This Arthur Shelby detail in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is a blunder that ruins a key scene

Maybe they didn’t watch their own show

People have been waiting for the new Peaky Blinders movie, The Immortal Man, which recently landed on Netflix, and now they have spotted a huge blunder that ruins a key scene.

Tommy Shelby’s older brother, Arthur, isn’t actually in the film, and it’s revealed right at the start that he’s already gone. There’s no big send-off or dramatic final showdown. It’s just a quiet visit to his grave.

So, Arthur’s gravestone shows he died on 2 December 1938, which lines up with the idea that some time has passed before the film begins. But then you look a bit closer, and his birth year is listed as 1895.

Now, that might not seem like a big deal at first. But it actually causes a massive headache when you think about the timeline of the show.

There’s a huge continuity error

via Netflix

If Arthur was born in 1895, he would’ve been about 24 at the start of season one. And there’s just no way that makes sense. Not in how he looks, not in how he acts, and definitely not in his life experience.

More importantly, it messes with the war timeline. Arthur is supposed to be the older brother, the one who went through the horrors of World War One alongside Tommy and John. If he was only 19 when the war ended, then Tommy and John would’ve been even younger. So yeah, that completely throws things off.

Also, earlier details in the series suggest something totally different. A criminal record shown in the show lists Arthur’s birth year as 1888, which fits much better. That would make him around 30 at the start of the series. That is far more believable for someone leading a gang and carrying that level of trauma.

Obviously, no one’s storming Netflix HQ over a dodgy date on a gravestone. But once you notice it, you can’t really unsee it. And instead of focusing on the emotion of Arthur’s death, you end up stuck doing the maths in your head, which, I’m sure, is not what the scene was going for.

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