Summary
“You Don’t Know Me” brought Top Boy to a fitting conclusion, as the plots paid off for better and worse, leaving deeper questions about London’s new status quo.
We recap Top Boy (Netflix) Season 1 Episode 10, “You Don’t Know Me,” which contains significant spoilers and explains the ending.
Following the attack on their hideout, Sully (Kane Robinson) and Dushane (Ashley Walters) have found temporary sanctuary at Taylor’s house.
Though they can’t see a way out of their current situation in Episode 10, by process of elimination, they determine that the likeliest culprit for giving away their location is Dris (Shone Romulus).
Top Boy (Netflix) Season 1 Episode 10 Recap
They begin their plan by telling Dris that they intend to move on Jaime (Micheal Ward) and that he needs to wait for their call. They also mention that the snitch will get what’s coming to him, planting the seeds of fear and paranoia in his mind.
At the same time, Modie (David Omoregie) visits a doctor about his eye and, on the return journey, is suddenly surrounded by armed police. In the throes of agony, the police think he’s reaching for a weapon and shoot him dead. The news of his death interrupts a fight between Jaime, Lizzie, and Jermaine (Ashley Thomas) at the ZT’s hideout.
Still hurting for ideas, “You Don’t Know Me” sees Sully and Dushane debating going after Jaime’s brothers, but Sully won’t go that far. A plan is hatched by Dushane. First, he goes to see Reuben, the dealer of various illegal goods who resides in a fortress of bulletproof glass and installed Jaime’s CCTV. Dushane says he wants to see what Jaime sees through these cameras.
With both Modie and Jermaine out of the way, Jaime is back in control of ZT. He and his goons tool up to look for Sully and Dushane, encountering Sarah and Lee along the way and bribing them with drugs to report back any sightings.
Meanwhile, Jaq (Jasmine Jobson) gives Ats another job: To take a backpack and hide it at Stefan’s house, which he does, though not without obvious effort.
The pressure of having to betray his closest friend is killing Ats, but the need to help his mum and the fear of the Summertown crew lead him to feel as though he has no other choice. This has been a tragic subplot throughout Top Boy Season 3 and reaches a crescendo here in “You Don’t Know Me.”
It’s time for the endgame. Dushane calls the police and reports a bag full of guns at Jaime’s address; Sully calls Dris and tells him to meet at the local cafe to move on Jaime.
As the police raid Jaime’s home and arrest Aaron (Hope Ikpoku Jnr), Stefan and Abby, the ZTs, having been tipped off by Dris, arrive at the cafe. Sully and Dushane witness both events, one from a nearby car, and the other through Jaime’s surveillance system. Dushane calls Jaime and tells him to check on his brothers.
Dris’s fate in Top Boy Episode 10 is tragic. When Sully arrives, he immediately realizes he has been found out and that he’ll die for what he’s done. Neither of the men wants that to happen, but both are resigned to it; for a brief moment, Dris asks if there’s another way, but he knows better than most that there isn’t.
Touchingly asking if he can say goodbye to his daughter, Sully refuses but wants to take him away so that she doesn’t discover his body. Dris agrees, sauntering to a rooftop where Sully executes him.
An incidental line of dialogue struck me: “I didn’t even know that you wore glasses,” Sully says to Dris as they leave his flat. These people who kill and die over their loyalty scarcely know each other at all.
Another emotional moment in “You Don’t Know Me” is shared between Jaime and Aaron. It’s fitting that Top Boy Season 1, Episode 10 chose to have this exchange be between Jaime and his older brother rather than Jaime and Stefan; Aaron was better able to articulate the counter-argument against how Jamie provides for the family and to finally stand up against his brother.
His anger eventually gave way to sheer emotion as the brothers embraced, and Jaime agreed to take the fall for them all, but the point was still made — and made well. Hope Ikpoku Jnr and Micheal Ward are both fine young actors and get the chance to prove it here.
Top Boy (Netflix) Season 1 Ending Explained
In the aftermath of their victory, Sully and Dushane clash once again: “Just because we didn’t lose doesn’t mean we won,” says Sully, feeling once again like he had lost more than he had gained. A desperately emotional Kit (Kadeem Ramsay) attempted to kill Ats for planting the bag, but Amma, Ats’ mother, was able to fight him off. Ats cowering under the kitchen counter was a perfect encapsulation of how he must have felt having fallen so completely into a situation he couldn’t free himself from.
A montage shows the new status quo of Summerhouse now that Dushane and Sully are in bed with Lizzie and her husband; everything remains more or less the same. Nobody has really learned anything. Nobody finds themselves in a particularly different position than the one they began in. For once, this isn’t a criticism. It’s entirely the point.
But Top Boy Episode 10 doesn’t conclude things there. Did you really think Drake revived this show to executive-produce one season? Dushane visits Jamie in prison and shows him exonerating video evidence of Ats planting the bag; if Jaime agrees to come and work for him, he’ll send it to his lawyer.
And in a final last-minute reveal, we learn that Sarah and Lee, notorious Summerhouse junkies, are undercover police. Dushane’s face is pinned to the top of a corkboard, the head of a complex web of London criminality. And the police are planning to take the top boy down.
What did you think of Netflix’s Top Boy Season 1 Episode 10? Comment below.
