Is Tommy a cold, calculating (but human) gang boss who just wants to pull his family out of poverty, or is he a sociopath, using anyone and everyone in his path to power?
Is Michael Gray a troubled teenager thrust into the glamorously dangerous world of the Shelbys, or is he a budding sociopath patterning himself after Tommy and manipulating his mother into letting him have whatever he wants? Or, is he the victim of a pedophile doing whatever he can to never be powerless again?
Did Michael marry Gina in Season Five because he genuinely loved her and the timing was just unfortunate or did he do it because he knew he'd massively fucked up and hoped that having a young, pregnant wife would win him some sympathy points with his very pissed-off family, particularly Polly?
Did Alfie Solomons really betray the Shelbys again? Or did he knowingly engineer a situation that would give Tommy, who he calls "a very, very dear friend of mine," an excuse to kill him, rather than succumbing to his cancer?
Anti-Climax Boss: Billy Kimber is supposed to be a feared gangster, but he's actually more of The Napoleon. He has his mooks do his fighting for him and is dispatched by a single Boom, Headshot! from Tommy with no fanfare.
Grace. In season one, the fandom was divided over if she was a competent spy or not, and whether her falling in love with Tommy was romantic or contrived, especially given that Tommy inexplicably forgives a woman who sold him out to the cops, which Polly calls her out on. In season two, Grace fans were happy to see her back after running off to New York, and celebrated her hookup with Tommy and pregnancy. Non-fans of the character were displeased at her having virtually nothing to contribute and being the catalyst for Tommy acting erratically and breaking up with interesting new character May Carleton (whom Grace fans call "annoying" and "terrible", following Annabelle Wallis's own hatred for May's character "coming between" Grace and Tommy, nevermind the fact Grace left Birmingham and got married in New York voluntarily). Season three has reached a fever pitch, where Grace has not only gotten married to Tommy, but has been shot in a botched assassination attempt. Whether you think this is heartwrenching drama or a further shoehorning-in of an unnecessary character depends on how much you like Grace.
Season five continues the schism, with Tommy unhappily married to Lizzie, but seeing Grace in his dreams and later, hallucinating her at times of suicidal ideation. She's now become his idea of an angel of death, tempting him with how "easy and soft" death could be for him. Utilizing a talented actress in an interesting way, or contrived Madonna stereotype, you be the judge. What's especially annoying is that Grace is the only character Tommy does this with, despite the fact he has lost his mother, his childhood sweetheart, two of his best friends and his younger brother, with John especially being a far more important character and one Tommy has known and loved for far longer, but he never dreams about any of them - we still don't even know what his mother looked like and Greta is only seen in a photograph.
Seasons 1 & 2: Inspector Chester Campbell, originally assigned to recover the stolen guns from the Peaky Blinders, first comes into contact with the gang when he has his men terrorize a community under its protection before beating up gang member Arthur Shelby. When he learns that Arthur's brother Thomas "Tommy" Michael Shelby is the leader, he makes his presence known to him by demanding the location of the stolen guns with the threat of death to him and family, including Tommy's pregnant sister. Campbell later tortures and kills a suspect under his custody. Despite recovering the guns he becomes enraged when he learns that his mole, Grace actually fell in love with Tommy; he takes his rage out at a prostitute by brutally raping her. He later incites a gang war between the Peaky Blinders and a rival gang in hopes that Tommy dies, uncaring if innocents die, and attempts to kill Grace himself. Upon being promoted to Major, Campbell orchestrates an plan to have Tommy assassinate Henry Russell, and later burns a man alive under a pile of searing charcoal when he interferes. When Tommy deviates from Campbell's plan he has Tommy's brother and cousin thrown in jail and beaten up only releasing them if Tommy's aunt Polly has sex with him; he later rapes Polly when she tries to back out. After Tommy assassinates the target, Campbell attempts to have Tommy executed once he had outlived his usefulness. While claiming to be fighting for justice, Campbell is nothing more than a sadist, who abuses his authority to bully the weak.
Season 3: Father John Hughes is a member of The Economic League and by far its most vile member. A Pedophile Priest who raped the children under his "care", he notably disgusts even the hardened Tommy. When Tommy tries to kill Hughes, Hughes orders his men to ambush and beat Tommy up to the point his skull gets crushed. He later has Tommy "apologize" for trying to kill him in front of the League before being revealed to have molested Tommy's cousin, Michael Gray, in his childhood. He then has Tommy blow up a train full of innocents, so that he and the league could profit from its destruction. Should Tommy not do the deed, Hughes will rape and kill Tommy's son whom he's holding hostage.
Creator's Pet: Grace, as even with several other Love Interests before and after her, Tommy inexplicably seems incapable of getting over the woman who sold him out to the police, lied to him and then pulled The Baby Trap on him so he'd be forced to take responsibility and marry her. Yet she never really paid for betraying the Shelbys (except Polly rightly calling her out and telling her to get the hell out of Birmingham), never attempts to make amends for it, and continuously reappears in the show years after she died, with Tommy literally hallucinating her and mourning her far more than he ever seems to mourn John, his own brother.
Draco in Leather Pants: Arthur is treated by somes fans as a good person who simply let himself get manipulated by Tommy. While Arthur was indeed treated badly by his brother it was still his choice to take part in a lifestyle that included weapons dealing, violent beatings and downright murder. Some of his acts such as beating up Linda's friend in a jealous rage have nothing to do with Tommy either.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Alfie Solomons is in a grand total of eight episodes and while he's admittedly badass and an entertaining cross between Cloud Cuckoo Lander and The Don, he's also responsible for murders, torturing Arthur, and selling the Shelbys out to Hughes and getting Charles kidnapped. Due to being played by Tom Hardy, fans nearly universally love him.
Fan-Preferred Couple: While the canon Tommy/Grace pairing has its fans, most fans prefer to pair Tommy with Alfie due to the chemistry between Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy, which means this pairing dominates fan works for the show.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Brazilians love Peaky Blinders. The fandom in Brazil is huge enough for the "Shelby haircuit" be a popular choice in hair saloons.
Michael's seeming callousness in 2.05, after he learns that Polly was raped by Campbell in exchange for Michael's release from prison, and his comment that "maybe it is [funny]" get a lot darker in 3.05, when we find out that Michael is a rape victim himself.
The difference between Tommy's promise to Grace in 3.01 ("no guns in the house, Charles will never see one") and the scene in 5.01 (where Charles knows precisely what kind of man his father is and has witnessed Tommy shooting his pet horse).
Some fans believe that Grace, with the help of Tommy, faked her death, considering it parallels Tommy doing the same thing for Danny Owen in season one. Jossed as later seasons have made it extremely clear that Grace is dead.
Nearly everyone called Alfie not really being dead, considering how much of a Creator's Pet Tom Hardy is.
Hilarious in Hindsight: In 1.03, John summarises their mission at Cheltenham as being "To stick it to the Lee family". In 1.04, he marries Esme.
Ho Yay: Michael, John and Arthur get very drunk and very handsy with each other in 3.03, considering they're cousins.
Incest Yay Shipping: The Shelbys all have tense, fraught, emotionally volatile relationships with each other, which are very easy to read as UST.
Tommy and Polly, as the heads of the family, probably have the most.
Michael and Polly are trying to build a relationship but don’t really know how to be mother and son.
Michael is eager to be like his new cousins, and his hero-worship of Tommy can easily be read as a crush.
Tommy is very protective/possessive/controlling of his sister Ada, not helped with Esme referring to her as "his little pet" when the family are estranged in Season Four.
Like You Would Really Do It: Few people believed that the Season Five finale, with Tommy storming into the mists with a gun pointed at his head, actually indicated a threat to the character. You can't have your main character kill himself off in the opening minute of a season.
Love to Hate: Inspector Chester Campbell may be a sadistic corrupt official and overall horrible person. But Sam Neill did an amazing job at making him so formidable that it hard to not appreciate Campbell as a villain.
"No fighting, no fucking fighting, no fucking fighting!"note Thomas's demands towards his gang during a wedding before shoving a wine-carrying waiter down on the floor for nudging him. Usually replaced with Iran, United States, and the UN or other opposing groups and a mediator.
Mistah Shelbeh note Campbell's pronunciation of Tommy's name.
Frio e Calculista note Meaning Cold and Calculist in Portuguese. An ironic meme from Brazilian fans made to mock people who admire the characters, especially Thomas Shelby to the point of getting a haircut similar to Thomas'. Sometimes paired with Grey Hulk/Joe Fixit for extra irony.
Misaimed Fandom: A lot of people really like Mosley, a literal fascist, who in Real Life was one of the most repulsive politicians ever to have scarred the face of Britain. A fair amount of (openly antisemitic) viewers think Tommy throwing up a Hitler salute and saying "Perish Judah" with Mosley makes him even more likable, even though Tommy is a Romani person himself, and would in fact have been hated and persecuted by the Nazis that Mosley admired so much.
Moral Event Horizon: Campbell's Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique and frequent raids on the Bolsheviks should have been our clue that however upstanding he may act, he's actually a despicable person. He really outdoes himself in episode four, threatening Tommy that he'll bash him and his brothers' heads in, kill Ada and her unborn baby, and throw Finn into prison with child molesters, all in the most affable voice imaginable. And tops that by allowing Chapman, Freddie's Bolshevik superior, to be severely tortured and die in police custody. If he hadn't crossed the line there, he certainly does when he attempts to kill Grace for rejecting him.
Narm: Some of the accents on the show, but particularly Sam Neill's accent, which is nonetheless also praised as accurate.
The Scrappy: Linda gets it the most. Most fans are upset with her trying to reform her Boisterous Bruiser husband Arthur, who is a fan-favourite precisely because of this trait. Even by those who don't outright hate her for this tend to find her Holier Than Thou attitude annoying and hypocritical, since she herself participates in some of the activities she considers to be morally dubious (like the betting) and one would be forgiven for wondering how she and Arthur even got hooked up in the first place considering their differences. It even went to the point where alot of fans cheered when Polly shot her (albeit non-fatally) in Season 5.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: Season Two kick-started the Tommy/Grace vs. Tommy/May wars, which get resolved in Season 3 with Tommy married to Grace and May never even mentioned. Then they get un-resolved with season 4 - Grace is dead, and Charlotte Riley is back playing May. Then some fans Take a Third Option with Tommy/Lizzie, though their relationship is something of an Unequal Pairing in the beginning and their marriage is rather tense. And then there are those who take a fourth option and wish Tommy would just get with Alfie instead.
Signature Scene: "NO — FUCKING — FIGHTING!" Mostly due to its meme status reaching people who have never even seen the show. If you look up the scene on YouTube, you'll see many comments to the effect of "This scene made me start watching" or "I haven't watched Peaky Blinders, but I know this scene by heart."
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The ending of Season 2 sets up a dilemma for Tommy; Grace says she loves him and has found out she's pregnant with Thomas' baby, but she's still married to another man, whom she's reluctant to hurt as he's been good to her (though not enough to stop herself from cheating on him, apparently). To complicate matters further, Grace has a rival in May, who comes with far less baggage and has important business connections, plus May has better understanding of the hells of World War One and lost her husband like Tommy lost Greta. Plus there's also the point where Tommy/Lizzy gets seriously teased as more than just a business relationship. This raises the question of just how Tommy is going to navigate out of this, how Grace's husband will react if he were to find out the truth, which girl Tommy will come back for, etc. But, come the first episode of Season 3, this storyline is completely glossed over; it cuts straight to Thomas and Grace getting hitched and it's vaguely explained that Grace's husband committed suicide (which was publicly reported as an accident), while May is never even mentioned, even though you'd think Tommy dumping her for Grace would make May reconsider training his racehorse and using her influence with the board in his favour.
While not regarded as completely implausible that he'd take her back eventually, some viewers found it rather odd how quickly Thomas forgives Grace and lets her back into his life, considering she was spying on him for months, betrayed his trust after he finally opened himself up emotionally, put both him and his family in danger, then married another man and barely contacted him for two years; plus he has a new love interest in May who is unattached and completely loyal to him. Yet the moment Thomas finds out Grace is in the UK, he instantly tries to get her back, even when she expresses reluctance at leaving her husband and reveals she's trying for a baby with him.
Despite Alfie's obvious opportunistic nature and repeated betrayal of the Peaky Blinders, not to mention almost getting Arthur killed (twice) and being indirectly responsible for Charles' kidnapping, Tommy still seems to trust him and comes back to do business with him.
