Binge-watching Peaky Blinders: an unlucky bid on a lame horse

Polly shares her wisdom with the Shelby boys.

I would consider myself an avid binge-watcher, but bingeing on a show I wasn't obsessed with was a whole new territory for me; I very rarely stay dedicated to a program if I'm not on board by the second episode. Though I usually feel that binge-watching enhances or encourages my attachment to a show, in this instance, 12 hours of Peaky Blinders over 2 days felt like a chore. By the end, I would have happily taken hat-razors to my eyes rather than sit through another episode.

I actually started to enjoy Peaky Blinders in the middle of the first season and was excited to see where the unpredictable plot was headed. Where the show really lost me, however, was with its treatment of women. The three major female characters - Grace, the undercover spy/barmaid, Polly, the aunt of the Shelby boys and a veteran of the crime world, and Ada, the Shelby's sister who wants little to do with their business – are well-written and intriguing. However, they rarely interact with each other or other females (most episodes failed the Bechdel test by a mile) and often get treated like props or game-pieces rather than, you know, human beings. Add to that the rape scenes, the number of lines including the word “whore,” and how often Polly gets shot down despite being the voice of reason and the eldest in the family, and you have a pretty unpleasant viewing-experience, particularly when condensed into a short period of time.

Still, there were parts of Peaky Blinders I really enjoyed and that I wouldn't have been exposed to were I not forced to binge on it. The writing is clever and the cinematography is aesthetically pleasing. I could rewatch all 12 episodes (but I won't) just to pick out times I enjoyed playful camera angles and meaningful color choices. As it stands, binge-watching the show made me notice its faults even more than I might have normally and eventually made me resent watching it at all. Objectively, Peaky Blinders is a quality tv series, but that alone will not have me coming back to binge on Season 3.