Tommy Shelby doesn’t die in the Peaky Blinders series finale – he’s “officially” dead to the world, but very much alive and riding off to start a new life.

Quick Scoop: What Happened to Tommy Shelby?

Tommy spends most of season 6 believing he’s dying from an inoperable brain tuberculoma and starts putting his affairs in order, saying goodbye to his family and planning his own death.

He’s also targeted by enemies like Michael Gray and the Boston/US mob, but outmaneuvers them, killing Michael in the finale and surviving an attempted car bombing.

The Big Twist: He Isn’t Actually Sick

  • Tommy discovers a burned newspaper photo showing his doctor with Oswald Mosley, proving his terminal diagnosis was fabricated as part of a political conspiracy.
  • Just as he is about to shoot himself in a caravan, he has a vision of his dead daughter Ruby, urging him to live, which pushes him to recheck the truth and confront the doctor instead.

The Final Decision: Letting Tommy “Die”

  • After sparing the doctor, Tommy returns to his caravan and watches it burn, destroying his possessions and the last physical link to “Tommy Shelby, MP and gangster.”
  • To the outside world he is now presumed dead, but the real Tommy rides away on a white horse, symbolically reborn and free from his criminal past and false death sentence.

How Fans See It (Forum/Discussion Vibe)

  • Many viewers interpret the ending as a “figurative death” – the old war-scarred, power-obsessed Tommy dies, while a quieter, possibly more peaceful version survives off the grid.
  • Others think future stories (like the planned film) will show whether he finds redemption, dies in World War II, or is dragged back into violence one last time, since the series deliberately leaves his ultimate fate open.

In short: on-screen story so far ends with Tommy Shelby alive, erased from public life, and riding into an uncertain but newly opened future.

TL;DR: Tommy Shelby was tricked into thinking he was terminally ill, survives multiple assassination plots, discovers the lie, fakes his death to the world, burns his old life, and rides away alive to start again.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.