Peaky Blinders Fans Confused As Michael Is Called Tommy's 'Nephew'

BBC drama Peaky Blinders officially came to an end last weekend and although a number of loose ends were finally tied up, fans still have some pressing questions about the finale.

One stand-out moment from Sunday's final episode was the one-shot scene between Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy), in which Alfie refers to Michael Gray as Tommy's nephew.

Michael was, of course, the son of Aunt Polly (Helen McCrory), which would make Michael Tommy's cousin - so why did Alfie call him Tommy's nephew?

Watch a clip from the scene here:

Looking to get to the bottom of it, one Peaky fan took to Reddit to ask if anyone else had spotted the slip up.

Posting to the Peaky Blinders subreddit, they wrote: "Why did alfie refer to michael as tommys nephew? arent michael and tommy cousins?? polly is tommys aunt? im confused plz explain".

And it turns out plenty of other viewers had noticed it too, all with their own theories.

Some were convinced that Alfie purposefully called Michael Tommy's nephew, either for cultural reasons, or because it was just "Alfie being Alfie".

BBC)

One pointed out: "It’s fairly common in large Catholic families where there is varying age gaps, such as large gaps between cousins and small gaps between aunts/uncles and nieces/nephews to simply refer to a member of your family as how you see them, or how members of more traditional families might see them from the outside."

Another fan commented: "It’s just Alfie being Alfie lol. He clearly doesn’t care about the Shelby family drama and doesn’t listen to the details 😂 but they are indeed cousins, not nephew and uncle."

Others are convinced that it was a mistake on Tom Hardy's part that was kept in the final cut.

BBC)

"Going meta on this one," began one fan. "Steven Knight said Tom Hardy didn't go ad lib at all this time around, when he usually does. It's a huge one take scene over like 5 minutes or something. He said nephew instead of cousin by accident but the rest of the long take was so good, they just went with it."

A second wrote: "It was probably just a mistake they left in."

Did you notice the slip up?

Tyla has reached out to BBC for a comment.

Topics: TV And Film, Peaky Blinders, BBC

Ali Condon

Ali is a journalist for LADbible Group, writing on all things film, music, and entertainment across Tyla, LADbible and UNILAD. You can contact Ali at [email protected].

@alicondon