Honestly, this series had me stressed.
You know those shows where you start watching because you just want to see what the hype is about, and before you know it, you are already emotionally invested in people who are making terrible decisions every five minutes?... Yeah. Top Boy is one of those.
The story is mainly about Dushane and Sully and their lives in the drug business around Summerhouse in East London... At first, you might think it is just another gangster series about drugs, money, guns and people fighting over territory but as you keep watching, you realise it is actually much bigger than that... It is about poverty, Family, Friendship, Ambition, Loyalty and how difficult it can be to escape the environment you grew up in...
Dushane is the more calculated one... He is always thinking about the next move, the next deal and how to build his empire. Sully, on the other hand, is more emotional and unpredictable... their friendship is one of the things that kept me watching.
These two can be brothers today and enemies tomorrow. One minute they are protecting each other, the next minute you are sitting there wondering which one is about to betray the other and that is the thing about Top Boy... Nobody is really safe.
You can start liking a character and then suddenly they do something that makes you say, “Bro, what were you thinking?”
I also liked that the show doesn't make the drug life look as glamorous as some other gangster movies and series do...
Yes, there is money, there are nice cars, there are expensive clothes, there is respect but there is also fear, death, prison, paranoia and broken families.... You constantly see the consequences and I think that is where Top Boy hits differently.
The younger characters are especially important because you get to see how easy it is for young people to get attracted to that lifestyle...
Imagine being young, broke, surrounded by people with money, nice clothes and influence. Someone tells you there is an easy way to make serious money.... Of course it looks attractive but the show gradually shows you the price of that decision..
Then there is Sully... I honestly did not know how I felt about this man half the time.... Sometimes I understood him, Sometimes I was angry with him, Sometimes I was just waiting for him to make another crazy decision.... Sully never feels completely predictable.
Ashley Walters was also really good as Dushane. You can actually see the character change throughout the series. He starts off wanting success and gradually becomes someone carrying the weight of everything he has built.
Then we get Jamie in the later seasons, and his storyline brings another layer to the show... His relationship with his brothers made some of the later episodes more emotional for me because you realise that behind all the gang politics, these are still people with families.
The dialogue also made the series feel real.... The slang, the accents, the way people talk to each other... sometimes I had to rewind because somebody would say something so quickly and I would just be there like, “Wait, what did he say?” but that authenticity is part of what makes Top Boy work.
The show isn't perfect though.... Some of the gang conflicts start becoming repetitive, and there were definitely moments when certain characters made decisions that had me questioning their common sense.... Like bro... you knew this was a bad idea. Why did you still do it?
Some characters also deserved more development, especially because the show introduces quite a lot of people over the seasons but overall, I really enjoyed the journey and the more I watched, the more I realised that Top Boy isn't really asking who is the biggest gangster.... It is showing you what happens when people spend years trying to become the person at the top because the higher you climb, the more people want to bring you down and eventually, everybody has to pay for something.
That is probably what I liked most about the series.
Rating: 85/100