*This article contains massive spoilers for Peaky Blinders Series 5.*
While we're a long way off getting Season 6 of Peaky Blinders, fans can rest easy in the knowledge that the team have already got the opening scene in the bag - and director Anthony Byrne even been kind enough to share the deets with fans. Eeek!
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As many will remember, the fifth instalment of the gangster drama - which aired on BBC One in September 2019 - ended with Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) running out on to his field with a gun held to his head, and screaming before the camera cuts to black.
Speaking to Digital Spy, Byrne explained that the almighty cliffhanger will be dealt with straight off the bat.
"Yeah, it picks up directly," he said. "So, the very first image you will see will be back in that field... Tommy, with a gun to his head.
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"Then, we will move on from there, we resolve that amazing moment... it's great."
Like all of the series before it, the new season will be making a time jump, this time set in 1934, five years on from Season 5. Therefore, it's likely Tommy's moment in the field will be dealt with as a brief aside before jumping into the new era.
Let's hope he doesn't go through with it... we fear we'd be stuck without a show if Tommy Shelby was killed off.
Byrne has previously spoke about the upcoming season, and his comments had us giddy with excitement.
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He told BBC Sounds' Obsessed With Peaky Blinders podcast: "I have read three of the scripts and they're great, I did say it feels like part one of two and that was purely based on the fact that you have this cliffhanger...
"I want to know what happens in the field, I had no idea, I mean I do now. I checked my email and episode one of Series 6 had just arrived and I went 'Oh f*ck, do you want to know what happens after what we've just watched?'
"Then I sat on the couch and started reading it and my editor was sitting beside me just going 'Woah' and 'f*ck' - and I was like 'Do you know what page I'm on?' and I was like '46'. So I actually read the whole thing out loud. It was so compelling."
The sixth series of Peaky Blinders was expected to air in 2021, but fans can expect delays after production was halted due to COVID-19 lockdown measures.
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To recap, (spoilers incoming) the fifth instalment saw Tommy battle a formidable new enemy in Oswald Moseley (Sam Claflin), the slimy and cunning leader of the British Union of Fascists.
Meanwhile, Michael Gary (Finn Cole) and his new wife Gina Gary (Anya Taylor Joy) return from America, and the Shelbys make a truce with the Billy Boys in an attempt to win back riches lost in the Wall Street crash by entering the opium smuggling business with the Chinese.
Later in the series, Michael makes his bid to be head of the Peaky Blinders arguing that their drug smuggling expansion made him the most beneficial, and says Tommy should be demoted to a hidden associate. Tommy rejects the plan which sees Michael split off from the family.
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Elsewhere, Tommy battles fresh visions of Grace, Polly Gray (Helen McCrory) hands in her resignation to the family business and Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy) makes a surprise return, much to the delight of fans.
The series ended with the Peakys and Billy Boys forming a plan in order to bring down fascist leader Moseley. However, their assassination plans are foiled when their sniper is killed before he can carry out the deed. Meanwhile, Aberama Gold is murdered.
Tense scenes show Tommy trying to work out who betrayed them, and fans had their suspicions in Gina Gray, before the final scene showed Tommy running into the field, gun to his temple.
Talk about a cliffhanger.
We may be a way off Season 6, but it already sounds like it's shaping up to be one of the best yet. And the wait has been made a little sweeter now that we've found out Stephen Graham is joining the cast, too.
The This Is England actor, who most recently starred in Netflix's The Irishman, revealed he was on board for the next instalment of the Birmingham-based gangster drama before production was cut short due to coronavirus.
"I was supposed to be starting Peaky Blinders but that has been put on hold indefinitely," he told The Sun in April.
"My agent spent a lot of time putting that together."
Good things come to those who wait, and all that...
Featured Image Credit: BBCTopics: TV News, TV Entertainment, Peaky Blinders