Peaky Blinders: John Shelby’s Death, Explained (2024)

Popular British gang drama, Peaky Blindersis no stranger to violence and heartbreak, and its gritty nature set in the aftermath of World War I has enraptured viewers since premiering in 2013. Though a thrilling plot for a period drama, the show's backbone is its strong and complex characters, which is why fans were so shocked when John's death occurred in the first episode of Season 4.

Focusing mainly on the Shelby family, heads of the Peaky Blinders, one of the most powerful gangs in Britain, the four Shelby brothers have been main characters since the origins of the show. There have been a few prominent character deaths, as to be expected with a show about gang activity in the 1920s, but until Season 4, the core members of the family had, by and large, gone unscathed.

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Who Was John Shelby on Peaky Blinders?

John Shelby was the younger brother of Arthur and Tommy and older brother to Finn. Young and brash, audiences quickly fell in love with his sense of humor and recklessness, though it often got him into trouble. Being 24 at the opening of the show, John was the youngest shareholder to be so active in the Peaky Blinders gang, and he developed a sort of middle ground between incredibly brash Arthur and wholly ruthless Tommy. John loved the Peaky Blinders and everything that came with it: the image, the power, the influence.

Though typically seen as the youth of the series, a large part of John's character relies on the fact that he is, first and foremost, a father. In the first season, his engagement to a prostitute, Lizzie Stark, caused contention between the brothers, but John claimed he needed a wife as his children were getting to be too hard for him to handle on his own. Enter Tommy with a two-part solution. Tommy arranged a marriage between John and Esme Lee, the daughter of a rival family, to soothe tensions between both families -- and the brothers themselves. Originally enraged, John went through with the wedding, and he and Esme actually had an endearing relationship.

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How Did John Shelby Die on Peaky Blinders?

The dynamic of a reckless younger brother is critical to John's character, and holds true through the rest of the seasons. In the third season, John is the cause of a key plot point -- the Changretta feud -- that resulted in the death of not only John, but Tommy's wife Grace Shelby as well. John threatened Angel Changretta, the son of Vicente Changretta, head of the Italian mob, because of Angel's relationship with Lizzie Stark, John's ex-fiancée. As expected, Angel threatened him back, which spurred John to stab him violently in the eye, though not killing him. In retaliation, the Changretta's hired a man to kill Tommy at a function for the family business, but the man missed and shot Grace instead, leaving fans and Tommy devastated.

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The violence did not end there, however, as this sparked a long cycle of revenge between the Peaky Blinders and the Italians. In the first episode of Season Four, John receives a card marked with the Black Hand -- a promise of death -- from the Changretta family. In a series of frustrating miscommunications and inaction on John's part, John is brutally killed outside his home in the English countryside, in front of his wife and cousin.

Though traumatizing for audiences who had loved the brothers from the beginning, John's death firmly established the real threat of the Changretta family, even with many of their key members dead already. This allowed for the Changretta plot to carry on throughout the rest of Season Four, finally resolving at the end of the season, and also reminded viewers that no one is safe -- not even the Shelby brothers. Audiences mourned with Tommy, Arthur and the rest of the gang. Now, with a much anticipated sixth and final season on the horizon, fans must wait with bated breath for the fate of the rest of the Shelby family and the Peaky Blinders.

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