It seemed to me that Grace was desperately looking for a meeting with Tommy. She writes a letter, sends a telegram, calls back (although it could have been a call and not from him). As if it was a life-saving breath of air for her, the last opportunity to escape. Apparently, she was unbearably "stuffy" in her marriage with Clive, no matter how good a person he was, she did not love him, they were different in spirit. She is an adventurer by nature, she is close to Tommy's freedom and fearlessness, she can be herself with him, she loves and is attracted to him. Plus the absence of children.
Thomas has similar motives. May is a wonderful woman, beneficial to him, but "alien" and prim, unloved, their union is like a netting for him.
I also think that Tommy knows that no other woman is going to make him feel the way Grace did. He knows that no one is going to be able to get over not hearing the shovels on the wall. That, for him, was very important, since it was part of his trauma, and it was like that for two years. And Grace arrives, and makes it disappear, his face relieved and he can't believe it, when he says "I don't hear the shovels on the wall." And that's why, after she leaves, in those two years, he's not interested in meeting anyone, and that's why he goes with Lizzie and other prostitutes, because they don't make him feel anything, he feels empty, like when we saw the scene where he is with Lizzie, his face has zero expression. He doesn't feel anything.
But after Polly tells him it's time for you to forget about her, that's when he tries, and that's why he begins the sexual relationship with May, and he leaves the prostitutes, but once he sleeps with May, that emptiness again inside, again they don't make him feel anything, and when he meets Grace and they are together, it was a confirmation, "yes, she is the only one who makes me feel alive".
“They’ll be others…”
Both @mary-fantg & dearest @tommygrace have mentioned this scene at the end of Season 1’s finale. It’s such a rare moment of emotion of Tommy in front of his family. He seems like any other young man here, heartbroken and lovesick…
He is bent and bowed by what he has lost: At the beginning of the day, he was looking ahead to a future with Grace; was not one man but part of a couple, part of a happy future he never thought he'd have.
It's bigger than Grace "betraying" him - Tommy has been betrayed before by loved ones. He could forgive her for that — once again, he's forgiven loved ones before. It's the fact that Tommy, for the first time in a long time, allowed himself to be vulnerable, to be intimate. To dare to dream there was more to life than his gangster ways. Grace told him she loved him. But suddenly, none of that seems like enough. The fact that even Grace was ensnared in the dark goings-on in Small Heath must've made him feel like nothing was sacred anymore, that nothing good in his life is impervious to being corrupted...
The fact that two years later, he still unable to lift his head when thinking of Grace says so much.
The loss is still so fresh & weighs upon him so heavy. The loss of life could've been. And it's not that he doesn't trust women...it's that he doesn't trust himself. To love again. To trust again.
To dream of happiness again.
For Tommy, it would be easiest to forget it all ever happened. But even if he can't do that. He could never erase Grace from his mind or heart...
As soon as he says this out-loud, the wheels are in motion for their reunion. They cannot be stopped. They both know it.
The mere fact that he kept the wedding ring with Grace, and kept it with him, close to his heart and that her photo is in the center, of all the people who passed through his life, I think that already says a lot, of the importance of Grace in Tommy.
Yes, he loves Greta and Lizzie, in different ways, one was his first love and the other was a friend who became part of his family, but Grace, she is the center of his life, the only one he really fell in love with and the only one who could reach him and heal him.
No one else in his life, not his family or women, could reach Tommy as much. They all scraped a little, but they only got to the surface.
The fact that he kept Lizzie's wedding ring only shows respect towards her, as does the photo with Greta. And that is his change, in the end he was able to respect and care the people in his life.
This is one of the reasons why Tommy respected Grace and fell in love with her, she showed him that she demanded respect and that she valued herself.
She wasn't afraid of anyone, she could alone, against everyone, Polly, Campbell, Tommy, May, Tatiana. She always had an answer, she was intelligent and she was bold. She was never going to allow herself to be called property or insulted. And for Tommy, she was the only one who didn't let him believe that he was a God, and that he could get his way, that's why with her, he was his best version.
But there is also the other part of Grace, she could be soft, loving, gentle, have a sense of humor, Tommy loved that, and she was a good friend and companion to Tommy, she was his other half. And a good mother for Charlie.
They complemented each other. They loved each other, what no one else loved, they understood each other in their silences and understood the reason for their darkness. Together they healed and brought out the best version of the other. They adored each other, and admired each other. True love.