In the words of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, “comparisons are odorous”. Yet Netflix’s Top Boy has always been compared to HBO’s modern classic The Wire. David Simon’s drama saw Baltimore’s ecosystem of drug crime and justice depicted as a many-tentacled beast that corrupted everyone from children to police commissioners and is arguably the greatest television show of the 20th century (The Sopranos is technically a product of the 90s). Top Boy’s continual billing as the British version of The Wire has been a heavy burden to bear. Still, in its final season, it doesn’t crumble under the weight of its US counterpart. Instead, it delivers six tense, kinetic and moving episodes where our complex anti-heroes find themselves pushed to the brink.
In many senses, the outcome has always been clear from the show’s title: there has to be a single “Top Boy” and our leads, drug kingpins and childhood best friends Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson), can no longer coexist in an uneasy detente. One has to ascend and reign over Hackney’s Summerhouse estate, even if there may only be ashes to rule over. Top Boy might evoke the far-reaching societal rot that The Wire captured, but it has its own distinct path. Despite what Dushane and Sully may want, they are trapped in a world where only one can rule over this harsh landscape.
