How Top Boy Season 5 Failed Dushane and Sully (& Pretty Much Everyone Else, But Mainly Those Two)

I don’t know how but this is all Drake’s fault…

*SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL SEASON OF TOP BOY*

A few months ago, I wrote a piece dissecting what I believed to be the unique appeal of Ronan Bennett’s hit crime drama, Top Boy. I talked about the show’s themes, its commitment to showcasing underrepresented talent, the complex portrayal of its characters (the enemies of New Labour, etc.), and how the show could so finely balance its spectacle and action with a brutally grounded depiction of life for many in Britain. The main motivation behind writing the piece was that — while I didn’t think Top Boy was exactly Shakespeare, or Rye Lane (which you should watch), or that episode of My Wife & Kids where Junior tries slam poetry — I still believed that Top Boy deserves its flowers for how it’s been able to adapt itself to a global audience, take creative risks, and generally be a high-quality show that’s so much more than what most non-viewers believe it to be at first glance (I believe that even now… generally).

Now… With all that being said…

The finale season of Top Boy? Kinda sh*t.

It’s not the worst piece of television, it’s still Top Boy-ish, but it’s a much more simplistic, rushed, unsatisfying tribute to a show that previously thrived off of its patient storytelling and nuanced characters. It seems like Bennett makes the bizarre decision to neglect the show’s long-term storylines in favour of throwing contrived plot points at its characters and having them react in the most cartoonish way possible.

Mandy Luther King and How Not to Address “The Issues”

The biggest thing that season 5 suffers from is its rushed, endgame-first writing. Much of what we see in this season appears to have been written backward, as the show knows where it wants things to end up or what issues it wants to pay lip service to, and so writes the characters into positions that will make these things happen (regardless of whether it fits the characters). This is why the social topics such as immigration, community activism, and gentrification feel so forced during this season (despite being based on very real problems), they’re handled less like the previous seasons of the show and more like one of those “We’re gonna talk about ISSUES” episodes of Glee. Season 3 of Top Boy introduced Nigerian-born Summerhouse resident Amma, whose struggles with immigration were patiently and subtly woven into the storyline before the ripple effects collided with the main plot in a way that felt organic and built up. You can directly chart how Amma being visited by immigration leads to Jamie being locked up and pretty much every character decision between those two points feels natural. Fast forward to season 5 where we now have a forced deportation storyline with Kieron that pretty much begins and ends in its first scene, Kieron has never mentioned immigration before & doesn’t really do so after, the storyline doesn’t deepen his character at all, and he’s then unceremoniously killed off, rendering the entire opening ordeal kinda pointless so whatever.

We then have to suffer through Mandy X, the suddenly-appointed senior activist and moral compass of Summerhouse (the same Mandy that, just last season, advised Shelley to ask Dushane to murder that annoying white lady who was blackmailing her). Mandy’s narrative function is very clearly to get everyone in place for the eventual riots and deliver the moral message of the season to everyone including us, meaning she feels less like a character and more of the human equivalent of the “What we have learned” bit that would end an episode of VeggieTales (try explaining that one to your non-Christian friends). No matter how inappropriate the time, Mandy was always on hand to spell things out for us (like maybe wait a bit to tell a grieving person that they’re tangentially responsible for their loved one’s death Mandy, Jesus).

Cones Not Characters

Honestly, it was hard to call any of the people we saw onscreen “characters” this season. They were more like human cones being hastily shuffled around to divert us to the next contrived plot point.

Take Saffron Hocking’s Lauryn for example.

Lauryn is a character who has both literally and figuratively served as a bit of a punching bag in Top Boy, being put through more and more misery to serve the function of the plot and motivate other characters, so it’s actually kinda fitting that her death does the same (this sad moment was immediately undercut by me picturing Curtis seeing his ex in the afterlife and going “There’s my Lauryn.”). The show doesn’t have enough time/range to explore Lauryn’s recovery from postnatal depression and give the character something more to do than just endlessly suffer, so instead she’s used to dump a baby on the Jaq cone and guilt her into stealing the drugs and taking them for a nice drive before politely agreeing to return them to Sully.

The weird direction that Jaq’s character takes this season is worth an article alone. Putting aside the bizarre side quest with the bag of drugs, Jasmine Jobson’s Jaq went from being a breakout character to being criminially underused with her pivot against Sully and Dushane feeling as forced on us as the baby was on her (how does Jaq feel about being a parent? Who knows?). The frustrating thing is that Jaq already had the beginnings of an organic, internal motivation to step off the road as season 4 sees her struggle with the consequences of Dushane’s plan causing Ats’ death. Instead, she ends up as one of many Top Boy characters who ends up having to react to the ridiculous circumstances they find themselves in.

When previous seasons had done such a good job of creating characters that felt like they had lives beyond the main plot, the characters we see in season 5 feel like they exist entirely to serve the plot. In 12 years of Top Boy, this was by far the smallest the world felt for these characters.

The Death of Jamie Tovell

Speaking of Ats, it’s pretty indicative of how rushed this season is that his death felt significantly more impactful in-world than Jamie’s, especially for Stef. When Sully gunned down Jamie, the internet was flooded with viewers mourning the death of their husband at the hands of their other husband (pick better husbands guys), but all of that uproar seems like a distant memory when watching the characters.

I might be going against public opinion by saying that I didn’t necessarily disagree with the decision to kill Jamie, while Michael Ward kept the character as charming and easy to watch as ever, the character felt a bit aimless and dull as Dushane’s subordinate, and the moves that he made to prepare a potential takeover were a bit too muted to really fill me with a sense that a storm was brewing. Killing him off was a great way to up the emotional stakes of the upcoming season and put Sully, Dushane, Stef, and even Aaron in very interesting positions for the following season.

The problem with Jamie’s death lies more in the aftermath (or lack thereof), the show is barely interested in exploring the ramifications of what Sully’s done. Dushane doesn’t particularly care that his successor is now dead; one of Jamie’s brothers isn’t even around to react for some reason (Hope Ikpoku Jnr. who played Aaron Tovell stated that he declined a return due to issues with the story which… yeah I get that) while the other one aimlessly sulks for most of the season before deciding not to execute a laughably unconvincing attempt at revenge (Stef bro, the man who murdered your brother and your girlfriend’s father absolutely is “worth it” come on now). It’s also a shame that despite the previous season’s emphasis on how the community will ride out for each other, no one else really reacts to Jamie’s murder other than general murmurings of disapproval from his ZT friends. It’s clear from watching Stef that he’s just kind of waiting around until it’s time for his big showdown with Sully, meaning we don’t really get much more insight into him other than what’s necessary to the plot.

Dushane is Really Dumb

For a character who’s defined his intelligence and ambition, season 5 saw Ashley Walter’s Dushane Hill at his dumbest and most aimless.

Over the last 12 years, we’ve seen Dushane’s insatiable desire to thrive push away anyone dedicated to salvaging the small bit of good in him. The character has shone in the moments when we’ve seen him cross a line and mastermind a truly awful plan to stay on top; the moments when he’s been confronted with the consequences his actions have had on those whom he cares about; and crucially, it’s also the moments when we’ve seen that there is good in Dushane even after everyone who loves him seems to give up on him. The character works best as somewhat of an anti-hero, acting as a morally complex cross-between the boogeyman of Summerhouse and its dark manipulative protector. That’s why my favourite shot of Dushane standing at the back of the community hall smirking while the community his mother loved so much celebrates the demise of the redevelopment (although this turned out to be as temporary as Lauryn’s happiness), completely unaware of the Machiavellian moves he pulled to save them, is probably my favourite moment for the character. So what are the worst things a writer could do with a character like Dushane Hill? Well, that would be removing his intelligence and quick thinking, taking away his internal drive, and making the character’s motivations entirely external and reactive.

…

So anyway, Shelley wants some money to open *a chain* of nail shops and Dushane’s cash (all of which he put in one place) has been stolen.

Let’s ignore that the show commits the ultimate sin: putting Shelley and Dushane in the same room together (name two things that have more chemistry than these two characters, I’ll start: a Ghanaian stomach and strawberry Yazoo). Shelley lacks the dynamism and wit to be a match for Dushane, Little Simz’s performance shows that not every rapper can be a great actor like Kano (or even a good actor at all), etc etc we know all of this. The problem with Dushane’s storyline is that, from the start it forces him to be entirely reactive, lurching him from one ridiculous decision to the next with no character-driven motivation to drive his actions and no time to explain why Dushane is acting so dumb. Reactive character-writing isn’t inherently bad, Spider-Man is a reactive protagonist but he’s interesting because we are painfully aware of why he reacts the way he does and his reactions are (usually) entirely in character. Unlike Dushane here.

Dushane’s storyline is built on out-of-character nonsense, from Shelley asking him for £2 million (what are you bringing to the table Shelley??); to Dushane having no idea how to handle Lithe and Lizzie stealing his money; to Dushane murdering Jeffery and not covering his tracks; to Dushane pathetically robbing the stolen drugs from Jaq; to Dushane telling Isaac (the man who can help him disappear) exactly how much drugs he has and being surprised that Isaac wants the majority of the drugs. It’s just one ridiculous thing after another, to the point that it feels like a completely different character. When Shelley tells Dushane that he loves money and power more than all else, that read rings especially hollow this season because his recent actions have not been motivated by his character flaws (it also makes Shelley seem like her desire for Dushane’s money has overridden her emotional intelligence). When we see Dushane holed up alone in his mother’s house, looking at old photos of himself it’s hard to feel anything because this is not the character we’ve known for 12 years. If Dushane was to die (and I don’t think he should have) a character like him should have been killed due to his own hubris, not undone by nonsensical external factors. Dushane just feels completely off, right from the beginning of the season to his anti-climactic death at the hands of his former best friend, Sully.

And speaking of Mr Sullivan…

Boss Sully is No Fun

The problem with Sully in this season isn’t necessarily that he’s completely out of character like Dushane, more that he’s just been written as the broadest, most cliched version of himself. Sully’s character probably suffers the most from the show’s sudden desire to strip away the nuance and moral ambiguity of the Top Boy world in favour of a definitive moral message. In a show that previously prided itself on speaking to real drug dealers and giving them complex portrayals, the messaging of this season very much turns into drugs bad, as numerous character monologues tell us this. It’s a shame considering that the extra episode count afforded by Netflix allowed Kano to really explore Sully’s emotional range (to the point that many forgot just how much of a terrorist he was in the original two seasons), and all of that extra character work was tossed out in favour of a Sully who just seemed to be going through the villainous motions.

The problem with Sully in the final season is that the show puts him in a place where he’s at his least interesting to me: at the top.

My interpretation was always that much of Sully’s insecurity stemmed from his past, being a child of extreme parental neglect who believed that nothing good would ever happen for him, therefore he must be his own luck. Sully’s constant need to look over his shoulder was rivaled only by his need for validation, not necessarily because he wanted to feed his ego, but because he was afraid of feeling neglected and disposable. In his own mind, those who were disposable were quick to be killed or left to die, and he couldn’t allow that to happen to himself, even if it meant harming others. This is why, unlike Dushane, Sully seemed to value bonds with people outside of his usual battleground (his daughter, Jason, the boat lady, even that one fox). The character was at his happiest when he was afforded a brief reprieve from the constant state of war he was in, with people who could never pose a threat to him or question the value of his continued existence. This is what Sully has always looked for from Dushane, not just respect, but affirmation that he mattered and wouldn’t be tossed away like any other soldier. As I’ve previously said, Dushane wants to thrive, Sully just wants to survive.

Due to the pressures at the top, boss Sully is no longer afforded the flexibility that the character requires to throw a trademark spanner in the works, or connect with someone, or go off on his own emotional journey to explore his insecurities. Sully doesn’t have time to be insecure or even explore his emotional range because the show requires him to be a stone-cold killer to move the plot along. Just look at how the Irish mob plotline is dealt with; Barry Keoghan’s charming and conniving mobster is wasted against Sully because the latter is not a man for negotiation and the show isn’t really interested in having him at least attempt to handle the situation diplomatically as Dushane would at first. As soon as the season is done with the Irish characters, Sully does exactly what you’d expect him to do: kills them with little dialogue or challenge. Pigeon-holing Sully as the boss but still retaining his ruthlessness means that he becomes something that I previously thought Top Boy was too sophisticated to turn one of its main characters into: just another villain in the hood.

To the show’s credit though, Kano’s performance as the completely evil Sully is typically brilliant (his delivery of “Jaq. Don’t beg. It’s disgusting.” was much better than this season deserved), and it’s genuinely sad to see the light go out in his eyes as he realises that his disastrous stint at the top has robbed him of people to validate his existence and look out for him. When Sully accepts his death at the hands of Stefan (who never once in this season looks like he’s going to “squeeze off on a man” as Si puts it) and utters the line “To be honest Stefan, feeling left me a long time ago.” Kano’s performance means that you can almost see all of the people who either died or betrayed him — Dushane, Jaq, Dris, Jason, his mother — flash before him, each one taking with them a piece of his soul until there was nothing left. Sully has finally accepted that he is disposable, there is no one to make him feel otherwise so after Stef spares him, the usually anxious Sully who is constantly seen looking over his shoulder allows himself to be shot dead in his car by literally any random person (my money’s on Jaq). This would have been so much sadder if the character we’d been watching had been the Sully we came to know.

Honestly, it’s no coincidence that Sully’s character regains some semblance of colour after he shoots Dushane because just seeing them together in Dushane’s final scene reminds us of who Sully is.

“If We Are Not Monsters…”

In the end, Dushane and Sully’s final scene together rings hollow because it’s the culmination of the season’s failures. A series of contrivances and dumb decisions lead Dushane into a position where Sully, almost unthinking, can just shoot at him and they can do the whole “we was brothers” routine. Even Sully’s assertion that he only ever wanted Dushane’s respect feels like an oversimplification of their dynamic, it almost makes Sully’s desire to be seen as an equal feel like an ego thing when it’s much more layered than that. The large gate that separates the two during their final conversation combines with the sterile dialogue to make it feel like the characters are talking past each other in their final moments. Think about how emotionally impactful Dris’ death was because we’d had an entire season to slowly build up his betrayal of his oldest friends and Sully’s devastation at having to kill him, that’s exactly what this scene was lacking. The reasons that Sully kills Dushane aren’t personal, they’re purely circumstantial. From Sully demanding that Dushane step off the roads (he was already going to do so) to Dushane insisting that Sully wouldn’t have given him the money to disappear (why wouldn’t he??), every moment between the two lifelong friends just feels by-the-numbers, as if the chemistry between them is gone.

All-in-all, the final season of Top Boy just couldn’t live up to the lofty standards it set for itself. It feels weird to say this about a show that started with a four-episode debut season, but six episodes just weren’t enough to give this show the send-off it deserved, leaving us with show that will always be remembered with a bit of an asterix. If I had to pinpoint the saddest thing about season 5, it would be that after 12 years of growth, Dushane and Sully die with all of their nuance, moral ambiguity and character arcs abandoned. The two characters who thrived off of Bennett’s desire to treat them as people exited their show as the most petty and 2-dimensionally villainous version of themselves. Even worse still, so many of the things the show became renowned for — its complex world, the stand-out side characters, its patient storytelling, its subtle handling of social issues — were thrown out of the window, leaving me to wonder… what tf happened here? My money’s on some white execs doing away with the show’s usual collaborative creative approach and deciding they knew better than everyone, but I guess we’ll find out one day.

P.S. I completely forgot to bring up Dushane’s anxiety/heart problems but so did the show so who cares.

Originally published at http://jjwi13.wordpress.com on September 22, 2023.