Peaky Blinders' Paul Anderson Pulled A Subtle Move In Season 3 That Even The Director Missed
This post contains spoilers for "Peaky Blinders."
The world of "Peaky Blinders" is often unsurprisingly violent and shockingly visceral, and the characters who inhabit it tend to be haunted by their own demons. Among the Shelbys, Arthur (Paul Anderson) is the most volatile, oscillating between rabid outbursts and complex vulnerability — the very complexity that draws us to the character. Over the course of the show, Arthur reaches many emotional extremes, his inner conflicts externalized in the most brutal ways, as opposed to Thomas (Cillian Murphy), who tends to direct his doubts and scrutiny inward. Anderson brings these excesses to life with incredible flair, and there's also a certain sense of restraint in how Arthur conveys unspoken emotions, at least when he is not indulging in ultraviolence to feel a little less empty on the inside.
One such instance of the character expressing subtle moral conflict is during season 3, episode 5, when Thomas, Arthur, and John are inspected (and humiliated) by Princess Tatiana and Grand Duchess Izabella, and the three indulge in a drunken orgy while dealing with their respective versions of repressed guilt. While visions of Grace haunt Thomas, Arthur staves off his morality with drunken proclamations, such as the hilarious "There you go, ladies, made in f***ing Birmingham!" right after he strips naked. This much-need comedic moment is starkly contrasted with Arthur twisting off his wedding ring with bloodshot eyes while having sex with a maid, a small, yet integral detail that even director Tim Mielants did not notice when the scene was shot.
Anderson's deeply vulnerable Arthur moment in Peaky Blinders
The moral shock of the orgy itself is hardly the focal point of the episode, as the emotions evoked at the periphery of the event are what propels our characters toward their destined trajectories. Arthur's case is never simple, as his behavior feels both ridiculously pitiable and truly heartbreaking, considering how easy it was for him to give in to temptation and the self-loathing that came along with it. Anderson channeled these complicated emotions by balancing flagrant audacity with quiet, telling character moments that help deepen the cracks and crevices in Arthur's psyche. Speaking to Den of Geek in 2017, Anderson explained how the subtle wedding ring moment during the orgy initially went unnoticed by Mielants:
"Tim [Mielants], the director just wasn't holding back that day. [...] I just remember sitting there watching all this thinking, sort of white-knuckling it really. Arthur's thinking 'I don't want to get involved,' so I'm sat looking at this wedding ring on my finger. I don't know if Tim really caught that?"
Arthur takes his ring off after he decides to give in, and although Mielants did not immediately "pick up on that," this moment becomes crucial in underlining Arthur's dwindling self-control in the face of temptation, especially as a born-again Christian:
"I was looking at the wedding ring, looking at the debauchery, looking at the ring, looking at the drugs, thinking, 'What do I want?' After about half an hour in the room, he [Arthur] just couldn't hold out any longer."
This glimmer of emotional conscience that fades away when Arthur twists off the ring is one of many aspects that make him so compelling in a series filled to the brim with densely-layered characters who are eventually undone by their hamartia.