Everyone Had The Same Reaction To The Peaky Blinders Tribute To Helen McCrory

As Peaky Blinders’ long-awaited final season made its return last weekend (Feb. 27), fans of the show shed a tear over its moving and heartfelt tribute to Helen McCrory. The late actor, who played loveable and tough-as-nails matriarch Aunt Polly, sadly died midway through filming for season six. As the show’s male lead Cillian Murphy (who plays Tommy Shelby) put it, McCrory was “the beating heart of that show”.

McCrory originally intended to appear in Peaky Blinders’ final season, but according to show writer Steven Knight, lockdown-related filming delays and her worsening health tragically made things impossible. Following McCrory’s passing from breast cancer, aged 52, the Peaky Blinders team knew they needed to mark her absence from the show with a poignant tribute. “We had to address that situation, and provide a fitting epitaph for the character,” Knight told Digital Spy.

In the opening moments of the episode, we find Tommy Shelby exactly where we left him at the previous season’s massive cliffhanger, and on the brink of killing himself. The Birmingham gangster pulls his gun’s trigger only to discover that it’s been emptied of bullets, however, and once Shelby’s safely back at his house, he gets an ominous phone call from IRA leader Captain Swing (Charlene McKenna) as a car pulls up on his driveway.

As Swing claims credit for a foiled assassination attempt on Smethwick’s MP Oswald Moseley, three bodies are shockingly unloaded to serve as a warning: Aberama Gold (Aiden Gillen), Barney (Cosmo Jarvis), and Aunt Polly.

Shelby is heartbroken upon this shock realisation, and is especially stricken at the loss of Aunt Polly. In honour of the character’s Romany gypsy heritage, a traditional funeral is later held, and during a striking three-minute silence, Polly’s carriage – adorned with a portrait and photographs – is symbolically set alight. Elsewhere, the show credits also pay tribute to Helen McCrory, who played Aunt Polly.

Today, fans are reacting to the beautiful and fitting tribute.