‘Top Boy’ Season 5 review: The powerful end this masterpiece of a series deserves

Well, we’ve come to the end. 

Over a decade since Top Boy first aired in the UK, and Dushane and Sully (Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson) started running the Summerhouse estate, Ronan Bennett’s series has come to a close with its fifth season — the third of the reboot produced for Netflix by Adel “Future” Nur and Drake. So much has happened, so many loved and lost, and we’re finally at the close.

With directors Myriam Raja and William Stefan Smith at the helm, Season 5 is as characteristically unrelenting, tense, and superbly performed as the show has always been, exploring prevailing themes of family and criminality, community and solidarity, dreams and struggle, violence and tragedy, retribution and guilt, relationships and connection.

As the characters reel from Season 4’s shocking ending, characters attempt to maintain a sense of control in the final season, especially when a rival Irish gang arrives to threaten territory. With superb performances — including an outstanding turn by Jasmine Jobson — and all possibilities on the table, Top Boy Season 5 leaves no loose ends, for better or worse, for the characters we’ve lived with for 12 years.

Actions have consequences and the characters will truly feel it this season. But the one thing Top Boy wants you to remember at the end of all things? Everyone’s got family.

What is Top Boy Season 5 about?

Kane Robinson and Ashley Walters as Sully and Dushane. Credit: Ali Painter/Netflix

One thing to know, if you haven’t seen previous seasons of Top Boy, is that dropping into the final season will be tough to follow and frankly, not nearly as rewarding a watch. So at the very least, watch Seasons 3 and 4 first, and Seasons 1 and 2 for deeper context. It’s slightly confusing, as Seasons 1 and 2 are now titled Top Boy: Summerhouse on Netflix, while 3, 4, and 5 are simply Top Boy, so we’re numbering for the overall total of seasons here.

Set in and around the fictional East London public housing estate Summerhouse and the Hackney borough, Top Boy is centred around protagonists, anti-heroes, and London drug dealers Dushane and Sully (Walters and Robinson), and their allies, enemies, family, and friends. While Season 4 took things all the way to Spain and back, for the final season, the Summerhouse estate is front and centre, with filming taking place at the Samuda Estate located in London’s Isle of Dogs (the original, Elephant and Castle’s Heygate Estate, was demolished in 2014).

Having fine-tuned these characters for over a decade, Robinson and Walters are at the top of their game this season, as are their ever-brilliant returning co-leads Jasmine Jobson, Simbi Ajikawo (aka acclaimed rapper Little Simz), Saffron Hocking, and Araloyin Oshunremi, and the incredible supporting cast. And this time, The Banshees of Inisherin star Barry Keoghan and Bad Sisters’ Brian Gleeson join the cast too, leading the villainous new McGee gang inching in on Sully’s territory — and they’re a formidable addition.

The fifth season of the series begins where the fourth left off, with one of the most chilling endings to a TV show we’ve seen in an age: the murder of Jamie (Michael Ward) in his own home by Sully. From this moment, Sully is scrambling — as is everyone else. As in the seasons before it, Top Boy is a masterclass in building tension, with superb cinematography from directors of photography Federico Cesca and Kanamé Onoyama: often handheld cameras, intense close ups, long takes, and superb blocking, as the characters attempt to maintain a sense of control in the chaos.

Top Boy Season 5 sees everything unraveling for everyone.

Simbi Ajikawo aka Little Simz as Shelley and Ashley Walters as Dushane. Credit: Ali Painter/Netflix

Ultimately, Top Boy sees its characters trying to make a living within a system stacked against them and get out — a feat that ends up near impossible for everyone in varying circumstances usually connected to socioeconomic instability and systemic inequality. As Jaq tells Becks (Adwoa Aboah) in a Season 5 episode called, “The Food Is Killing Us”: “There’s always a way out if you come from money.”

Sully, having made the decision to kill Jamie last season, has only staying on top and protecting his family on his mind, with both threatened by the arrival of the Irish McGees gang and their gruesome methods. Now the lone wolf leader, Sully’s actions change his relationship with Dushane, and the tension between them gives Walters and Robinson plenty to work with. Banshees’ Keoghan joins the cast as Johnny, the sadistic nephew of the McGee leader Tadgh, played by Gleeson. Keoghan is cold, cackling, and cruel in a Ramsay Bolton way, giving the series a strong new nemesis.

Barry Keoghan as Johnny. Credit: Ali Painter/Netflix

Dushane is finally back in a solid place with Shelley (Ajikawo) making plans for the future, but it seems as soon as opportunities open up, Dushane is dragged back under. As Dushane and Shelley’s relationship breaks down, the realities of Dushane’s business and tendency toward anger undermine him — “I can’t live like this. One minute you’re in a good mood, next minute you come home with fucking blood on your hands,” Shelley says.

Ajikawo is superb as ever as Shelley, a practical, empathetic mind set on creating her own business empire of nail salons — something she’s been wanting to do since opening her own place in Season 3. Shelley’s salon in Top Boy becomes a safe space of joy, support, welcoming, and recognition for the women in the series — including Mandy (NoLay), Naomi (Verona Rose), Lauryn, and begrudgingly, Jaq.

NoLay as Mandy. Credit: Ali Painter/Netflix

Like this, there are moments of uplift and empowerment among the scramble and losses of Top Boy. One of the most powerful moments of the season is an action of pure, peaceful, people power and victory led by Mandy in episode 1 (and it’s frankly excellent to see Mandy get much more screen time this season). When Immigration Enforcement turns up with police at Summerhouse to deport Kieron (Joshua Blisset), despite his legal status, neighbours shame the police en masse and stage a sitting protest. It’s a series highlight.

Police brutality, systemic racism, and the cruelty and injustice of the Immigration Service has plagued Top Boy’s characters throughout the series, from Amma’s (Jolade Obasola) experience in Season 3, to Jaq, Kieron, and Romy’s (Nyshai Caynes) brutal stop and search in Season 4, to Kieron’s imminent deportation in Season 5, and in doing so, Top Boy has long provided one of best social commentaries on the abhorrent and ongoing state of these issues in the UK.

Top Boy Season 5 puts grief front and centre.

Araloyin Oshunremi as Stef. Credit: Ali Painter/Netflix

Death, loss, and grief have been omnipresent for the characters of Top Boy for years now, but after Sully’s shocking murder of Jamie to close last season, grief leads Season 5 through the now-grown Stefan (Oshunremi). Having been such a cornerstone of the last two seasons as Jamie, Ward still looms large over the season despite his onscreen absence — a testament to Jamie and Stef’s connection, beautifully developed by Oshunremi and Ward.

Meditating on the loss of his brother, guardian, and mentor, and donning his signature silver chain, Stef becomes fuelled by furious rage and the need for revenge, knowing full well who is responsible. With Aaron moved away after Jamie’s death, Stef stands somewhat alone at the precipice of adulthood, though in a supportive new foster home and surrounded by Jamie’s allies. But his pain and turmoil is balanced by his sweet, joyous, burgeoning connection with Erin (Savanah Graham), who still has her own grief to bear with her mother Mandy over the death of her father Dris (Shone Romulus), killed by Sully in Season 3 for betrayal.

But there’s one character who truly goes through it this season, and that’s Jaq, giving us a standout performance from Jasmine Jobson. 

Jasmine Jobson gives the season’s standout performance. 

Jasmine Jobson as Jaq. Credit: Ali Painter/Netflix

As the tough, complicated, stoic Jaq, Jobson has long been a series highlight, establishing her high-ranking dominance in Sully’s crew and making survivalist choices like everyone else, questionable or otherwise. In Season 5, she makes every moment count, bringing nuance, rare vulnerability, impassioned ferocity, necessary rationality, and ultimately, a deep coldness to her character during a tumultuous series of events. 

Jaq is often fuelled by rage and revenge, or pure practicality cleaning up other people’s messes, but this season there are several scenes in which she’s forced to reflect on the real life responsibilities of dealing — something Top Boy has always done for its characters.

Joining Jobson atop the season’s most impactful performances is Hocking as Lauryn, who is dealing with the repercussions of the horrific manipulation and physical abuse she suffered from her partner Curtis in Season 4, amid the struggles of solo new motherhood. The party-loving, spirited Lauryn of Season 3 has been severely diminished, as Hocking moves her character through an exhausting arc. Jaq and Lauryn’s relationship has evolved from lightly bickering sisters to abusive hatred in Season 3, fiercely protective action in Season 4, and in Season 5, Jobson and Hocking move their characters into a state of genuine love and caring, despite all the odds.

Saffron Hocking as Lauryn. Credit: Ali Painter/Netflix

Top Boy Season 3 stays true to its core: music.

Music has always sat at the heart of Top Boy, with Robinson and Walters artists in their own right and rappers including Little Simz, Dave and more taking leading roles. This season, it’s another winning playlist thanks to music supervisors Abi Leland, Ed Bailie, and Toby Williams. Expect the likes of British rappers and artists including Guvna B, Ghetts, Knucks, J Hus, Jeshi, FLO, Sainté and more. The highs and lows are also marked by Brian Eno and Michael “Mikey J” Asante’s exquisitely unobtrusive but poignant score.

British TV won’t be the same without a new Top Boy season to look forward to, but the show’s impact will remain everlasting: every character, every big narrative twist, every loss.

Here’s to Summerhouse and everyone in it.

Top Boy is now streaming on Netflix.