Episode #1.1 

Thomas Shelby plans to fix a horse race; some guns turn up stolen.

Director:

Otto Bathurst

Writers:

Steven Knight (creator), Steven Knight

Stars:

Cillian Murphy, Sam Neill, Helen McCrory

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Cillian Murphy	...	Thomas Shelby
Sam Neill	...	Inspector Chester Campbell
Helen McCrory	...	Aunt Polly
Paul Anderson	...	Arthur Shelby
Annabelle Wallis	...	Grace Burgess
Iddo Goldberg	...	Freddie Thorne
Sophie Rundle	...	Ada Shelby
Joe Cole	...	John Shelby
Ned Dennehy	...	Charlie Strong
Benjamin Zephaniah	...	Jeremiah Jesus
Lobo Chan	...	Mr. Zhang
Alfie Evans-Meese	...	Finn Shelby
Neil Bell	...	Harry Fenton
Samuel Edward-Cook	...	Danny Whizz-Bang
Ian Peck	...	Curly

Storyline

In Birmingham just after the Great War trenches veteran Thomas Shelby leads his gang, the Peaky Blinders, so named as they carry lethal razors in their peaked caps, who make money from illegal betting and the black market. Thomas, by mistake, appropriates a consignment of guns which have been stolen from the local arms factory and hard-nosed Inspector Campbell arrives from Ireland, charged by war minister Winston Churchill to recover it. Thomas's aunt Polly urges him to return it but he sees the opportunity to use it to his advantage. Thomas also quarrels with his elder brother Arthur as Thomas has devised the 'powder trick', a means of fixing horse races and Arthur is nervous as Thomas has not involved Billy Kimber, who runs the race-courses and their rackets. Thomas's sister Ada is in love with Freddie Thorne, who saved her brother's life in the war, and is now a Marxist, encouraging workers to strike over a pay cut. As far as Campbell is concerned Freddie is as much the enemy - in ...

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Plot Keywords:

face spattered with blood | police brutality | weapons shipment | year 1919 | hiding | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Did You Know?

Trivia

The soundtrack of the movie "Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" was used towards the end of the episode

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Goofs

In the opening scene on the train with Inspector Campbell, he's looking over Arthur Shelby's rap-sheet the year is 1919. Arthur is charged as a racketeer, and the term racketeer was first introduced in 1925, in the U.S.

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Quotes

Arthur Shelby: Where are you? It bloody won! Monaghan Boy bloody won!
Thomas Shelby: Yeah. It won. And word will spread. So the next time we do the powder trick, it wont be just the Garrison that'll bet on the horse, it'll be the whole of Small Heath. And you know what? The horse will win again. And the third time we do it, we'll have the whole of Birmingham betting on it. A 1000 quid bet on the magic horse. And that time, when we are ready, the horse will lose. Think about it.

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Soundtracks

Martha's Dream
Written and Performed by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

User Reviews

"Peaky Blinders" has just 'de-peaked' my interest

I heard this show was really good, so I tried it. After watching the pilot, I don't have any interest in watching anymore. Very derivative, with uninteresting characters and plot. The biggest problem I have with it is that it is so incredibly pretentious; it is trying so hard to be as good as an HBO show, that it makes me hate it even more. It's pretentious because random creative decisions are made for the sake of them being 'cool'. It feels like the filmmakers behind it just saw a bunch of really good shows, picked out things they liked and slapped it altogether to create this.

• every scene ends and/or begins with electric guitar in the tune of westerns, then fades out after 10 seconds. It sounds cool, but doesn't fit
• first scene is especially weak, given that it sort of 'homages' westerns (music + everyone hiding behind things + character on a horse, walking slowly down a street). I expected the show to be sort of satirical then. Except the show isn't, which makes me think it basically ripped it off because the filmmakers thought it looked and sounded cool. They didn't understand that this cliché has become so iconic that it can only be used for satire nowadays.
• no character development or clichéd character development. I can't tell you a single interesting or unique thing about any of the characters.
• cinematography, while pretty at first glance, comes off as very random. Sometimes there are inserts of a character we haven't even been introduced to yet, looking at another character for up to 10 seconds, while that other character is talking. Lots of reaction shots-especially annoying cliché of character smirking at something that another character says, in order to try and make the audience laugh. Same use as a laugh track in sitcoms: doing the laughing for the audience, at a 'joke' that isn't usually even funny. 2-3 insert shots of things in reflection off surfaces (random).
• scene of Sam Neill coming into the town by carriage has been in about a hundred other movies/tv shows

I could go on forever...

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 September 2014 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Black Country Museum, Dudley, West Midlands, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Caryn Mandabach Productions, Tiger Aspect Productions, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Technical Specs

Color:

Color