Summary
More problems, more deaths, and more drama ensure “Fully Loaded Headache” lives up to its title.
This recap of Netflix’s Top Boy season 2, episode 4, “Fully Loaded Headache”, contains spoilers.
At the risk of sounding a bit repetitive, things aren’t looking good for Dushane. Now, on top of all his other worries, Ruben is in police custody. He’s being interrogated by Lee and Sarah and they are, of course, trying to get him to give up Dushane. You’d think this would be nothing to worry about given Dushane’s legal contacts and the well-known repercussions of telling tales in London’s underground — snitches get stitches, after all — but the lure of witness protection might be particularly compelling for a man who is the primary guardian of a very young son.
Netflix’s Top Boy season 2, episode 4 recap
At least Jamie is on the case abroad. He heads straight to Tangier and is picked up by Mounir. He immediately takes a shine to Morocco, if not necessarily to Chaash and his best friend and bodyguard Khrito. Jamie’s negotiating style isn’t all that dissimilar from Dushane’s. He’s forceful with his arguments about the leak, and he isn’t intimated. But he’s also just a little bit cleverer, or at least more instinctive since he deduces almost immediately that it’s Mounir who’s really in charge. That kind of savvy will take him far — perhaps further than Dushane would like.
But Dushane’s occupied anyway. Jeffrey suggested that he try and sweet talk the Summerhouse residents who’re still refusing to move, including his mother, but his rehearsed spiel about doing everyone a favor by tearing the block down falls on deaf ears. Flaunting his wealth doesn’t work either. Pat isn’t interested in any house or flat he might buy her — she’s interested in her home, and the shame she feels that her son makes his living by selling drugs. The stress of it all becomes too much for Dushane, who has something resembling a minor heart attack on the balcony outside. In that kind of mood, there’s no wonder that he outright rejects Jaq’s request for Lauryn to return to London, not to mention the fact that Sully would kill her himself if he ever found out what she did.
But Sully’s busy. He goes to see Shelley to get Mandy a legitimate job and even offers to pay her wages back to Shelley if she takes her on, and he goes with Pebbles to return the drugs to Khadeem and Cyprus. Negotiations don’t go well, though, and when it becomes clear that they want some kind of compensation, Sully smacks Khadeem with a dumbbell — they’re operating out of a gym — and pulls a gun on them. He generously gives them time to sleep on his offer and see him tomorrow, and I noted to myself that it’s interesting to see how much more confident and open Sully seems in these violent confrontations given how awkward and closed-off he is in everyday encounters. Perhaps he tries so hard to avoid the chaos because he’s so at home in it.
Mandy working with Shelley might be a good thing overall, though, since she witnesses Beverly harassing her, and what seems like Shelley paying her off. This isn’t brought up again here, but it’ll become important down the line. “Fully Loaded Headache” also makes time for several other valuable low-key scenes, such as Jamie befriending some street kids in Morocco, one of whom has a sister in Spain that he’s trying to reunite with, and Stef getting into a spot of bother with Tia when she steals her key worker’s car and crashes it into a bollard. The key worker is pretty reasonable, to be honest. He doesn’t want to go through the insurance company since then the police will have to get involved, so it’s Aaron who has to foot the bill, but that’s better than the alternative.
The good times don’t last, though. In Morocco, Chaash and Mounir send a fake shipment for Juan to intercept, which also proves that Khrito, the only other person who knew about it, must be the snitch. Chaash shoots him dead. And in London, goons come in the night for Sully, having discovered his location thanks to Pebbles. To try and fix the situation, she told Cyprus and Khadeem where he was, assuming he’d have the drugs on the boat and they could simply retrieve them. But after the incident earlier, Cyprus and Khadeem want payback, so while Pebbles is able to escape into the canal, Sully is kidnapped, and the episode ends with Khadeem filming his goons beating him down.
