Summary
“15 Points” ups the body count considerably as Dushane goes to war for Sully. Meanwhile, Jamie makes a potentially dangerous move.
This recap of Netflix’s Top Boy season 2, episode 5, “15 Points”, contains spoilers.
In the social media age, videos spread like wildfire. And that’s just as well since the one of Khadeem’s goons beating Sully half to death reaches every member of Dushane’s crew virtually instantly. Jaq takes it to Dushane, and despite any tensions that might still exist between them, there’s still a brotherhood there that can’t be ignored. Dushane and the others go out looking for Sully in force. They find Pebbles at his boat and interrogate her about his whereabouts. Getting Cyprus’s number, Dushane gives him a call. Neither his attempts to be reasonable nor intimidating go well. And all the while, his heart continues to play up. Thankfully, Pebbles knows about a trap house in Peckham where Cyprus and Khadeem often operate. It’s as good a lead as any.
Netflix’s Top Boy season 2, episode 5 recap
“15 Points” focuses primarily on three things: The above, Jamie’s adventures in Morocco, and Lauryn’s attempts to escape Curtis. By its end, we begin to see how all of these things are coming together since there are few subplots in Top Boy that don’t ultimately factor into the overarching narrative, but it’s impressive how the show can split its focus without sacrificing pace or coherence.
In Morocco, for instance, Jamie decides to take a dangerous step. He calls Dushane to tell him that the snitch has been rooted out and the job’s done, but he’s heading over to Spain anyway to speak with Juan directly. On the phone to Dushane, he rationalizes this by explaining that if they don’t cut Juan in, they’ll have to sacrifice the one in five shipments that he manages to intercept by chance. But this is coming on the back of a conversation he had with Khrito about how a top boy needs to know when to make his move, so it’s obvious he has another agenda. And yet it’s still difficult to dislike Jamie. Before he leaves Morocco, he gives that street kid his watch so that he can buy his way to Spain to find his sister.
Dushane is prepared to offer Juan 15%, max. Juan counters with 30%, which includes free movement and his protection. Jamie tries to talk him down, but he only gets as far as 25% with a downpayment of £100,000. Since Juan is deliberately pricing Dushane out, Jamie instead suggests to him privately that just maybe he’d be interested in a direct deal with Los Duques, who can apparently move a lot more product than the Moroccans. Since Juan would stand to benefit more, he seems keen on the idea. As predicted, Jamie has made his move.
Up in Liverpool, meanwhile, Vee takes Lauryn’s phone away, and in the ensuing confrontation, we see a lot more of Curtis’s dark side and hear his bizarre rationalizations for his abuse (he suggests that she doesn’t need a phone since the 5G radiation might harm their baby). Without a phone or any other options, Lauryn finesses Curtis into taking her shopping for maternity clothes, then into giving her a load of money, then into letting her have some privacy away from Vee, which she uses to escape through the store’s fire exit and leg it to a taxi. Just in time, she’s able to buy her way to London, thanks at least in part to the heroic efforts of the taxi driver, and by the episode’s end, she finally arrives at Jaq’s place.
It’s a pretty melancholy ending, really, since when Dushane and the others raid the trap house, there’s an awful lot of death. Both Cyprus and Khadeem are killed, as are all of their goons, and Dushane is able to walk a badly wounded Sully out while everyone else torches the place. But “15 Points” is careful to linger on the scenes of the crew, some of them injured, scrubbing their nails clean and burning their clothes, and otherwise having to deal with the repercussions of such a violent encounter. How many other shows consider the blood under one’s fingernails after a shootout?
