What happened to Lizzie in Peaky Blinders?
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man landed on Netflix on 20 March 2026 and brought back Tommy, Ada, Uncle Charlie, and Johnny Dogs. But Tommy's second wife — the woman who stood by him through six series — is nowhere to be seen, and nobody in the film so much as says her name. Here's what happened to Lizzie, on screen and off.
Where the series left her
Lizzie Shelby, played by Natasha O'Keeffe from 2013 to 2022, ended series 6 walking away from Tommy for good. The couple had already been shattered by the death of their young daughter Ruby from tuberculosis in 1934, and when Lizzie learned Tommy had been unfaithful with Diana Mitford, she left him — taking his son Charles with her. That was the last we saw of her.
The Immortal Man, set during the Second World War, simply never mentions where she went or how she's doing.
Why she isn't in the film
Creator Steven Knight addressed it directly when The Hollywood Reporter asked in 2026 whether there were characters he'd hoped to bring back. His answer: not really. He explained that a film has to be very focused, and he built this one around Tommy and Duke as its twin engines.
"There wasn't really room, to be honest," Knight told The Hollywood Reporter in 2026.
His logic: if you bring back a character as significant as Lizzie, you have to spend proper time with her — you can't gloss over her in a scene — and a film simply isn't long enough. Fans on X weren't entirely convinced, arguing a single line from Ada about how Lizzie's doing would have cost nothing.
She's in good company
Lizzie is one of several major absentees:
- Arthur Shelby — Paul Anderson doesn't appear; the film reveals Arthur died two years earlier, killed by Tommy himself in a drunken rage.
- Finn Shelby — banished in the series 6 finale; actor Harry Kirton declined to return and the film ignores him entirely.
- Alfie Solomons — Tom Hardy sat this one out too, an absence Knight has also had to explain in interviews.
Could Lizzie come back?
The door isn't shut. Knight has confirmed two further series set in 1953, thirteen years after the film, focused on the next generation of Shelbys. Lizzie raised Tommy's surviving son Charles — who appears in the film for a funeral — so a route back exists if O'Keeffe wants it. Nothing has been announced as of 2026.