'Top Boy'? Top fun? Allow it.

I came in on Top Boy at season three, which Netflix confusingly labelled season 1 (with the first two seasons being rebranded Top Boy Summerhill) I devoured season three and then loved season four.

~SPOILERS BELOW~

What makes Top Boy soooo good is a complex mixture of things. Certainly having strong female characters such as Shelley (played by Little Simz) and Jak (Jasmine Jobson) helps, although the show cannot escape being at heart a rather macho endorsement of drugs and violence. The narrative revolves around the struggle to be the Top Boy. At the start of season 3, it's Jamie (Micheal Ward) a yout who saw the gap in the market but he is quickly usurped by the return of Sully (Kano) and Dushane (Ashley Walters). This wacky duo make for compelling viewing, they have a love/hate relationship and definitely disagree on what being topboy means.

Dushane is baller but of course my heart is with Sully, the psychopathic loner who goes to live on a barge for most of season 4. Everyone has their own idea of justice and Sully is wrestling with his for most of these two seasons. He has to kill Dris (Shone Romulus) because Dris betrayed him; he tried to get him killed and therefore had to pay the price.

I can't say the cliffhanger end to season 4 is not that satisfying. After the end of the frankly unrealistic arc of Dushane getting involved with plans to redevelop the Summerhill estate, then having a crisis of conscience and then saving it by threatening to assassinate Lizzie (Lisa Dwan), we move to the final scene of Sully whacking Jamie. You could say Sully blames Jamie for having to kill Dris, but I feel Sully works according to his principles and wiping out Jamie just doesn't make sense, although of course there could be events preceding the murder which we will see in the next season that might help to explain his actions. Yes, Sully heard in Spain that Jamie was thinking about his future, yet surely since then they could have worked it through. Perhaps season five will just be a bloodbath in which Sully kills EVERYONE.

Besides the violence, there's mad humour and excellent use of street slang and patois. Tia (Conya Toccara) is excellent especially when she is stealing and immediately crashing her case worker's car! Pebbles (Conya Toccara) is probably my fave character after her unc Sully since she is such a donut. All her ideas are bad and she nearly gets Sully killed not once but TWICE. In additionm the perpetual need of Aaron (Hope Ikpoku Jnr) to study becomes unintentionally hilarious as well

Ronan Bennett clearly had a lot of help with the spoken language in these seasons; it all just sounds amazing. To hear Tia or Pebbles go off is hilarious. Allow it. Below is a clip of Micheal Ward and Little Simz talking about some of the slang.

On a recent radio broadcast with people waffling on about how incomparable The Wire is to any other television show, I was stoked to hear Top Boy get mentioned. It's by far and away the best thing I've seen lately and I don't think it needs higher praise than that. On reflection, it is for sure a shame that the show is glorifying drugs and crime, but it is what it is, Top Boy is far from being the only show to do it and at least it keeps it real.

It also interesting to have so many UK rappers involved. As well as the already mentioned Asher D, Kano and Little Simz, there's Dave (David Omoregie who plays Modie) and Bashy (Ashley Thomas who plays Jermaine). And I also recognised Curtis's sidekick! Finally, the whole thing looks fantastic! It's a real step up in terms of cinematography from seasons one and two. I guess we have Drake to thank for that.

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