I am in the middle of watching
Peaky Blinders. Can highly recommend. It is set in early 1900s England, specifically Birmingham. It is about an Irish/gypsy family who is also a small gang trying to make it big. The world around them is brutal, especially other gangs. The story centers around the de-facto leader of the gang, who is actually the younger brother but the brains and strategist behind the gang.
What surprised me is the nuance. You start watching expecting the usual gritty hard-hitting retro-gang formula, but the situations presented, the decisions and dilemmas, are all extremely nuanced and give you a lot to think about, or end up surprising you. There is still hard-hitting violence but it is funny that in the modern Netflix and HBO era, this serial which is based on a brutal vicious gang has less brutalism than many other TV series.
The acting is superb - they walk and talk with a swagger that really immerses you. The story-telling and world-building is equally good. Oh, the amount of alcohol they drink though! And the story switches around quite a bit - there's violence, there's partying and hard drinking, there's personal family battles and personal demons and PTSD from the world war, there's love and drama and tears, there's intrigue and strategy and out-thinking the opponent.
There's also a police officer in the first season who is hell-bent on destroying them. He has acted superbly and you also really see the brutality and heavy-handedness of the police. But again, even in this, the story-telling does not devolve into the standard cliches and you get insights into the unspoken rules between the police and the mob, etc. Overall, highly watchable.
