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skania · 1 year

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THOUGHTS ON TOMMY & LIZZIE IN S6 (PART 2)

So this has been in my drafts for almost a year now. I kept putting it off because I wanted to rewatch the season to write my thoughts more coherently, but by now I think that’s just not happening so I’m posting it as is lol

Part 1 HERE

Once again, this post will contain tons of images, and spoilers for the entirety of Season 5 and Season 6. So, read at your own discretion!

So where I left off, Tommy and Lizzie had chosen to overcome Ruby's death and all the pain and stay together.

Tommy even makes her another promise, that he will change and change for good. For real this time. Just not yet.

The thing is, Tommy is right when he says has no limitations. He doesn't know when to stop. So, he doesn’t stop to think that other people may have a limit to how much they are willing to put up with. He figures that as long as he can keep providing for them, that as long as he can stay at the top of the chain, people will stay. That they will need him.

I feel like this is the crux of his behavior towards Lizzie, but when it comes to her, it’s not about the money. In his lowest moments, Tommy likes to pretend that it is; like in the S3 where he tries to give her money only for Lizzie to refuse to take it. Or in S5, when he lashes out saying that everyone needs him, she included.

But what keeps Lizzie by his side isn’t his money, it’s loyalty. It’s her love for him. Tommy knows this. It’s the reason why, whenever he does something he knows she will not like, Tommy feels guilty but still expects her to put up with it. And really, Lizzie has put up with so much throughout the series that Tommy's expectations aren't unfounded.

Until Diana happens.

Diana

The powerful thing about this scene is that all at once, Tommy knows that he has gone too far. He knows this is something he can’t ask Lizzie to overlook. Something she may not be able to forgive.

What Lizzie feared has come true. He has crossed the line.

The focus on his wedding ring tells us all we need to know, but what follows is just as striking.

His guilt, his panic is such that he feels trapped. He is back in those tunnels in France, a man with a death sentence and no way out.

And it’s all because he has stained Lizzie yet again.

Honestly, there’s a lot to say about Tommy’s dynamic with Lizzie. Tommy keeps most of his relationships transactional, but what Lizzie asks of him—what she deserves of him—is something Tommy doesn’t know how to give. I think this is part of what makes Lizzie get under his skin the way she does.

She loves him thoroughly and honestly and Tommy doesn’t know what to do with that because he doesn’t love himself, so he doesn’t know how to love her right, either. But—and that’s the thing—he wants to try. He sincerely wants to be a better man.

This is why he has such a visceral reaction to sleeping with Diana. Lizzie deserves better, she deserves so much better and Tommy is painfully aware of this. The fact that he was even capable of doing this to her makes him sick, because what does that say about the kind of man he is?

He changes the combination to the safe after this.

It’s not even because of his sickness, but because of this betrayal. He doesn’t want Lizzie to know. He doesn’t want to hurt her. Not yet. Not when he doesn’t have results that could perhaps, somehow, make her understand why he did it.

The saddest thing is that back when Tommy took Lizzie to that hotel room, he offered to let Lizzie into some of his plans, and she rejected his offer. She said she knew enough, because she was hurt at finding herself at the top of Tommy’s regrets. But now that she understands he doesn’t regret her, Lizzie is willing to give him another chance. She wants to know again.

But now more than ever, Tommy can’t let her in. All he can give her is a promise that he hopes he will be able to keep. That once everything is done, he will bare himself to her, sins and all.

The way he even restates his promise to her during the dinner shows the importance he is giving to it. Even now, Tommy thinks there’s time to make things right.

Of course, nothing ever goes the way he plans, so Diana comes in and the bomb explodes.

This scene is tragic but it’s so funny at the same time. He doesn’t even dare to look at Lizzie when Diana reveals they slept together. He tries to but immediately looks forward again. How sad is that lol

He is literally seething after Lizzie leaves. These two bastards humiliated Lizzie — and doomed his marriage — because he himself gave them the ammo.

And then Mosley goes and twists the knife right where it hurts.

How ironic! Tommy’s entire conflict with Lizzie this season is the entire opposite! The irony is not lost on Tommy, he kept to wine despite the american’s insistance that he switch to whiskey, but after this he does ditch the wine to pour himself a glass of whiskey lmao

This exchange pretty much summarizes everything Tommy has come to realize about himself and Lizzie this season.

Tommy tries and tries to do the right thing, but his means are always wrong. Sleeping with Diana is just the latest in a list of fuck-ups, and he has come to realize that even though he would like to believe the opposite, he can’t be what Lizzie deserves him to be because he does belong at that table.

And that’s the saddest ending.

The ending he has brought on himself.

Lizzie’s goodbye

It's funny because Tommy is an inherently selfish person. He is greedy and self-centered and single-minded. Despite having no plans of making her his wife, he tricked Lizzie into not marrying John in Season 1 and made sure she wouldn't date Angeal in Season 3.

What this all comes down to is that Tommy is caught in a hell of his own making but he's not selfless enough to let her go, because he wants her by his side.

Hell, if it weren't for his sickness, I bet Tommy would've found a way to convince Lizzie to stay, even after Diana. But his sickness and his lack of future (she doesn’t deserve what I’ll become) give Tommy the last push he needs to finally put Lizzie first and to free her from the curse (him), so he lets her go without a fuss.

The tragedy in all of this, is that this is the first time Tommy has been selfless about her. This is the first time he has truly put her first. But Lizzie doesn’t know this, because she never found out why the bomb was ticking.

This is literally the biggest act of love Tommy has ever done for her, but she doesn’t even know it. To her, his acceptance probably only confirms that he doesn’t love her enough.

Truly tragic from beginning to end.

The Rings

This was one of my favorite details this season. She takes hers off, but Tommy keeps his on until the bitter end. He wears it until the very day he intends to die.

Even though Lizzie has left him, Tommy keeps the reminder of their marriage on him. He chooses to stay married to her until his last moments.

Which is no surprise because even during that plane ride, Lizzie and all the ways he failed her kept weighting on his mind.

Right now, In this Moment

I wanted to wrap this up with this scene, because holy hell did we have to wait for it.

In Part 1, I talked about muy favorite bits: the parallels behind Lizzie knowing the combination to the safe, and Tommy saying that she married a man and she married a curse. But there’s something else that really stood out to me about Tommy’s wording, and it’s the way he choses to frame his long-time-coming confession.

I feel like this has so many layers; the wording is utterly deliberate and means a lot of things at once. Tommy chose that place because they have no history there; unlike Arrow House, there are no painful memories there. It isn’t tainted by their past and their mistakes. It’s a blank canvas where it’s just him and her.

But there’s more to it than that. Tommy dreads what he will become. Not only because of his business, but most of all, because of his sickness.

He fears he will have to crawl, grow insane and helpless. A few months from now, he may not even be aware of who he is and of the way he feels about her.

So I feel that he is essentially telling her: for the record, in this moment, when I am of sound mind, and in this room, where you and I are all that matter, I want you to know that I love you. I wanted you to know this, while I can still say it. Please remember it.

And of course, Lizzie knows at once that something is wrong. That Tommy is like a bomb waiting to explode, because why else would he be admitting that he loves her now? Why else would he be expressing it with such ominous wording?

So all in all, Season 6 is just really bittersweet because it’s like Tommy and Lizzie didn’t even have a fighting chance. He was dead because of Polly, dead because of Ruby, dead because of business, dead because of his illness; and then Lizzie is gone.

Throughout Peaky Blinders, we saw Tommy fight his love for Lizzie, we saw him accept it, then we saw him admit it; but we never got to see them happy the way we should have. There was always something bigger than them going on, and it’s a huge shame.

In all honesty, I have no idea what is expecting them in the movie. In a way, I think Tommy knows that finally letting her go is the best thing he has ever done for her. In that way, their chapter may truly be closed.

But if he does manage to change, to truly change for good and become a man worthy of having her by his side, then I’d like for him to think he deserves to fight for her. I do think that despite everything, Lizzie would likely give him another chance.

Because for better or worse, Lizzie loves Tommy Shelby. And while it was often for the worse, Tommy Shelby loves her too.