Peaky Blinder’s Return Will Finally Do Justice to a Missing Movie Character

An important Peaky Blinders character is debuting on the new series that focuses on the next generation of the gang. This is great news for fans who were disappointed to barely see him in the recent feature-length film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. The TV show ran for six seasons on the BBC before ending in 2022. The story continued in 2026 with the new movie, which brought back Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby, a man who had lived in isolation since the death of his elder brother Arthur. That movie shockingly ends with Tommy’s death, and his eldest son, Duke (Barry Keoghan in the movie and Jamie Bell in the upcoming series), takes over as the new Rom Baro and leads the Peaky Blinders into the future.

One important character didn’t appear in the movie until the Tommy funeral scene (in a cameo by actor Alfie Thomas Bland). However, he is debuting as a major character in the next series in the Peaky Blinders franchise. Charlie Heaton has signed on to the cast as Charles Shelby. Charles is Duke’s half-brother and Tommy’s youngest son, and he has severed all ties to his family and the Shelby lifestyle. Charles was a character who debuted in Season 3 of the show as Tommy and Grace’s son.

Who Is Charles Shelby on Peaky Blinders?

In Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, Tommy’s son, Duke, is the main focus of attention, and he took over as the new Peaky Blinders leader after his father’s death. However, there was one other son who wasn’t seen in the movie until a small cameo during Tommy’s funeral. This is Charles, who is the son of Tommy and Grace, Tommy’s first wife. Grace was an agent for the Birmingham police sent undercover to help bring down Tommy, but she fell in love with him and had their baby, Charles, in Season 3. Sadly, after the baby’s birth, an assassination attempt on Tommy results in Grace’s death, leaving her son in his father’s care.

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Charles and his father didn’t have a good relationship, as Charles ended up being raised by Tommy’s second wife, Lizzie. After his sister Ruby died, Charles chose to live with Lizzie, something Tommy allowed because he felt his son was better off with her. The reason that Charles was not in the main story of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man was that he had enlisted in World War II and served on the North African front. His Aunt Ada said during the movie that he had not spoken to his father for years. Following the war, Charles decided to cut all ties with the Peaky Blinder family and live a normal life.

This is where the new series will kick off, as the casting news asks, “Can you ever escape your own blood?” If the new series is anything like the original one, there will be family drama and people being pulled back into a family that they thought they had escaped. Thanks to the show signing a major actor like Charlie Heaton, coming off his role as Jonathan Byers in Stranger Things, fans should expect Charles to end up involved in a business he wanted nothing to do with. The new Peaky Blinders series has a two-season order and will air on the BBC in the United Kingdom and on Netflix in the United States.

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