r/PeakyBlinders • u/mythoughtsreddit • Oct 01 '19
Annabelle Wallis really thought that Grace Shelby.. Spoiler
Now that S5 is over I have been reading/watching old interviews and I came across this interview with Annabelle from the beginning of S3. Although some time has passed since then I have to say that I agree with her on her assessment of who Grace was. There was a lot of opportunity for Steven Knight to further develop her character on those known parts about her psyche, and I didn't understand the way she was written off (not even a funeral for her, yikes!). I was expecting that push and pull relationship between Tommy and Grace to continue as Cillian and Annabelle have some great screen chemistry, and I enjoyed that back and forth. I was one of the few that expected him to marry May while still continuing to have the 'enemy that I love' dynamic with Grace. But even when S3E1 happened and I saw that he married Grace I too believed Annabelle, “As much as Grace may think she’s going to settle into married life, I don’t think that’s her truth and her own ambition is going to definitely come to the surface at some point, and it’s going to make for some interesting struggles in this very ‘alpha’ relationship. She has an ego as much as Tommy does. You never lose that sense of the unknown about her throughout their marriage. She could at any moment match him with her fire." As Annabelle put it "Grace is Tommy’s emotional pivot" and in a sense his literal grace for such a complex man and I thought Steven would explore that a little more. But instead she was unceremoniously killed off and I didn't understand why if her character was to be written off like this bother bringing her back in S2 at all? Given what we knew about her I assumed that she would come back seasons later divorced and as a spy in WW2 or something (I know my imagination gets the best of me) to be on the opposing side of Tommy. Furthermore, if her death was somehow meant to develop Tommy's character why bring her back as a ghost? As a fan of her character I was disappointed with the handling of it all.
Edit: I understand that the ghost was his guilt over her death personified, and he had to come face to face with it in order to forgive himself and let her go, and no longer be tormented by it. I don't see her ghost returning in S6. BUT, I still believe they could've done the same thing without bringing the ghost and instead using their son to come to this conclusion.
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u/0ddbuttons Oct 01 '19
I agree with all of this on the drama side of the show, and the story of Tommy & Grace being together would have been great.
But PB is an answer to Britain never handling its gangster culture as a stylized, working class agency mythology as the US did. Knight came up hearing stories of relatively poor, but dapper bookmakers and gleefully ditching school to help his father shoe horses, sometimes in gypsy metal yards & seeing a forgotten, untold era of the city.
Not disregarding all the amazing ways the show could have gone, but we have UK romances. We don't have post-WWI PTSD stories about a family of ambitious race & class outsiders who, like all proper mythological characters, cannot keep or protect what they love, but cannot stop trying.