Things are looking up, if you're into British drama. Season two of The Fall arrives this Friday on Bravo, and the intriguing miniseries The Missing comes to Super Channel later this month.
But first, what's on tonight. Let's see: Our hero, Tommy, is "a murdering, cutthroat, mongrel gangster."
That might be true, but he dresses well and says this about his gangland operation: "This company is a modern enterprise and believes in equal rights for women."
We're talking Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) in Peaky Blinders (Super Channel, 10 p.m.) which has returned for a second season. It's as perplexing, magnificent and as mad as ever. It's a series (made by the BBC, all of season one is available on-demand from Super Channel) that people tend to love or loathe. Me, I'm coming to love it. It's the anti-Downton Abbey, the British period drama which shreds that genre.
The last time I checked on Downton, it was 1923. The Grantham household went to London for Rose's coming-out as a debutante and presentation at court. What-ho! And all that. Well, in season two of Peaky Blinders it is 1921 and Tommy also goes to London. There he finds jazz and cocaine. And viewers meet Winston Churchill, who happens to have a naked lady on his office couch at the time. See, Tommy is there for his coming-out as a big shot gangster.
People get shot, brutally beaten up or bombed out of existence. In one instance, while Tommy is murdering some guy, the soundtrack is filled with Johnny Cash singing Danny Boy. In most instances the soundtrack is filled with Jack White or Nick Cave doing some strange modern blues number.
And there's the confounding thing – Peaky Blinders is a period piece on acid, a dark, blurry, often hallucinatory journey through Britain immediately after the First World War. A Britain seething with crime and rage. Returned soldiers – Tommy is one – bristle with hatred of the upper class who condemned them to the horror of war. There are communist agitators and the Irish problem isn't solved – there's a civil war in Ireland and the two sides are fighting by proxy in England.
In this circumstance, Shelby's family of gangsters represents stability. They are the Peaky Blinders gang, so named for the razor blades they tuck into their cloth caps and use as weapons. When they cut, they aim to blind. They control betting, prostitution and drugs. In the first season the main storyline involved Shelby's gang acquiring a large cache of arms. The authorities were determined the guns would not be going to Ireland and sold to the IRA.
In this season, Tommy is still involved with the Irish. In fact one side in the civil war has him in their grasp. He's unwilling to play along. He just wants to expand his criminal operations in London. But the top Irish rebel leader, a woman, gazes at him and says, "In all the world, violent men are the easiest to deal with." Indeed. Tommy has a gun put to his head at that very minute.
A reason to love Peaky Blinders is its stunning, sumptuous visual impact. The palette is all dark, smoky charcoal and even in the rare daylight scenes the sky is slate-grey. It is only when the crimson of blood appears, inevitably, that the picture is complete in its luscious horror.
There is drollery too. The delivery of arch, threatening statements – which are constant – is undercut by brisk levity. The blend is bewildering at times. And, yet, eventually, hugely compelling.
The reason to loathe Peaky Blinders depends on your expectations. If you anticipate an old-school British costume drama, you will see gloriously attractive costumes – most of the characters look like figures from a pop band – but nothing else conforms to your expectations. The single figure who might seem familiar is Sam Neill as Detective Inspector Chester Campbell, a man with a bowler hat and a cane. On orders from Churchill, he's trying to manipulate the gangsters into a secret, deadly mission. And then, suddenly, this cop is a madman, a creature from the depths. You might not like that. It ain't no Downton.
All six episodes of season two are written by creator Steven Knight and directed by Colm McCarthy and Peaky Blinders is necessary viewing – an example of mad, but laudable ambition. Who knew a British period drama could be this scintillating? Nobody.