Peaky Blinders recap: episode three |

Peaky Blinders: episode by episodeTelevisionA day at the races, a return to the Chinese Quarter, and a rather ungallant escape for Grace – Peaky Blinders continues, and at last we meet a real Brummie

Back to Brum’s sooty terraces this week, but not for long, as Tommy and Grace are heading to the races at Cheltenham with Billy Kimber.Tommy doesn’t know she’s on a secret mission to “get close to him” thanks to Chief Inspector Campbell, and Billie Kimber doesn’t know that Tommy is secretly planning to move in on his business with the added carrot of Grace in a new dress.

A pair of IRA men turn up at the Garrison, bold as brass, and tell Tommy they’re “from the IRA” and they want to buy his “gons”. He says he’ll let them know if he happens to find any and then one of them, predictably, breaks into song. If I was Irish, I’d find the constant singing a bit reductive. As punishment for singing on her turf, Grace follows him and accidentally kills him in a scuffle.

Ada and Freddie get married but still, unaccountably, won’t leave Birmingham. Even when Pol offers them 200 quid and tickets to New York, they insist on staying put. They must really love soot.

Freddie and Tommy have a brief Reservoir Dogs-style stand-off by the canal but nothing is resolved and they both just sort of give up. The dramatic tension supposedly generated by the Ada and Freddie relationship just isn’t there at the moment.

Meanwhile, the Peaky Blinders set off for Cheltenham in a van with Tommy and Grace heading there in a borrowed car. Even though Tommy has dropped a fair few hints (“It’s not me you’re dressing up for. Wear a red dress to match his pocket handkerchief”) Grace is horrified to be offered up to Kimber as a sweetener if he agrees to go into business with the Peaky Blinders. Tommy’s boys teach the Lee family a lesson as a display of muscle for their new protectee. Terms are discussed and Kimber takes Grace back to his house.

At the last minute, Tommy averts Grace being raped by Kimber, bursting into the room and declaring that she has the clap. Nice. As Tommy and Grace drive away, she asks him why he changed his mind about letting her sleep with Kimber. Roll credits.

Mise en scène

We’re back on familiar territory visually this week as random doorways fizz with sparks and whoompfing jets of flame. What are they building in there? Whatever Birmingham’s biggest export was back then, it sure needed a lot of fire and half-naked men with pick-axes.

They didn’t waste money on that Chinese Quarter set from episode one after all. We’re back among the red lanterns this week briefly to pick up a suit. It’s probably where Tommy buys his opium, too.

Music

The fascination with Nick Cave and the White Stripes continues. Have they heard of other bands? How Tom Waits has escaped this soundtrack so far is a mystery to me.

Accent watch

The general confusion over how to talk has further deepened this week with the introduction of a peripheral character with a recognisable Birmingham accent. The police sergeant who talks to Campbell and then conveys his message to Tommy is Brummie through and through and makes all of the others sound even sillier. Are they really doing some historically correct hybrid accent to reflect the shifting population of the time or should they all have been queuing up for lessons from this guy?

Bad speaking

Once again, Grace is landed with the worst line this week. Or maybe it’s the way she tells them. You could hear this clunker brewing from a mile off: “At the start of the day I was Lady Sarah of Connemara, by the end I was a whore with the clap.”

It was closely followed by Kimber’s random “If you are coming to the races, bring that pretty barmaid of yours.” Just so we can establish he fancies her.

Best featured extra

When the gang are preparing for their assault on Cheltenham, they all take a blade from the pile. One tiny boy in a cap picks up a cleaver that’s bigger than he is.

Troubling things

Grace still exists only as a conduit for male lust – Tommy’s, Kimber’s, Campbell’s – and though this episode was basically all about her, we know nothing about her that we didn’t know in episode one.

Danny is back from London apparently without a care in the world even though the Italians will kill him and start a war with the Blinders if they find him.

At the end of Tommy and Danny’s scene in his bedroom, post-opium dream, Tommy appears to be talking without moving his mouth at all.

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