Top Boy review – Episode Four (Series 2) – Channel 4

In the final episode of series two, the show picked up some much needed pace as all the various storylines started to pay-off. One of the B plots though, the one with Michael and Gem, slowed things down and distracted from the main plot, concluding with Lisa asking Dushane to pay a visit to the drug dealer who beat-up her son. Dushane agreed, presumably out of guilt, having involved Ra’Nell in the violent world of drug dealing last series.

This whole storyline has seemed a little boring and unnecessary to me. I think the writer didn’t know what to do with Michael, but felt he couldn’t drop the character because he was so central to series one.

Top Boy review – Episode Three (Series 2) – Channel 4

Episode three opened with a nice little scene of Jason picking up breakfast for Sully, Mike and their captive, along with an avocado he thinks is a pear, a gift for Sully and an attempt to endear himself to the only adult in his life that might actually look out for him.

Sully was in some trouble though. Rafe, the brother of his prisoner, came calling and started a shootout. Sully just escaped, and reached out to his old partner Dushane, asking for help in resolving the situation. Dushane agreed to broker a deal, securing Sully’s safety in exchange for him helping in the upcoming attack on the Albanian drug thieves.

Why does Dushane need Sully’s help though? He doesn’t. Sully has no special skills and Dushane has plenty of muscle. It’s the first major misstep the show has made, and the whole storyline felt like a contrived way of getting Sully and Dushane back together. If I was being generous, I’d say that Dushane was simply looking for an excuse to reunite with Sully, and that explains the illogical deal, but I think it is probably just bad writing.

Top Boy review – Episode Two (Series 2) – Channel 4

Top Boy is juggling a lot of storylines, characters and themes. It’s admirable to see a show attempt this, but with only four episodes in its short series it might have taken on too much. The American TV shows Top Boy is so influenced by tend to have 13 episode seasons; with only four hours Top Boy can’t cover the same ground as effectively.

As a result, in episode two, only a tiny amount of time was given to Lisa’s barber shop, and her attempt to save it from property developers. I can see why the writer wanted to include this; probably making a point about richer society’s preying on the poorer parts, and contrasting that with the more micro examination of Dushane and the drugs gang, but with only two episodes left and very little revealed it might have been better to cut this storyline.

Sully’s storyline seems equally irrelevant. I like the character, and hopefully he’s going to cross paths with Dushane at some point, but right now it just seems like a wandering tangent, as he and Mike agreed to kill Sully’s cousin for a fee, and then kidnapped him instead in order to extract money from him.

Ra’Nell and Gem also seem like afterthoughts, left over from the last series with nothing to do. Gem is caught-up with the Asian cannabis grower, who is using the debt Gem owes to control him, but this seems like a less interesting echo of series one.

Michael though is more interesting. Arrested while carrying drugs – in a nice series of events that avoided feeling contrived – he admitted to the police that he was working for Dushane, and that he knew the location where Dushane’s murder victim was picked up from. Keeping this secret from his friends and colleagues, while juggling the realities of the drugs trade – getting mugged at one point and losing a significant amount of drugs – Michael has a lot to deal with for a 13-year-old kid.

And there will be 13-year-olds that have these types of problems. A lot has been written about how ‘real’ Top Boy is, illustrating the lives of people like Michael. Successfully rendering this realism though is not just about accurately capturing a section of society and its people and dialogue; it’s about good and natural writing. Including characters with idiosyncratic ticks, like the kid who covers his mouth when he speaks, helps construct a world that appears solid. Similar was a scene where Dris told his friend to kiss his daughter before leaving for a job. The awkward, jokey moment felt genuine as it wasn’t simply designed to push forward the plot.

The rest of the episode followed Dushane, as he hooked-up with his lawyer friend. She pointed out that Dushane might be a ‘king’ but he is king of a ‘shithole.’ Both this series and the last have consistently contrasted this part of impoverished London with the more glamorous areas, with cinematic shots filming the flats of Summerhouse and the glittering City of London on the horizon. Dushane might be the Top Boy, but he’s Top Boy of a place so destitute that most people would do anything to get out of it.

Random notes:

• The little wanderer kid was back again, being recruited by Sully, and standing unfazed in the foreground munching pizza as Sully and Mike attacked a guy behind.

• Sully leaving his kidnap victim with Mike while he dealt with a petty dispute over his phone – almost letting the victim escape – is the type of thing Dushane wouldn’t do. Sully just isn’t competent, which is why his former partner has parted ways with him.

• There was a scene with a Scottish police officer badgering Michael into confessing. That is a something that can be really clichéd – ‘you can’t handle the truth!’ etc. – but the well-written dialogue and the acting just about made it work.

Top Boy Reviews: Episode One, Episode Three, Episode Four

Top Boy review – Episode One (Series 2) – Channel 4

The first series of Top Boy aired two years ago so I imagine most people felt a little lost at the start of episode one of series two, which jumped straight into the action with the briefest summary of past events. If you didn’t watch that first series then presumably you had no fucking idea what was going on, but even for those that did things were a little confusing.

So, a brief recap of series one: low level drug dealers Dushane and Sully made a play for the big time. They got embroiled in a turf war, eventually killing the rival gang’s leader, Kamale. Meanwhile, teenagers Ra’Nell and Gem started growing cannabis, and eventually got caught-up in Dushane’s enterprise. Ra’Nell’s mum struggled with mental illness, but sorted out her problems after a few episodes. The season ended with Dushane siding with his reckless partner Sully against his drugs supplier, killing said supplier, and taking over the drugs trade. You can read full recaps of each episode on Wikipedia.

That first series owed a pretty big debt to The Wire, from which it borrowed heavily. The relationship between drug partners Dushane and Sully mirrored that of Stringer and Avon in The Wire, and a character that looked out for Ra’Nell had a lot of similarities to the American show’s Cutty. Obviously, the plot was very similar, as were many of the show’s themes. The Wire, as with most decent US dramas, pushed on after its first series and built on its characters and premise. Series one of Top Boy was, to the best of my recollection, pretty good, so hopefully this second series can mirror its American counterparts.

It’s hard to judge from episode one though, which was interesting and teased out a few details but didn’t really offer much in terms of plot. Dushane and Sully have parted ways, with the former now the leader of the area’s main drugs gang. Sully is working small time. Gem is still growing cannabis, but is struggling without Ra’Nell who is trying to stay clear of the troubles that infest the area he lives in. His mother Lisa meanwhile has her own hairdressers.

The first series of Top Boy had a fascinating storyline from the start. We followed two drug dealers aiming for the big time, and from the first episode the characters were caught in conflict and in a difficult situation they seemed ill-equipped to get out of. This series is a lot less gripping. Dushane and Sully were arrested and are suspected of Kamale’s murder, there was a suggestion that Sully might go up against Dushane at some point, and there’s some dodgy property owner trying to take over Lisa’s shop. These storylines could all potentially be interesting down the line but right now it’s all a bit light. Ra’Nell and Gem, who were central to the first series, barely featured in any appealing way.

The episode had a decent ending though, as the top level gangster, the guy in the background who works with Dushane, was gunned down while picking up drugs. Hopefully, episode two will kick into gear as a result.

As for this first one; it was okay. There were some nice shots, like the opening crane shot of the murder site, lit up in the dark, with the bright lights of the O2 Arena in the background. The episode also took some time to linger in its interesting setting, for instance a scene of some kids rapping with each other inbetween drug deals. And as I said above, there were hints of more promising storylines to come, which, hopefully, will help develop series two into a worthy successor to the first.

Random notes:

• The police arrested Dushane with seemingly absolutely no evidence. The scene was probably just an excuse to introduce the lawyer character, and to introduce a threat to the gangsters. It could have been handled better though.

• Strange phone call the lawyer made at one point, telling someone Dushane is ‘liquid.’ Liquid as in lots of cash money? Just a guess, but maybe she’s hooking him up with some big time criminals.

• The new kid wandering around on his own was pretty good. ‘They’re 40p in the market.’ ‘You ain’t in the fucking market.’ A likeable character I hope we see more of.

• ‘You know what happened bruv, and you know why,’ Dushane said to Sully about their split. I don’t know if we are supposed to remember the specifics of the split from the first series, or if it is something yet to be explained. They could have done more to make it easier for the viewer to get up to speed with the show. I guess this is why Channel 4 has been running trailers for 4oD and series one so often over the last month, encouraging people to refresh their memory.

Top Boy Reviews: Episode Two, Episode Three, Episode Four