Ignore Netflix’s “season 2” tag, Top Boy has been around for a while. Ronan Bennett’s drama about “shotting” [selling] “food” [drugs] to make “Ps” [money] on a Hackney council estate, aired for two series on Channel 4 between 2011 and 2013, was cancelled, and then revived for Netflix in 2019, by Drake. The Canadian rapper turned Top Boy superfan was so keen to find out what happened next to Dushane (Ashley “Asher D” Walters), Sully (Kane “Kano” Robinson) and their nascent narcotics empire that he signed on as executive producer. It’s understandable. Top Boy has since evolved into much more, but it always was compulsive viewing.
In that third season – or first, by Netflix’s accounting – Top Boy also levelled up. The writing satisfyingly remedied issues over the representation of women and “ghetto” stereotypes, while fresh directors including 2022 Oscar nominees Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) and Aneil Karia (The Long Goodbye) brought a lyricism that the grit-’n’-grey-sky urban thrillers of yore had often lacked. This Covid-delayed follow-up is welcome then, with one reservation: Dushane and Sully are in their mid-30s now – approximately 93 in roadman years – so surely it’s time to hang up their shotting shoes and retire?
