Funny / Peaky Blinders

Season One

• Any time Campbell has to report in to his boss, Winston Churchill. Watching cool, collected, ruthless Campbell stammer and ramble like a schoolboy is hilarious.
• Polly losing her temper with Tommy in the church in 1.01, smacking him repeatedly and yelling at him.
• John's double-take as he figures out Finn's drunk his beer at the bonfire. Finn's ten.
• Polly's "Shut Up" Kiss to Campbell, to psych him out after he starts interrogating her and manhandling her.
• Ada being five weeks late in her period. Seven, if you count weekends.
• Tommy Shelby on clothes shopping: "My suits are on the house, or the house burns down."
• Tommy's one-word response to the IRA sympathizer's Nightmare Fuel singing and general craziness: "Bravo."
• Freddie and Polly's exchange in 1.03:
  Freddie: You think I can't handle Tommy Shelby?
  Polly: I know you can't. I'm having trouble these days, and I'm twice the man you are.
• Tommy gets Polly back later in the episode, also while speaking to Freddie: (on the subject of Polly attempting to pay off Freddie to leave Birmingham) "Polly must have had a rush of blood—or port wine."
• As "Tommy's Army" tool up to take on the Lees, Finn picks up a small skinning knife. John sees this, frowns and takes it from him. Then hands him a cane machete.
• Arthur's sartorial commentary to Grace at Cheltenham, while he's in the middle of a robbery: "Nice dress."
• The entire scene where poor John tries to convince the rest of the family he should marry Lizzie Stark. Arthur's snickering into his drink, Polly's making hooker wisecracks, and even Tommy's hiding smiles behind John's back. All of Polly in that scene, really.
  John: I want you to see how brave she is!
  Polly: Brave is going where no man's gone before… and with Lizzie Stark, John, that is really not what you'll be doing!

  Polly: Men and their cocks never cease to amaze me. John, Lizzie Stark's never done a day's work vertical!
• Grace saying she's Irish, she knows a million toasts.
  Grace: May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you're dead.
• Tommy informing John he's getting married… standing in front of the gun-wielding Lee family and telling John to "smile—it's a wedding".
  • Skimming close to a Stealth Pun, only moments before, Arthur describes them as being within "shotgun range"
• During the wedding celebrations, Ada gets drunk, causes a huge scene, then goes into labour. Arthur's immediate reaction is priceless:
  Arthur: Not now Ada, bloody hell, you do pick your times!
• Tommy and Campbell talking about a potential team-up. The dialogue is great (and surprisingly full of Ho Yay/Foe Yay), but the capper is Campbell's amused smirk at Tommy's response.
  Campbell: If I win a medal, I will have your initials engraved on its back side.
  Tommy: My initials on your backside? Quite an image.
• It's Black Comedy, but the exchange between Tommy and Arthur after Arthur's attempted to hang himself is still pretty funny.
  Tommy: You should've used a gun.
  Arthur: Are you laughing at me?
  Tommy: (completely unsympathetically) Yeah. Just when things are starting to go right, Arthur, you've gotta go and do this? Look, you’re one of three shareholders. Me, you and John, and according to the law, we are equal partners and it’s written on the paperwork in black and white. A third, a third, a third. But the thing is, well, me and John, we quite fancy splitting your share so, just next time, use a gun, man.
• Tommy bursting in on John and Esme's "efforts in cooperation".
  Tommy: John, I've told you to keep the doors locked. Could've been anyone. Get dressed, we're doing it today.
  Esme: Bugger that, he's doing me today.
  Tommy: Yeah, well, make sure he's done you by nine.
• Mr. Zhang's laundry service also boasts a brothel. He'll clean and press your shirt while you're busy with your hooker.
  Campbell: ...That's a very efficient service.
• Winston Churchill's offhanded mention that the Prime Minister doesn't smile unless a political opponent dies.
• As Ada shows off her new baby Karl, Arthur steals him and puts his razorblade cap on the baby's head.
  Arthur: Look, he looks just like me!
  John: That's his arse looks like you, Arthur.
• Jeremiah deciding to join the battle.
  Tommy: I know you've vowed never to pick up a rifle again, Jeremiah, but can you ask God from me if you can help us today?
  Jeremiah: God says he don't deal with Small Heath, sir!
• Ada walking into no man's land between the Peaky Blinders and Kimber's men—pushing her baby carriage and ordering her husband to shut up.

Season Two

• Polly cheerfully announcing at his father's funeral that:
  Polly: Karl's with his cousins. Caught them trying to pinch flowers off a grave.
• Major Campbell visits Winston Churchill in his office in 2.01… to find the great man calmly (and innocently) sketching a nude life model during his lunch break. Churchill appears to enjoy Campbell's obvious discomfort:
  Churchill: I would guess you haven't been exposed to Bohemian society, Major?
  Campbell: Well, I… I play cards, on occasion.
  Churchill: You're a stranger to cocaine and exotic dancing too, I imagine.
  Campbell: I find the more obvious vices easiest to resist.
  Churchill: It's the sneaky little obscure ones that bring you to your knees, yes?
  • The model, given that she's a professional, is able to remain entirely still and impassive throughout...but even she can't help crack a tiny smile over Churchill's ribbing.
• Tommy trolling the IRA representatives in 2.01:
  Man: Please allow me to put a bullet in the scum tinker's head.
  Irene: No. He researches his enemies, that's why he's been chosen.
  Tommy: I'm chosen? (looking up at the man with the gun to his head) I'm chosen. Can the chosen one smoke?
• The Shelby brothers' reaction to the jazz music in the Eden Club. Arthur in particular is not impressed.
  Arthur: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT RACKET?!
  • After the beatdown in the club, Tommy is razzing John about wanting to move to the country with Esme and raise chickens. Arthur's editorial commentary is a bellowed "FUCK THE CHICKENS!"
    • Also, this exchange:
    Tommy: We're not here to make enemies! No...we came here to make friends. Behind him, Arthur kicks a guy and John snogs a random girl
• John and Arthur barging into the Shelby house the morning after the Garrison reopening, pretending to have a mock gun-battle and not realizing that the kid sitting at the table with Polly is her son Michael. Then, when Tommy introduces them, Arthur and John both reminisce about all the crappy things they used to do to Michael as kids. Even better, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Tommy has his gun drawn when he enters the house- so presumably he was also playing cowboys.
  Arthur: I'm Arthur, you already met me. I used to throw you out the window so John could catch you.
  John: Yeah, and I used to put you in a shoebox and kick you down Watery Lane.
  Tommy: …bet you're glad to be back.
• Campbell's suggested reading material in 2.03:
  Campbell: Do you read the papers?
  Moss: The Birmingham papers, sir.
  Campbell: I recommend the Daily Mail. It will broaden your mind.
• Charlie complaining to Tommy about the manufactured goods Tommy has him transporting, because it's heavier to lift and actually legally purchased which makes him feel like he has an actual job. He also complains about Tommy agreeing to a pay raise because Tommy didn't even try to argue or haggle with him and that his transporting is too easy now that Tommy made a deal with that guaranteed safe passage because it's too easy and boring now.
• The very Shelby birthday party for Michael at the Garrison.
  Arthur: First a drink, then we'll get you a lady of the night!
  Polly: ARTHUR!
• Polly's irritation at her holiday being interrupted for her nephews' half-baked plot to buy a racehorse:
  Polly: Oh my god, so in the absence of common sense, you boys have had an idea… wait, the Derby?! Did he say the Derby? Did you come up with this idea in a pub, by any chance?
  • Which continues into the next scene when she's about to let Michael go along with his cousins, but isn't happy about it.
    (car horn honking obnoxiously)
    Polly: (to Michael) I have told them not to not to blow that horn… (yelling out the door) THIS IS A RESPECTABLE FUCKING NEIGHBORHOOD!
• Arthur, John and Charlie hooting over the fact that Polly made Michael sandwiches and Tommy annoyed at all of them.
  John: Wait, Polly made fucking sandwiches?
  Michael: There's tea, too, but we'll have to share because there's only one cup.
  Charlie: What is this, the teddy bears' fucking picnic?
  Tommy: Right. We will drink the tea and eat the sandwiches and be on our way, so shut the fuck up. No crumbs, Charlie.
• Arthur and John gleefully trying to embarrass Tommy when May is talking to him, yelling at him that they have to hurry up and get Michael home or Polly will have their balls. May only smiles.
• Alfie and Sabini's childish bickering and point scoring on what should be written down. The fact that they're both feared mob bosses makes it even better.
• Arthur, John, and Finn drinking in the Garrison when Michael and Isaiah come in. All of it.
  Arthur: I've got this one, she's a dancer, right? She can do things with her… (looks at Finn) Well, if Finn would just piss off, I could explain a little better.
  John: Oi, Finn, go stick your head in a bucket.
  • And when Michael and Isaiah tell them about the fight at the Marquis, all three of the brothers stand up at once, but John and Arthur push Finn right back down.
• When Alfie's second in command starts freaking out about the possibility of a bomb Alfie slaps him and tells him to sit in the corner.
• The look Tommy gives May when she asks for a mixer with her gin, as if he's never heard of such a thing. He then proceeds to pour cordial over the gin. Clearly he wasn't meant to be a bartender.

Season Three

• John's incessant cracks about the Irish cavalry officers on Grace's side, particularly this one, over dinner:
  John: What do you call an animal with a prick halfway up its back? A cavalry horse!
• A slightly-drunk Arthur and Tommy chasing each other around a fountain over a disagreement, which is especially funny given that Arthur is the attack dog of the Peaky Blinders and Tommy is the big bad gang leader of Birmingham, and here they are acting like a pair of kids.
  • They have to stop when Arthur pulls something in his leg after about ten seconds of running.
• Tommy's crack to Grace about what he's really frightened of on his wedding day:
  Tommy: I'm scared of Arthur's speech. Arthur's bloody speech.
  • It's implied that Tommy wrote the original speech for Arthur. He's worried anyway.
• The whole speech he's prepared in the kitchen.
  Tommy:Despite the bad blood, I'll have none of it on my carpet.
• Tommy's incredibly Large Ham moment reading his brothers and the Peaky Blinders the riot act:
  Tommy: Now, you fuckers, despite the provocation from the cavalry, no fighting. (points to Isaiah) No cocaine. (points to John) No cocaine. No sports. (to Johnny Dogs) No telling fortunes. (to Charlie) No racing. (to Finn, slapping his cheek) No fucking sucking petrol out of their fucking cars. (points to Isaiah) No fighting. (points to John) No fucking fighting. (points to Arthur) No fighting.(points at Michael) NO FUCKING FIGHTING."
  • He doesn't say anything to Michael except shake his finger at him.
  • And immediately follows up by walking into one of the waiters and decking him.
  • Arthur 'helps' by throwing the carrot he was eating at the poor man.
• Polly very pointedly and deliberately slurping her tea at John, after he didn't listen to her advice.
• John's tantrum when Tommy orders a hit on the Changrettas. It's otherwise a serious scene, but Joe Cole's reading is hilarious:

  John: DO this John, DO that John, KILL YOUR FOOKIN' TEACHER, JOHN!

• Tommy and Ada in the library, with Tommy doing his absolute best to annoy Ada and the other patrons, asking to rip a page out of a book and bellowing across the room to her. They haven't been so sibling-like in a long time.
• Ada giggling into her magazine at Reuben and Polly flirting, and shamelessly snickering at them and egging them on.
  Polly: Your normal rate. I insist.
  Ada: Oh, there's a first.
• Polly trying in utter vain to keep the Shelby siblings from swearing in front of Karl, as well as waving a knife at John and Arthur when they keep sassing her. The capper is 3 year old Karl imitating his uncle Arthur:
  Karl: Fucking pheasants!
• Polly's confession in 3.04 is a Tear Jerker, but her annoyed retort to the priest is pretty funny:
  Priest: The voice is talking to you?
  Polly: It's in my head. Who else would it be talking to?
• Linda Shelby lording it over the rest of the Shelby women how much more respectable and pious she is, and Polly, Esme, and Lizzie being completely done with her snide tone.
  Linda: Arthur says what you do here is illegal, but it isn't immoral.
  Esme: Depends on what time you get here, Linda.
  Linda: And anyway, I thought I'd offer you my physical and spiritual support in your time of need.
  Polly: Oh, Linda, if you want to be a help, run on up to the shops and get me 20 Senior Service [cigarettes]. Lizzie'll give you the change. (the women laugh)
  Lizzie: No, I bloody won't.
  Linda: I'll use my own money, Polly. And before you ladies decide to find me so amusing, I have a message for you.
  Polly: Oh god, no. I've been to church already and not with you.
• Polly, on Linda's power over Arthur:
  Polly: She’s stolen his soul and taken it to a better place – the suburbs.
• Alfie greeting Arthur for the first time after he ambushed Arthur and sold him out to Campbell at a Passover seder:
  Alfie: ARTHUR, SHALOM! Listen, mate, I want you to know that I have made my apologies via my own personal God for abusing a very holy day to get you clinked up and battered. And I would like to extend my personal apologies to you.
  • When Arthur sees Alfie, his immediate reaction is to try and run out of the room. Tommy has to call him back inside.
• Earlier, one of Alfie's classic winding spiels culminates in him summing up Tommy's predicament with a neat:
  Alfie: You're fucking about with Russians, in't you, you silly boy?
• The scene where Izabella and Tatiana require John and Arthur to strip naked so they can check for Russian gang tattoos is hilarious from start to finish, with Tommy snickering and John straight-out mocking Arthur's newfound modesty. And John apparently has no problem being nude in front of strange women he doesn't know.
• John and two of the Russians drunkenly doing That Russian Squat Dance.

Season Four

• Season 4 is incredibly bleak, but 4.01 gives us Johnny Dogs' glee at being allowed to keep Tommy's new prize horse in exchange for burying the body of the Italian assassin.
• Johnny getting incredibly defensive of his belated Christmas dinner and angry at Charlie for not having food up to his standards.
• In 4.03 Tommy steamrollers his way though an extraordinary general meeting for Sehlby Company Ltd. in full official language, complete with only referring to those present by their company titles. It ends with the "proposal" that Polly be reinstated as company treasurer, and all raise their hands automatically in approval.
  Polly: (Monotonously) Why, goodness, thank you.
• Linda Shelby's rationalization of working in the betting shop and Polly continuing to give absolutely zero fucks.
  Polly: This is a betting shop, Linda.
  Linda: Look, Arthur said yes. Tommy said yes.
  Polly: But did God say yes? Gambling is a sin.
  Linda: It's not me who's doing the gambling. I'm just taking the bets.
• Upon meeting each other, all Alfie and Aberama do is this:
  Aberama: Who the fuck are you?
  Alfie: Who the fuck are you?
  Aberama: Who the fuck is this?!
  • Tommy is noticeably hiding his face during their entire dialogue in the background.
• Polly's reaction to Tommy "having an idea," is simply a deadpan, "Oh, fuck."
• Upon being approached by the Italians for a deal to betray Tommy, Alfie Solomons names his price, itemized, continuously adding on increasingly petty charges, such as for turning on "a very dear friend", for Arthur being an animal who will come after Solomons, to eventually an extra thousand "because you are...a fuckin' wop". Then he adds one last thousand "just for being a cunt" after Luca makes a crack about American Jews.
• Ada calling Tommy out on his curious method of political sway, which at least momentarily leaves him noticeably uncomfortable.
  Ada: And how is Tommy Shelby, OBE, going to stop a revolution?
  Tommy: Jessie Eden has accepted my invitation to dinner.
  Ada: Oh, of course, Tommy Shelby is going to stop the revolution with his cock.

Season Five

• In the opener, Finn takes a bullet, and as Aberama goes to remove it, Isiah dares ask if he knows what he's doing. Even Finn laughs at his response
  Aberama: I've done this a dozen times. I once took a bullet from between two ribs, one inch from the heart. Mind you, it was a horse. And the horse did die.

• In the third episode, Johnny, supposedly recuperating from his run-in with Aberama, gets caught in Tommy's study with a maid. Notable for his appalling hiding spot, where his bare arse can be seen sticking out from behind the desk.
• His response to having to find the Fury family also counts:
  Johnny: Ah, for fuck's sake, Tom! The Furys, they don't even use words to fucking talk. Just hand gestures and fucking howls.
  • Leading on to this gem:
  Arthur: We need petrol. It's so far up north, they run out of the bloody stuff. Still riding round on fucking chariots, they are.
  Charlie: Curly, Arthur is going to Scotland, so he needs hand grenades.
  Curly: How many?
  Charlie: Fuck's sake, it's like it's normal.
• In episode four, Chinese gangster Brilliant Chang has a prostitute associate holding Finn Shelby at gunpoint while he negotiates with Arthur and Tommy. When Finn is released, he comes barging into the meeting threatening to shoot Chang. Arthur and Tommy razz him mercilessly while talking him down:
  Tommy: Finn, we're conducting a piece of business.
  Finn: She had a gun to my fucking head!
  Tommy: But your trousers are dry. You didn't piss yourself. He didn't piss himself, Arthur.
  Arthur: Look at him! Well done, Finn.
  Tommy: Yeah, you had a dispute with a lady and you didn't piss yourself.
• Tommy urging Linda to fight through the pain of a bullet wound by reminding her that, should she die, her son is going to be raised by the Shelbys.
  • When they successfully manage to get the bullet out, Arthur, overwhelmed, hugs Tommy, leading Polly to snark, "I saved his life and he hugs him."
• Episode six marks the return of Winston Churchill, meeting with Tommy in regards to the threat posed by Oswald Mosely. He brings up some old history between himself and the Shelbys.
  Churchill: Was it you who killed that Ulster Policeman? I don't recall his name.
  Tommy: Major Campbell. No. It was me aunt.
  Churchill: I really must come to Birmingham to meet your family.
• When Tommy asks Barney, who is wearing a straitjacket, how he writes letters without use of his arms and speculates they stick a pencil inbetween his teeth, Barney nonchalantly claps back with, "No, they stick the pencil up me arse." which actually makes Tommy laugh.
• The entire scene between Tommy and Alfie Solomons in Margate, which itself comes in for a thrashing, particularly the bit where Alfie riffs about becoming a god and that someone in the Holy Land has built a statue of him. He is also gloriously brought down to earth early on:
  Alfie: Now, how soon did you know that I was not dead?
  Tommy: You wrote me a letter, Alfie.
  Alfie: Did I?
  Tommy: Yeah, you asked about your dog.
  Alfie: Oh. They gave me a lot of drugs at first...