.

[00:28:00] After the meeting, everyone headed to the Garrison pub. A boy told everyone inside the pub that the Peaky Blinders were coming. Everyone applauded as Tommy entered the pub. He shook the hands of the people as they thanked him for what he had done. People really thought he was for the people and that he wanted a revolution to happen. Tommy was giving away free drinks, despite the company losing a lot of money earlier. The people applauded his generosity, but Polly wasn’t happy about it. He ordered everyone into the saloon so that they could have a private area for themselves. As the people left, they sat down on a table to discuss business. Lizzie suggested that they meet somewhere else, unseen by the public eye. Ada told Lizzie that Tommy wanted to be seen with the public as he thought it was good politics.

[00:30:00] Lizzie responded that socialism was great as long as Polly didn’t wear earrings that were worth more than the Garrison pub. Ada started the family meeting by showing them a bullet that Aberama had pulled out of Finn’s hand. Lizzie couldn’t believe that Finn had been shot, so Tommy immediately took the blame and told them that he had ordered them to fish out their enemies. Lizzie wanted to know what Finn and the rest of the Peaky Blinders were doing in Chinatown. Ada told Tommy that Finn had told her they were sent into Chinatown to kill someone. Arthur couldn’t believe that Finn had told Ada everything. He pointed out that Finn really needed to learn the ropes of being a Peaky Blinder. Lizzie and Ada couldn’t accept that they were still in the business of killing people.

Polly, Arthur, and Tommy defended their decision as the man they had killed was a pimp prostituting kids. Arthur didn’t feel any remorse about what had happened; he told Lizzie and Ada that the world was now a better place since they had killed the man responsible. Arthur responded that, sometimes, “killing is a kindness”. Tommy told them that the job had come from higher-ups in the government who didn’t want a trial for the pimp. The coppers were cleared from the area and no one was going to link the killings to them. Tommy explained to Lizzie why he hadn’t told her about the plan. Tommy blamed Finn because if he had listened to him, then Ada and Lizzie wouldn’t have found out. Lizzie left the meeting just like Linda had.

[00:33:00] Tommy responded that the company was able to retain some of its earnings through other sources. Tommy told everyone that until the stock market recovered, cash would remain King and cash was what they had at the moment. Ada left the meeting as she also didn’t want any part of “Business as usual” for Tommy. Polly told Tommy to go easy on Ada; however, Tommy had always been easy on her. Polly was about to tell Tommy that Ada was pregnant, but he already knew it. Arthur was surprised by the news and wanted to know who the father was. Tommy told Polly that times had changed. No one cared who the father was. Polly already knew who the father was, but she didn’t tell them as they had had enough surprises for one day.

[00:35:00] Polly left the pub as Tommy showed Arthur Finn’s bullet. Arthur was happy that Finn had finally taken his first bullet. Arthur noticed that the bullet had some funny writings on it. Tommy told him it was Chinese. Arthur wanted to know if it would mean trouble for their family, but Tommy didn’t have any idea. Tommy left the pub shortly after and instructed Arthur to let the commoners back inside. Tommy attended a meeting at the House of Commons in London. He made a speech and majority of the people inside agreed to his statement. After the meeting, Tommy met a new enemy, Oswald Mosley. They shook hands as Oswald formally introduced himself.

[00:39:00] Tommy entered an office to collect his fee for killing the Chinese man. The man who was supposed to pay the fee made an excuse and only wanted to pay Tommy 20 grand instead of the agreed upon rate of 50 grand. Tommy saw a photo of the man wearing a cavalry uniform. He told the man about a story from the war. Tommy and his comrades had waited three days for the cavalry to arrive. When they did, the cavalry officer told them that he was delayed because of a game. Tommy took out his revolver and shot the officer. He took the officers horse as his own and fled. Tommy told the man that he would deliver the cash in full as agreed upon, or Tommy would air out his dirty deeds for the world to see. The man tried to retaliate, but he couldn’t do anything against Tommy.

[00:41:00] Later that evening, Ada met with Colonel Ben Younger so that she could give him the latest list of people interested in armed revolution. Tommy was milking his position within the communist party and had gained the trust of Jessie Eden and others. Ada was working overtime for the company to help them recover from the fall of the stock market. She told Ben that Tommy had a plan to help the company recover, and they just needed to place their trust in him. Ben told Ada that more contracts from the British Army were on their way to Tommy as they spoke. He also noticed that Ada was now drinking Stout instead of Gin. Ada responded that times were hard, hence in her change of drink. She looked at Ben like she wanted to tell him about it, but she didn’t.

[00:43:00] Tommy received a telegram from New York, sent to him by Winston Churchill himself. Winston had had dinner with Charlie Chaplin, and Charlie had mentioned Tommy’s name. Tommy was concerned that Churchill was in New York, yet he didn’t mention the stock exchange crash. Tommy informed his secretary that he would spend the night in the apartment; he wanted the secretary to begin locking down their office, but Tommy still had one more meeting for the night. It was a journalist from the London Times. Adam sent the journalist in; it was Mr. Levitt. He was the same reporter that Tommy had invited during the time he had burned the pictures of the King in Small Heath. Tommy couldn’t remember Mr. Levitt, not until he mentioned the first time they had met. Tommy applauded Mr. Levitt’s success, and he returned the gesture.

[00:45:00] Mr. Levitt reminded Tommy about the list of questions that he had sent him in advance. Tommy no longer knew where he had placed the questions, but he told Mr. Levitt that he had invited him because the questions interested him. Mr. Levitt wanted to know how Tommy had made the leap from bookmaker to politician. Tommy was starting to see where their conversation was going, so he evaded the question. Mr. Levitt continued going down the rabbit hole by asking Tommy about Major Campbell’s death. Tommy responded that one of his family members had been charged, but nothing was proven, and the charges were dropped later on. Mr. Levitt was starting to annoy Tommy with his questions. He had done his own research into Mr. Levitt and wrote it down on a piece of paper. It included his name, address, civil status, and his gender.

[00:50:00] While Tommy was talking to Mr. Levitt, Ada went to Polly for some advice regarding her pregnancy. Polly wanted to celebrate her pregnancy with a glass of champagne. Ada remembered the first time she had been pregnant. Ada reminded Polly that she had wanted her to have an abortion. Polly told Ada that times had changed, and she could have the baby regardless of whether the father wanted in or out. Polly had high hopes for the year 1930 when she would give birth to her baby. Ada hadn’t told Ben Younger that he was the father, despite having met him earlier. Ada was also concerned about how Tommy would react, but Polly told her that he already knew.

[00:52:00] The next day, Tommy went home and was greeted by a dog named Cyril. It was Alfie’s dog, and despite telling Alfie that he wouldn’t look after his dog, he still took the dog home. He asked Frances where everyone was. She told Tommy that Lizzie was upstairs with Ruby while Charles was at the stables. Tommy decided to go to Charles first. Charles still hadn’t forgiven Tommy for shooting his horse. Arthur told Charles that it was God’s will what had happened to his horse. Charlie told Tommy that he wasn’t God. Tommy knew things would get better between him and his son.

[00:54:00] Mr. Levitt came back to his apartment with a bag of groceries. He headed to the lift and closed the gate. Two men came running in with machine guns and riddled him with bullets. Mr. Levitt died inside the lift at the hands of two Peaky Blinders, who had killed him presumably on Tommy’s orders.