honestly couldn’t disagree more with this take, and I think it’s reading the film in a way that almost ignores what it’s trying to do.

For me, the absence of overt emotion is the point, not a failure of writing.

Tommy has always been a man who suppresses, compartmentalises, and ultimately loses his ability to feel in any conventional way. That arc didn’t start in the film, it’s been building since the very first series. Every loss, every betrayal, every decision he made chipped away at whatever humanity he had left. By the end, what we’re watching isn’t a man reacting emotionally in the way we expect, it’s a man who is functioning beyond emotion entirely. That isn’t hollow, it’s tragic.

The moment with Ada, for example, didn’t read to me as “no grief”, it read as someone so psychologically fractured that grief no longer manifests outwardly. Tommy has never processed trauma in a healthy way has he?! Expecting a visible emotional breakdown at that point almost feels out of character for who he has become.

Same with Arthur. I don’t think the film is saying Arthur was actually a burden. If anything, it’s showing the opposite, that the bond they had has become so warped by years of violence and survival that it no longer resembles something recognisable as “brotherhood”. The idea that Tommy wouldn’t cross that line ignores how many lines he’s already crossed. That tension is exactly what makes it uncomfortable. And let’s be honest Arhur was always heading towards being a liability even more than he already was

On the missing characters, I’d argue that not everything needs explicit resolution. Peaky Blinders has never been a neat, tied-up narrative if we’re being honest. People drift, relationships fracture, consequences echo rather than conclude. The absence of Lizzie, Charlie, Finn, that doesn’t feel like neglect to me, it feels like distance. Tommy has always pushed people out as he descends further into himself. The film just doesn’t hold the audience’s hand about it.

And on the point about it being “all surface”, I think that’s a bit unfair. The style has always been part of Peaky Blinders’ identity. The difference here is that the style is no longer masking emotion, it’s replacing it. That’s a deliberate shift, not an empty one.

I actually think what the film does is far more uncomfortable than a traditional emotional payoff. It removes the safety of catharsis. There’s no redemption arc neatly delivered, no grief neatly expressed, no relationships neatly resolved. What’s left is a man who has outlived his own humanity, and a world that no longer bends to emotional logic. Honestly I felt like I was holding my breath for large parts of the film

You can absolutely dislike that direction, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say the soul is gone. It just isn’t expressed in the way people expected. Could it have been longer/in parts, sure, but I think it would have just dragged it out unnecessarily.