The Peaky Blinders Scene That Grace Isn't Even In Proves Why She & Tommy Were An Unstoppable Duo

Although Grace Shelby only stuck around for three seasons of the BBC’s landmark crime drama Peaky Blinders, she left an indelible mark on her husband, Tommy. The pair began as the best of enemies, with Annabelle Wallis’ character surveilling the Shelby family as an agent of the British state. They soon became lovers, however, with Grace preoccupying Tommy Shelby’s thoughts even in scenes where she doesn’t appear.

Even after Grace dies in season 3 of Peaky Blinders, her memory continues to occupy Tommy throughout the show's remaining episodes.

One particular scene in season 2 of the show demonstrates that Grace and Tommy were always meant to be together, even before their eventual marriage. They may have been thousands of miles apart at the time, with Grace actually married to another man in New York, but Tommy was fully aware of her situation. When confronted by Major Campbell, the villain that later Peaky Blinders seasons never bettered, Tommy suddenly revealed. Grace’s exact whereabouts and marital status. This revelation suggested the bond he shared with his future wife was tighter than ever.

When Tommy Sees Campbell Again, He Already Knows That Grace Shot Him

Only Grace Herself Could Have Relayed This Information To Him

Season 1 of Peaky Blinders ended with the sound of a gunshot, moments after Grace stared down the barrel of Major Campbell’s pistol. Yet the following season began by confounding the assumption that Grace had been shot, instead showing her shooting Campbell with a gun hidden in her handbag before he could pull the trigger. She didn’t kill Campbell, with the departure of Sam Neill’s character from Peaky Blinders coming later in the same season.

On the other hand, once she’d fired its opening shot, the season’s first episode ignored Grace entirely, focusing entirely on the next chapter of Tommy’s criminal exploits in Birmingham. Since Grace had given Tommy an ultimatum to join her in London so the two of them could flee together to New York, we’re left to conclude that they've simply parted ways. When Campbell limps his way into Tommy’s hospital ward, having survived being shot in the leg by Grace, it comes as a shock that Tommy already knows exactly what went down.

In the withering tone befitting many of the best Tommy Shelby quotes, he repeatedly taunts his nemesis about Grace. "Every time you lean on that stick, I bet you see her face," he tells Campbell. While Tommy is partial to goading his enemies, the casual manner in which he brings up Grace is surprising, given that she’s the love of his life who supposedly betrayed and then left him behind in Birmingham.

Peaky Blinders Season 2 Subverted Expectations With Tommy Being Up-To-Date On Grace's Life

The First Episode Implied They Were No Longer In Contact

Tommy’s first mention of Grace to Campbell in the scene shares the news of what’s happened to her following her showdown with Campbell. “Oh, by the way,” he says nonchalantly. "Grace, she went to New York, a place called Poughkeepsie. She's married now." In this one sentence, Tommy divulges three separate pieces of information about Grace, pertaining to three major events in her life since leaving Birmingham.

Firstly, she went ahead with her plan of moving to New York. Secondly, she found somewhere to live there, and she told Tommy the name of the place. Thirdly, she's got married. There must have been a considerable passage of time between each event, which suggests that Grace has given Tommy multiple and regular updates about her life. Contrary to expectations, it seems the pair are still very much involved with each other despite the distance between them. The time they spend an ocean apart is one of the saddest storylines of Grace’s protracted courtship with Tommy in Peaky Blinders' earlyseasons.

Even When They Weren't Together, Tommy And Grace Kept Each Other Informed

The Details Tommy Gives Campbell Suggest Grace Shares Everything With Him

Despite its revelation that Grace has married someone else, though, this scene hints that Tommy and Grace still have a future together, which will cement their status as one of the best couples in Peaky Blinders. The level of detail in Tommy’s update about his former lover shows not only that they’re in regular contact, but that Grace trusts him with information about her life that is best kept private.

“I found you, and you found me." - Tommy Shelby to Grace in Peaky Blinders

After all, she’s technically on the run having shot a British police officer, yet she’s happy to share her precise whereabouts and marital status with a gangster whose story is fatally intertwined with the man she shot. But Tommy Shelby isn’t just any gangster. He’s the man Grace loves, deep down. When they first got together, he told her, “I found you, and you found me,” uttering what is perhaps the most straightforwardly romantic line during Peaky Blinders’ six-season run. So, although they’re far apart at the start of Peaky Blinders season 2, the mere mention of Grace’s name implies that, sooner or later, she and Tommy will find each other again.