909 Watches TV: Peaky Blinders

[909]

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE CAVE

Alright I considered not finishing this because of how far behind I got on writing, but here I go. Judith is dead from breast cancer and we're building up to Ivar being overthrown. The big deal here is that Floki dies in a cave collapse after finding a cross. TBH this is the last thing this show needs and I was feeling a bit numb afterwards like I wanted this to be over. Hvitserk also reunited with Bjorn and everyone's leaving Wessex so like, maybe we're done with this storyline for a while. Good.

RAGNAROK

This episode finally gave me what I wanted with Ivar being beaten out of Kattegat, but it didn't give me exactly what I wanted because this cripple fuck is still alive. Ivar also kills Freydis so in the end this fuckin dude wins anyways and I'm over it. Bjorn becomes king and this episode is interesting because it's a big battle and all, but I feel that the season is unresolved after a ton of buildup.

SEASON 6

NEW BEGINNINGS

So there's a lot of ways this could have gone but Ivar winds up in Kievan Rus. That's one of the best things that could happen, actually. Upon arriving he gets captured by this guy named Oleg, and it turns out he's a Prince. He's also even more batshit than Ivar so that has potential. It's not like he'll be hurting characters I care about. Back in Kattegat, Bjorn exiles all of Ivar's friends, then Lagertha/Torvi/Ubbe all leave and decide to farm in some village. Harald has also been detained!

THE PROPHET

Bjorn decides to help Harald and I feel like the show was starting to circle the drain from here. I don't like the introduction of more characters, I want things to wind down to an end and it feels like I'm not getting that. Instead we see Ivar redeem himself or whatever by not being so evil and no dude this isn't for me. Edge returns to Kattegat though and Bjorn is able to get him to come save Harald with him.

GHOSTS, GODS, AND RUNNING DOGS

Bjorn fuckin other girls again, bad shit happens, etc. Bjorn's kid getting killed was fucked up though. Didn't see that coming, although something had to give this season juice I suppose. Bjorn tries to free Harald from Olaf, but Olaf is ready for that shit and it isn't happening. Bit of a stalemate going on now until this is resolved. Ubbe also takes power in Kattegat while Bjorn leaves and he wants Hvitserk to tour the Silk Road, but Hvitserk has become a dopehead and alcoholic. His life is ruined and he can't go do shit. This was a much better episode than the previous one.

ALL THE PRISONERS

I was surprised Edge admitted to what happened at the settlement, but he also tells the truth of Floki. Floki disappeared and they can't find him. That is what happened isn't it? The fact they keep talking about it in the show means that he isn't dead, that's what I think anyway. Oleg says that he wants to invade Scandinavia which I hope finally ends with Ivar being killed. That being said this dude is way more intense than Ivar and he's far more terrible. Better actor though. Hvitserk also gets disowned here and in some ways rightfully so because this is the past and there aren't resources to deal with these kinds of people. Instead this dude is just gonna wreck everyone around him. Olaf also wants Bjorn to be the King of Norway and I don't see that happening. At least this show turned it around some even though they've really gone extra with the amount of new characters this season. It's too much.

 

[909]

THE KEY

This episode cracked me up but that may not have been intended. The chick playing Katia is obviously the same one who played Freydis and Ivar thinks they're the same person. Well they're not but that part is intended anyway. I don't know why this episode ends during the middle of their king's election because that seems like one dumbass cliffhanger. Hvitserk is a total loser now too and it was obvious he was going to eventually do something really stupid. I just didn't know what. Ubbe is also told where Ivar is and he doesn't seem to care.

DEATH AND THE SERPENT

The election is decided and lol Harald is the King of Norway. That's hardly the most important thing in this ultra-packed episode. Lagertha kills White Hair, but uh, she's dead. Hvitserk has a vision and thinks she's Ivar and loses his fuckin mind. I don't know how many times he stabs her. Kind of a lot. Bjorn and Kjetill are also nearly killed by Harald so like, lot of shit going on here. Some guy named Erik saves his ass. Obvious who he's supposed to be but I don't know what they are and aren't fucking with history wise anymore. It is also nice seeing Ivar be humiliated.

THE ICE MAIDEN

When they found Lagertha it was obvious this would be a funeral episode where Bjorn shows up at the end. That's exactly what this was and he learned his mom died and all that. Torvi also finds out her son is dead which feels like it would be much worse. We also get a history lesson on funerals and sacrifices and that kind of stuff. Good episode.

VALHALLA CAN WAIT

I thought that was pretty good symmetry when the writers decided to have Hvitserk tell Ubbe about their mother and just claim that Lagertha deserved it anyway. Which I mean alonzomourning.gif you know maybe she did. Bjorn is gonna take Ingrid as a second wife and I'm thinking that they're really leaning into the Sopranos aspect here of showing that everyone in this show is a bad person somehow. The Rus are going to invade Norway, Oleg threatens to kill the kid, all in all not good. What's really not good though is that Ubbe and Torvi go to Iceland and decide to seek exploration. Maybe they can find out what happened to Floki even though nothing happened. But man, Edge is REALLY mad about this. He did some great work in this show.

 

[909]

RESURRECTION

There's a ton of shit that happens in these three episodes and I hated most of it. I want the show to be over at this point. One bright spot was that Ubbe met the mythical guy Othere and he's actually going to go west of Iceland. But that doesn't happen in these three episodes. Othere also tells Ubbe that the story of Floki he's been told is only partly the truth. Anyways, Bjorn gets Harald to join up with him so they can fight the Rus, and Ivar finds Hvitserk so they bail back to Kyiv for a while. This and the next are those kinds of episodes where almost a whole year passes over the course of said episode.

THE BEST LAID PLANS

I do not see the point of including a storyline where Harald rapes Ingrid. It happens anyway and the Norsemen lose badly to the Rus. In some ways this feels like it's really deserved because everyone except Gunnhild is a fucking scumbag. I would be cool with seeing almost everyone in this show die except the people in Iceland and Gunnhild. It seemed like they would pull the trigger on offing Bjorn during this episode but instead they cruelly made viewers wait nearly an entire year to see it lmao. They also killed him off too soon I'd say, but anyway, that doesn't happen yet! Ivar being the one to stab Bjorn wasn't cool either.

KING OF KINGS

Man I was thinking for almost this whole episode 'fuck this show'. I don't mind Olaf being killed cause that's cool but I hate seeing so much of Ivar and specifically so much of him in the dominant position. There's been too many episodes where that's the case. He's the heel that won't go away, the Triple H of this show. It was cool to see Edge exposed but again, fuck dude, how could they kill Bjorn off so fast? It's way too soon. It was cool to see the Rus driven out of Norway but that's like 5 minutes of an episode that really sucked ass to watch. This show didn't get that much worse when Ragnar died but the last season really showed how bad things could get without a strong lead character like him.

 

[909]

ALL CHANGE

Now that I'm close to watching shows I'm really looking forward to, again, I still want this to be over. I cracked up at Edge saying he wanted redemption but I guarantee when they get to this new place and something happens he's gonna be the first guy to start up some shit. Besides that we have the potential of a king/queen election in Kattegat (except Norway already has a king?) and Ivar's story in Kyiv is progressing as slowly as ever. I don't care though and hate even looking at him.

THE SIGNAL

About time the real King of Norway returns and even though this guy is an evil fuck he's one of the only things holding the show together at this point. The acting quality dipped but Harald's has not. His scenes are crucial. Torvi and Bjorn's last child dying was some fucked up ass shit. I also wanted Hvitserk to kill Ivar but he didn't go through with it. Really too bad. I feel like the chance of getting a satisfying ending to Ivar's story is becoming smaller and smaller.

LOST SOULS

We are getting to the end of Oleg and that's cool, but this means more Ivar on screen and that isn't. I'm starting to repeat myself here though. The settlers arrive in Greenland though and clearly it is not green land. The place sucks. Harald takes Kattegat's crown as well and it seems we can move on from that whole deal, but what matters here is Greenland. The whale being beached on Edge's land is gonna end fucking badly and you can see that coming from a mile away.

ALL AT SEA

Well at least Oleg is dead now. Unfortunately this means Ivar and Hvitserk are going to go back to Kattegat. Can someone just execute one or both of them? Gunnhild drowning herself is yet again another bad turn for a storyline that's already gone very badly. I feel like this was an extreme devaluing of a great character and I'm not too happy about it. Edge refusing to share the whale was funny though. I absolutely approve of this. He chases the other settlers back to their boats and they decide to head west again because where else are they going to go? But they don't have supplies so like, it's gonna be hard.

THE FINAL STRAW

Alright, just four more episodes after this one and that's what I'm gonna keep repeating to myself. Harald and Ivar are going to raid Wessex so we're right back where we were a couple seasons ago.

 

[909]

THE RAFT OF MEDUSA

I'm not too sure what the title refers to but I thought it was great that Erik planned to screw over Harald all along and wound up blind because of it. She was a witch after all! In other news as we wind down the story, we return Alfred to the show as he's planning to fight off Harald and Ivar, meanwhile Ubbe's expedition finds land that I think is supposed to be Canada. But I'm not sure and Canada wasn't exactly unoccupied at the time. So what's next?

IT'S ONLY MAGIC

So this land that you might call NEW FOUND LAND (awful pun intended) is definitely occupied and the Norsemen trade with these natives without ever having seen them. Just a simple exchange of leaving things for each other. Eventually they are brought to a clearing and all of a sudden they're surrounded by Indians to end the episode here. Pretty cool scene tbh and definitely a big highlight in a drab season. Meanwhile Erik is trying to have Ingrid killed and we're building towards one big fuck off battle in Wessex where surely the remaining warriors we know will be killed. Or maybe they won't.

 

[909]

THE LORD GIVETH...

Alright so I liked this episode and only really for one reason, but it's a big fucking reason. Floki's not dead! He comes back and it turned out he was in North America himself, getting away from everyone and really only living all on his own. Erik and Harald eat it in this episode so now I really don't care about how this ends other than that I was really hoping someone would violently kill Ivar. That is only kind of what happened.

THE LAST ACT

So about Ivar, yeah he gets killed and it's violent at least in terms of how it's carried out, but it's filmed in a way to make you feel sorry for him and shit and man that's not the vibe I got from this character fucking whatsoever. It's like if they drew out Joffrey Baratheon's death to have him say a bunch of stuff that he did was wrong. FUCK THAT. This is so dumb and agggggggggggg it just ruined the fuckin episode entirely for me, including the parts that had nothing to do with Ivar. It was cool to see Ubbe abandon the old ways and move on, but Ingrid becoming Queen was really unsatisfying as well. I think this season ruined the show for me.


Rating: 5/10 on my adjusted scale. Some great seasons but the last two were varying degrees of suck and there were 20 episodes in each of those seasons.

Favorite Character: Ragnar
Least Favorite and Definitely Ruined the Fuckin Show: Ivar

I will watch other Vikings themed stuff and the sequel show at a later date.

 

[The Thread Killer]

Vikings: Valhalla is okay. It’s an easy enough watch, entertaining enough to be enjoyable but nothing exceptional, IMO.

Conversely, after a slow start The Last Kingdom is a lot of fun. In some ways, I found that just as good as Vikings.

 

[909]

MS. MARVEL

GENERATION WHY

Okay so I gotta point out the obvious first of all. It is not bad to make shows for different target audiences. My gripe here is that Kamala Khan has asshole syndrome for most of this and the second episode. That's what tripped me up here. I don't understand the point of doing that, but her mom has asshole syndrome too and that makes two main characters introduced with that problem in one episode. Now that being said I think Ms. Marvel probably has the best supporting cast of any of these shows. I also liked that there's no real villain here for quite a while. And if you wanna know what I mean by asshole syndrome? How does someone tell their dad all that shit about Avengercon and not be seen by me as a giant asshole? Not possible tbh.


CRUSHED

This follows the pattern of the comic where Kamala gets a crush but in this case the dude is way different than expected, etc. I also liked seeing that the powers Kamala has are going to be more like those in the comics (which are good). I was also glad we didn't introduce more Inhuman stuff and clearly everything's going in a different direction and that's good. I know why people complained about this show so much but the complaints I do have obviously aren't the same as that. Again, her family members are the best part of this show, and the side characters in most Marvel shows get basically no attention at all. I appreciate the difference here. I also found it interesting here how so many powers in this Phase are related to jewelry. I hope at some point there's an explanation for that.

DESTINED

Alright, now we're getting into the partition and how this relates to the show and I almost want to end my review here because I'm excited to see where this goes. I will say that if you don't appreciate a slow television show this series is definitely not for you. Everything here is building and building and hopefully at some point there's a good payoff. Only thing I have to complain about is that the bad guys here are very ill defined and the next episode is gonna have to do some major legwork. "They want the bangle" but why?

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

My sole complaint about Ms. Marvel is that we didn't get to see Kamala versus her true archnemesis:

Spoiler

the Inventor.

 

[909]

SEEING RED

Alright to some extent the show goes off the rails before its conclusion. The villains are the weakest of any in any MCU property, without question. Now while to some extent the show goes off the rails, it's like half of it doesn't and ultimately the show ends in a satisfying way. But first we have the show locating to Pakistan and we learn more about the bangle, what it is and what it does etc. The stuff with Red Dagger is good too.

TIME AND AGAIN

The partition set scenes in this episode are fantastic, but the second half of this episode kinda sucks ass. I also thought that this episode really cemented the Clandestines as being terrible villains but while watching it I did forget there were also terrible villains waiting back in New Jersey. There are also some major issues with the time travel here and it is not consistent with anything else in the MCU. Anyways I feel like even though this isn't a bad show it could easily have been much better.

NO NORMAL

At least this episode had the Ms. Marvel stuff that I expected (becoming a giant, etc.) as opposed to more crystal stuff. Still has the same villain problem though and I don't care that much about Kamran either. Thing is that all the other New Jersey supporting characters were pretty good so again I think maybe a different villain was in order. The mutant thing would have been very surprising if it hadn't already been spoiled for me, but I like that they're going in that direction. The post-credits make me think the bangle is Kree related which I also like that direction. What the hell else would it be anyway? IMO this show wasn't long enough and needed better villains but I think things set up well for a season 2. Don't know if they'll actually do that though.

 

[909]

NEXT UP

EPISODE 1

These episodes don't have titles so I have to run with this format of reviewing for as long as they do. I thought this was a great way to introduce all the characters even though the ending had the potential to bring things down a notch. Fortunately they knew better and guy wasn't dead after all. Anyway, if you don't know what this show is, it's pretty easy to explain. Peaky Blinders is set after WW1, everyone came home from France and the Shelby brothers got back to their job running a crime family. Tommy (Cillian Murphy) runs the place while aunt Polly (Helen McCrory) did so when they were gone. Before the events of the show it turns out they accidentally stole some guns. They could get rid of them, and they should get rid of them considering an Inspector Campbell (Sam Neill) is sending in thugs to jack up Tommy's business, but the guns are here to stay. They've been hidden. Meanwhile a communist agitator named Freddie (Iddo Goldberg) is suspected of having the guns himself, and he's in love with Tommy's sister Ada (Sophie Rundle), so that's going great and I'm sure Tommy loves it. It also turns out that a new barkeep, Grace (Annabelle Wallis) was sent by Campbell to spy. All setting up pretty well I'd say!

EPISODE 2

This got to brass tacks a lot sooner than I thought it would. Fact is Tommy has the guns but he needs shit in order to expand his criminal empire. He thinks Campbell knows he has the guns so he might as well tell him that he has the guns. Tommy also tells him that he'll send the guns to the IRA if Campbell doesn't do what he wants, so this is a big problem. This is pretty great overall IMO. Lots of nice little wrinkles here and even though this is another one of those shows where bad people do bad things, it feels unique to other shows in that despite the 1919 setting there's a lot of modern music here. Like, really a lot. We also get introduced to someone mentioned a lot (Billy Kimber) and this guy seems like a barrel of laughs. Seems like the next episode will be about overtaking him in some kind of way.

 

[Youth N Asia]

I’ve watched three seasons of Peaky Blinders. I can find it pretty confusing at times. I just don’t always get why they’re working for who they’re working for or against who they’re against.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

I’ve watched three seasons of Peaky Blinders. I can find it pretty confusing at times. I just don’t always get why they’re working for who they’re working for or against who they’re against.

It can get real Russo-y (sTeP oUtTa tHe BuBbLe), but the end result is always "Tommy is working for himself and his family."

Enjoy the ride, @909 . The fourth season was my favorite, and I'm looking forward to the movie due in a couple of years.

 

[909]

EPISODE 3

Strong episode here but for reasons I've only been able to watch these pretty infrequently the last few days. Figured Freddie wouldn't go to New York but it seems inevitable he'll get caught and executed for being a Commie. But who knows? I don't. There's a lot of strong scenes here culminating in Tommy having to run in before Billy Kimber rapes Sarah/Grace. What a guy. I also laughed at Grace killing the IRA guy cause it figures that she would have to do some morally ambiguous shit like that in order to make you believe she's not fully on Campbell's side. And you know, maybe there's a point where she isn't. But we'll see. I also feel like it was a huge mistake for Tommy to tell his brother about the machine guns.

EPISODE 4

Alright so there's some shit here I really don't know what to make of it. At the start of the episode we go from them warring with the gypsy family to marrying into it. Will we see these people again now that Tommy isn't trying to fuck with them? Tbh we may not. I know if I was starting a show instead of getting bogged down in that storyline I would move on. Speaking of moving storylines along it appears Freddie is immediately captured at the end of this episode after the birth of his child. Only took a commie dying and for Grace/Sarah to seemingly give up some bad information about Freddie but it seems like guy is in some big shit. BIG KARL ISN'T GONNA SAVE YOU NOW BUDDY. There's another good subplot here with Joe Cole's character getting too close to marrying a prostitute. Instead he marries the gypsy girl. Campbell's threat also feels like something that will end with him dying lol.

 

[909]

EPISODE 5

This episode right here has some great parts. The IRA shows up again and this time the dude says he has the freedom to do whatever he wants including kill Tommy. Doesn't matter that he has the guns or doesn't, he's sure Tommy killed the first guy they sent and that's that. Grace finds out that the guns are in Danny Whizz-Bang's fake grave though, knows he's alive, then it's IRA time. This scene is super tense and super great. Tommy was never giving anyone any guns, there's a big fight after Grace kills the first guy and Tommy beats the other guy to death. Surely this won't be the last we see of the IRA. We're also introduced to the Shelby dad and he's a piece of shit who completely owns Arthur so knowing there's six seasons I'd like to see this guy again. Guns are gone come the end of this episode but Tommy doesn't understand how or why, he bangs Grace, life's all good except it isn't. Arthur tried and failed to kill himself, and Campbell was supposedly leaving except he's not.

EPISODE 6

Man this episode was a barrel of laughs and surprises. MY MAN DANNY WHIZ-BANG ALREADY GOT TAKEN OUT AGAIN. So that happened because Billy Kimber and Tommy went to war, and Kimber died while Tommy and Danny got shot, and well that's how it went. Polly has great scenes in this episode though, I'd go so far as to call her the MVP. She brings Ada back into the fold after Ada got mad about Freddie, and Freddie's escaped with the help of the Peaky Blinders as well. Then once she finds out Grace is a turncoat we get a couple great scenes out of it. Campbell also gets completely undone here. He beats up a hooker, sells Churchill a bill of goods, and then come the end of the episode there's a scene where he seems to kill Grace but surely it's going to be him who ate it. Grace is busted as already said, and Tommy is the forgiving sort it may seem, but Polly said she'd kill Grace so lol. Great episode for a great first season and I'll be watching more in a few minutes.

 

[909]

At some point some of my season 2 reviews got deleted and at that point I thought I'd resume with season 3.

SEASON 3

EPISODE 1

So, if you've seen this show before you know that there's an appearance of the status quo changing but Grace features so little in these two episodes that you must surely know something's up. Something was up. First, we have the episode where she and Tommy get married etc and a whole bunch of Russian business starts. This is at Churchill's behest and Tommy owes him so he has to get weapons to the Whites. It's all going to go tits up though. This episode has some cool spy intrigue that's notably absent from the previous two seasons, and maybe this is the direction this season will go in over the long term.

EPISODE 2

All I can say is holy shit cause like, when you get shot in the collarbone in those days you're deader than shit. So Grace is dead. This all comes as a result of something stupid that John does, and Tommy encourages him to keep going, and well now you get what you have coming to you. It's also good to establish a group of enemies that has credibility because that hadn't been done yet in this series. But, this show isn't really about the enemies anyway, IT'S ABOUT THE PEAKY FOOKIN BLINDERS. This Father John guy though, he seems dangerous too and he hasn't really thrown his weight around that much yet. I'm eager to know more. Actions speak louder than words and so far he's just words. The tailspin Tommy will head into after this murder should be entertaining though.

 

[909]

EPISODE 3

So yeah, of course Grace is gone and with that comes a spiraling Tommy and the inevitable reaction to what's happened. Surprisingly it isn't that bad, but he goes to Wales and now firmly believes that the sapphire given to Grace was cursed. The revenge Tommy wants is carried out by others because ultimately it's unhealthy and wrong the shit that he's trying to do and have others to do for him, we'll put it that way. It also seems like Michael might be building up towards engaging in the other part of the family business, but you know, maybe not. Arthur being about to have a child is both wild and bad I think. Lastly we finally learn what it is that Tommy wants to steal and that it's tanks, and that the tanks will be part of the robbery while he steals some shit that he really wants. He also wants the priest dead but as we'll see in the next episode, lol.

EPISODE 4

These instances where something really bad happens to Tommy either so they can jump the time forward or...change the storyline entirely are not yet tiresome. What will the story even become after this? I have no idea. He gets beaten so badly, tells the Soviets they're being stitched up so that the British government can cut them off, and then he's fucked afterward. It seems like maybe Arthur won't be getting a payoff and won't be able to leave after all, but again, this might be a case of both things changing. The time and the storyline. It's hard to say when I haven't watched the fifth episode yet and don't know! I like all of this though and find this show super entertaining.

 

[909]

EPISODE 5

Things take some unexpected turns in these two episodes. Can't say I saw it coming that Michael would ask to be the one to kill the priest, but it's not surprising there would be some element of that in his storyline given how he was separated from his family to begin with. The rest of this episode is really funny. Alfie Solomons returns and does some jewelry inspecting, you just know he'll fuck Tommy over in the end and he does, but that doesn't happen in this episode. You also know that at some point the storyline with Polly and Ruben will come crashing down, but I did not even SLIGHTLY see it coming. Other than the ending where Polly warns Tommy to not have Michael kill the priest, this was an extremely funny hour of television.

EPISODE 6

So as I'm sure you know if you watched this show, Michael does go through with killing the priest and all kinds of bad shit happens. Firstly, the priest kidnaps Tommy's son and that's what leads to this being priest killing time. Unfortunately John and Arthur have to kill six innocent people because the timeline of how these things work out gets all fucked up, but the Russian storyline is completely resolved. HOWEVER, everyone except Tommy and the wives get hauled off to jail for all the bad shit they've done, and that's what I didn't see coming. That being said something had to happen in order to keep the cast in the same spot, right? Great show.

 

[909]

SEASON 4

THE NOOSE

The noose is in reference to what happened after the season 3 finale, which was that everyone was sent to the gallows before Tommy could have their charges revoked. Revoked they were, and then everyone except Michael and Ada decided they wanted nothing to do with him. Fast forward a year and the Italians want to have the Shelby killed. And by the Shelby's, I mean all of them. Seems like that wouldn't be a cool thing to have to go through. Everyone's basically fine after the incident except for Polly, who has gone completely insane and needs to snap out of it. Not too sure that John and Michael getting shot are going to snap her out of it.

HEATHENS

This is the point where I almost feel like not writing about these because everything fits a greater picture of a season and it's hard to talk about the merits of one episode when everything has so much to do with the previous and following episodes. I like this Aberama Gold storyline though and am looking forward to what he brings to the table. We need a guy from the outside who just comes in and kills people and this is suitable. Loved the scene at the end here with Luca, makes you hope the last four episodes of this episode really bring it. Maybe we'll even get lucky enough for this storyline to last for more than one season.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

The last two episodes of S4 were my favorite two episodes of the entire series, for what it's worth. Just great pacing and payoff.

 

[909]

BLACKBIRD

The last four episodes of this season were good enough that I wanted to look up the ending before I watched it, but in the end I didn't do that. Polly finally snaps out of it during this episode, which makes this strange narrative wise because people don't really do that, but I'm cool with it and accept it. Arthur gets in a great fight here and winds up covered in red paint, which leads to some great visuals. Favorite character this guy. To be totally honest I didn't believe for one second that Polly would actually give Tommy up here. The guy Luca is untrustworthy for one thing, Polly isn't a dummy and surely she knows that.

DANGEROUS

As soon as the dead boxing guy's mom showed up, it was clear some shit was going to go down. Tommy knows this as well. Arthur does as instructed but it's a trap and Luca wants to get to Michael instead to prove to Polly that she better go along with his plan. For me and clearly for Polly as well, this does the opposite. Thing is Michael doesn't tell Tommy anything at all and this being the show that it is, it will be brought up later. This is all great, the ambush and all that. Tommy's also gotten Lizzie Stark pregnant even though he doesn't care too much about her, so I'm sure that will go well and shit. Liked seeing Alfie come back, scene was great, clearly he'll be a factor in the end of the season. Great ending shot too with Tommy heading towards his 'ambush.'

THE DUEL

Really, really long shootout to start this episode. Tommy and Luca both still not dead, so this will continue on until the end of the season at least. Had to know Polly would get involved with Aberama, so once again I'm sure her heart will get ripped out because that's what happens in this show. Meanwhile Luca gets Alfie to put some of his guys in the corner for this upcoming boxing match, their job being to kill Tommy of course. I don't really understand the point of Ada's scene here. I cracked up at the communist chick falling for all of Tommy's moves, like, don't you see that this guy is out to screw everyone? He owns the factories for fuck's sake.

THE COMPANY

Alright, so a ton of stuff happened here but I agree with Laz. These two were the best episodes of the series. The important things are as such. Tommy becomes an MP, they get rid of Luca, Alfie winds up dead too. I will repeat if you haven't watched this show yet, you shouldn't be reading this but you should watch this show too. Michael getting sent to America with his mom's blessing was like a huge nut punch to the guy. It would be surprising to me if when he came back to start the next season, things were alright and shit. They won't be. When every scene is great it's hard to talk about them and say which one was the best, which ones resounded more with me, etc. But I will say that someone like Tommy joining the Labour Party as a spy is guaranteed to lead to him doing extremely right wing scumbag type of shit.