Top Boy ending explained: our best theories on who killed [redacted]

Warning: Major spoilers for the final episode of Top Boy.

It has been a long time since Top Boy premiered on Channel 4 in 2011. We’ve seen a switch to Netflix, Brexit, a pandemic and a lettuce with the wherewithal to outlast a prime minister. Former stars Michael Ward, Letitia Wright and Sharon Duncan Brewster have gone from unknowns to starring in Hollywood movies, but one thing on the show remained the same. In the end, there could only be one Top Boy.

As the series reached its conclusion, whether it would be suave pragmatist Dushane (Ashley Walters) or the unpredictable barrel of neuroses Sully (Kane Robinson) was the question on all long-term fan’s minds. Ultimately, Top Boy left its best twist for last. Not only would Dushane die a distinctly un-ceremonious death, running away from his former best friend with a pitiful slice of the fortune he once had, only to slowly bleed out of a stomach wound in an alley. Still, Top Boy left its most brutal moment for last with an ambiguous figure blowing Sully’s brains out all over the interior of his Honda. With so many characters six feet under and the ones that remain with so many axes to grind, it begs the question: Who pulled the trigger and left us without a Top Boy?

If it wasn’t going to end with Dushane and Sully plunging daggers into each other’s hearts simultaneously, the final six episodes floated a few possibilities. Young Stefan confronts Sully but ultimately chooses not to avenge his brother and best friend. But plenty of characters still had reasons to want to see Sully dead. Not that he cared much, staring straight down Stefan’s pistol as he asked him, ”How does it feel?” only to respond, “To be honest, Stefan, feeling left me a long time ago.”

But then, who the hell was it that coated the windshield in crimson brain matter? If it was a person that the audience was accustomed to, then the best money was on Jaq, who had been pushed to the brink by the deaths of her friends and her sister’s addiction, and in the final season, seemed to believe in a future outside of the Summerhouse estate that had previously eluded her. But most of all, she has a reason to survive, forging actual loving relationships, and Sully’s continual existence meant hers wasn’t assured. But anyone with a Netflix account and fast reactions to hitting the pause button will be able to see there appears to be a crop of short blonde hair and a male build, albeit one too blurred and brief to scrutinise properly.