The upcoming sixth and last season of the popular crime drama Peaky Blinders will see global warfare unleashed, going “into and beyond the Second World War,” says creator Steven Knight. With season 6 now due to be the final outing for Tommy Shelby and his gang (in serial form at least), Knight has decided to widen the scope of the story, with his intention having always been to bookend Peaky Blinders with the two world wars.

“It was always Britain between the wars – how the lesson from one war was not learned and was repeated. It’s also the end of empire: we enter the Second World War and by the end of it, there is no empire, really. But I… have revised the scope of what it is. It will now go into and beyond the Second World War. Because I just think the energy that is out there in the world for this, I want to keep it going, and I want to see how this can progress beyond that.”

Fans of Peaky Blinders were disappointed to learn that season 6 will be the show’s last. While a movie has since been confirmed, Knight has now suggested to Empire that there will be much more to come from the gang. “I think of this sixth series as the end of the beginning,” Knight said of the upcoming series.

Steven Knight Has Confirmed That This Era of Peaky Blinders Will End with a Movie

Tommy-Shelby-Peaky-Blinders
BBC Studios

Debuting back in 2013, Peaky Blinders follows Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby, the dangerous leader of the Peaky Blinders, a criminal gang based in Birmingham in 1919. The fifth season of the show aired last year on BBC One, and proved to be the most popular season of the show so far bringing in an average of 7 million viewers per episode.

Season 5 ended with Tommy Shelby and the gang in a precarious position following the failed assassination of Oswald Mosley, with cracks in the family beginning to form due to the ambitions of Michael. The last moments of the series finale saw Tommy continuing to succumb to the mental trauma he has been suffering from since the beginning of the show, culminating with him facing down a hallucination of his dead wife while pointing a gun at his head, seemingly poised to pull the trigger.

Details of season 6 are slowly dripping through, with a recent teaser revealing that Tom Hardy’s Alfie Solomons will return for this final act. It has also been revealed that Boardwalk Empire star Stephen Graham will also join proceedings, though his role has so far remained a mystery.

While the upcoming season has been confirmed as the last, Steven Knight has since stated that the story will continue in another form. "Covid changed our plans,” the creator said. “But I can say that my plan from the beginning was to end Peaky with a movie. That is what is going to happen." Knight has even teased that the saga of Peaky Blinders could continue far beyond Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby. "In the form it is in, it is absolutely impossible for this to work without Cillian. As it grows and progresses, who knows?” he said. “There may be worlds that are part of the Peaky world that are about someone else but he is the centre around [which] everything orbits."

Peaky Blinders season 6 is scheduled to be released later this year.