It is said that people who share the same goal will cross paths eventually. The phrase is more commonly used for lovers, but I believe it fits perfectly in the case of Gerard “Sully” Sullivan and Dushane Hill. The two ambitious lads from a fictional neighborhood, Summer House, shared the same dream. They both wanted to rule the streets of London and become the top boys. It is a common goal among gangsters to rise up the ladder and rule the world, but what set Sully and Dushane apart are their characters. We have seen them evolve tremendously in the five seasons, and with each new season of Top Boy, their arcs took a drastic turn.
Spoiler Alert
Why Did Sully Kill Jamie?
Sully is not a regular, one-dimensional gangster who only cares about selling drugs and killing people when they disobey him. He is much more layered than that. Throughout the three seasons of the show on Netflix, we saw Sully have a strong code of conduct (ironically, he was a gangster). Sully demanded a sense of loyalty from his partners and peddlers. Maybe he really believed that there was honor among thieves. Or maybe Sully wanted to run the business like the good old Italian mafia, which considered every member of the gang as family or only recruited gangsters from the family. In the world of Top Boy, most peddlers were immigrants staying in the Summer House or nearby, and therefore, the members of the gang were the closest thing to family they had. Hence, if Sully expected blood loyalty from them, he wasn’t wrong. Theoretically, it sounded good, but in reality, even Fredo betrayed Michael Corleone.
In Sully’s court of law, there are no second chances. You betray him once, and that’s the end. We can say that Dushane was the only one who was able to control Sully’s impulsive behavior and sometimes convince him to make better decisions. Dushane was practical, while Sully was emotional. Dushane knew that killing people would only bring unwanted attention, which could be fatal for the entire gang. We remember a scene from Netflix’s Top Boy Season 2 where Jaq’s sister betrayed Sully, but Dushane covered up the entire thing because he didn’t want Jaq’s sister to end up dead because of a single mistake. The hot-headed Sully never found out about it; otherwise, he wouldn’t have had a second thought before pulling the trigger. And that’s exactly what happened in Jamie Tovell’s case.
Dushane was the only one who was able to recognize Jamie’s talent and wanted to make peace with the lad so that they could work together, but Sully wasn’t interested in any of it because he didn’t trust Jamie from day one. Even if Jamie had been the best peddler who could have helped Sully earn millions of pounds, Sully still would have shot him. For Sully, loyalty mattered more than anything in the business, and therefore, he didn’t waste a moment to shoot Jamie in front of his brothers.
Did Stef Kill Sully?
An impulsive decision started a chain reaction, and Jamie’s youngest brother, Stefan “Stef,” who had witnessed the assassination of his brother with his own eyes, decided to take revenge on the man who ruined his life with a single bullet. The entire third season of Netflix’s Top Boy revolved around the one gnawing question: would Stef kill Sully? The young lad even practiced pulling the gun in front of the mirror like the iconic Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver). But trust me, Stef didn’t kill Sully.
Did Si Kill Sully?
Stef had told Si that it was Sully who shot Jamie on that fateful night, and Si didn’t waste any moment to fan the fire of revenge burning inside Stef. He not only gave him Jamie’s gun but also taught him how to use it to shoot down the man who had killed his brother. Thankfully, Stef made a conscious decision not to jump into the dark world of crime by pulling the trigger. He pointed a gun at Sully but fortunately walked away because he didn’t want to give Sully the satisfaction of destroying one more life. Si, on the other hand, didn’t forget how Sully had humiliated him in front of his whole gang because of a misunderstanding. Hence, he was yearning for vengeance, and it could be possible that it was Si or one of his henchmen who shot Sully in the end after Stef decided to walk away.
Did Jaq Kill Sully?
There were other players in the Top Boy universe who were absolutely done with Sully’s tyranny and bloodshed, but we don’t believe any of them had the courage to shoot down the man. Jaq, for example, wanted a way out of the drug business, but she knew Sully wouldn’t let her leave easily. Above all, she had tried to betray Sully by stealing 25 kilos of drugs from the safehouse and knew that soon, Sully was going to make her pay for her disloyalty. Jaq might have had her reasons to get rid of Sully, but we don’t think she had the heart to go ahead with it. Other than Jaq, the entire Summer House gang had perished, and there were no rivals left in the street who had any beef with Sully except for Jamie’s previous gang members.
However, the question we want to answer is: Why did the creators leave us with such an ambiguous ending? The answer is simple. Top Boy started with Sully and Dushane, and we all knew from the beginning that it was going to end with them. Sully had already murdered Dushane, and now it was Sully’s turn to meet his fateful end because, without it, the story couldn’t have a satisfactory conclusion. People like Sully and Dushane can escape to new lands and start over, but deep down, both of them know they can never change who they are. For a brief moment, Dushane tried to change the course of his life, but the past hunted him down, and a similar thing happened with Sully. He might have decided to leave London momentarily, but he knew he could never escape his fate.
What Will Happen To The Summer House?
With Sully out of the picture, Si and his gang, London Fields, can fill the vacuum and become the new leaders of the neighborhood. Jaq could go back to living a normal life and look after her nephew, keeping him away from the world of crime like she intended. She had told Kieron that she lost Lauryn because of the drugs, but she didn’t want her son to meet the same fate and would do anything to protect him. The realization eventually became a turning point in Jaq’s life, after which she decided to leave the world of crime behind. Other members of the Summer House, including Junior and Kieron, were already resting in their graves; hence, we don’t think Si and his gang would face any competition for some time. However, the person about whom we are most concerned is Stef, and we really wish that he didn’t end up becoming a gangster like his dead brother. We hope Erin will be able to save him from the world of crime and that he will start attending school and become a good example like his brother, Aaron.
Top Boy ends with Summer House Estate still going up in flames, but we believe the people and their government (especially the Home Secretary) will be able to find common ground to promote peace and harmony in the neighborhood. The creators don’t reveal what will eventually happen to the immigration issue and people staying in the Summer House Estate, but we believe it’s a real-world problem that has no concrete solution.