Warning: there are massive spoilers below for the final episode of Peaky Blinders. Obviously.

So, after all that fretting and hallucinating, Tommy Shelby didn't die in the Peaky Blinders finale. He's ready to go and sort out the Nazis in the Peaky Blinders film.

But sadly, he won't be joined by a fair few people who couldn't quite make it to the end of season six. Episode six was an absolute bloodbath. Here's everyone who died, and why their deaths matter.

Michael Gray

After so much build-up this season and last, Michael's contribution to season six was to go to jail, piddle about, get out of jail, have sex with his wife, go to an island, mess up an assassination and get shot in the face. Not exactly nemesis material. Tommy's grip on the family business is now total.

Assorted mates of Michael

Such luminaries as Connor Dunn, Dot Kelly, Sam Ryan, "Pat", and an unnamed man with a moustache all copped it when Johnny Dogs pulled off his dynamite switcharoo.

BBC

Alas, poor man with moustache. Their deaths represented the ultimate obliteration of Michael's designs on being anything other than shot in the face. When it came down to it, it was always going to be Tommy versus Michael, and there was only going to be one winner.

Billy Grade

This one was signposted pretty heavily, and got overshadowed almost immediately by the face-off between Tommy's heirs apparent Duke and Finn Shelby. But Billy was shot by Duke for leaking the plan to kill Mosley to the IRA and setting in motion the chain of events that led to Polly's death. Billy didn't have a great season: first he garrotes his first guy, then has his knackers garroted by Jack Nelson, then he dies. He's the last link to that season five finale to go though. The decks are now clear for the film.

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"Liam"

This IRA heavy copped it pretty early on in the excellent gunfight, when Charlie Strong pinged him. Liam did at least get a crash zoom and some funny motion-blurring as he went down, which is more than any of Michael's mates got.

O'Donnell

The scary looking guy who took the phone off the hook in the Garrison was pretty spectacularly machine-gunned by Jeremiah Jesus as he stepped out of the mustard gas fog. You've got to be pleased with that as an exit.

Laura McKee, AKA Captain Swing

Granted a reprieve from the mustard gas that Arthur and Charlie Strong crack out – honestly, the stuff this family gets away with in central Birmingham – by Arthur's gas mask, the IRA captain was shot by Arthur in revenge for the death of Aunt Polly at her gang's hands.

"Vengeance is for the Lord" she manages to say before Arthur shoots. "Not in Small Heath it ain't," says Arthur. Nice.

And actually, this might have been the most meaningful death in the whole finale. While the showdown with Michael had been built up more, the IRA has been a thorn in the side of the Shelbys since season one. McKee's death represents the final victory over a longstanding and sophisticated adversary.

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