Throughout certainly one of his boxing matches in season 2 of the present, Arthur beats a younger man to loss of life and burns down a pub after being seized by uncontrollable anger. Afterward, there’s a second of regret, however this can be very fleeting, as he inevitably finds himself lured again into a lifetime of indiscriminate crimes. Whereas not one of the Shelbys are saints, Arthur’s lack of ability to reckon with the destruction he causes proved to be a legal responsibility repeatedly, and it would not have been too surprising if he was killed off attributable to this risky side of his character.
Talking to Interview Journal, Anderson talked concerning the anxiousness of anticipated comeuppance that he thought his character would have gotten in season 2, and the way it was subverted by Knight when John Shelby (Joe Cole) bought killed off as a substitute to introduce a legit dramatic climax within the present:
“On our journeys to Liverpool, Birmingham, or Manchester the place we shoot, Joe Cole and I’ve this dialog about who’s going to die. We’re satisfied that it is both me or him. We undergo the forged and it at all times comes again to that it is in all probability going to be me, and he goes, ‘No, no. It will likely be John.’ It is fairly good often because we don’t know what Steven’s going to do… I used to be truly satisfied that Arthur was going to get killed in Season Two as a result of he’d left such a path of destruction behind him.”
Though Arthur was briefly believed to be lifeless in season 4, this was a deliberate fake-out amidst his self-destructive tendencies and unhealthy coping mechanisms to maintain his internal demons at bay. Whereas Arthur makes it to the top, it might need come at a really pricey value.