Top Boy season 3 ending explained: what happened to Dushane, Sully, and Jaq in Netflix final season?

Top Boy came to a climactic end last week when the full final season (the third season made by Netflix but fifth overall) landed on Netflix.

Events at the Summerhouse estate went from bad to worse as a protest against police violence turned violent, and Dushane, Sully, and Jaq scrambled around in the turmoil in the show's brutal climax.

The penultimate episode of the show saw Sully realise that Jaq was responsible for stealing 25 kilos of heroin from him. As Sully, Dushane, and Kieron chase Jaq around London, she eventually confronts Sully at a cafe and tells him she will return the drugs.

Meanwhile, Dushane is feeling the heat for killing Jeffrey, his former business partner, and realises he must leave the country, getting a contact from his lawyer for a man who can make him disappear. 

After failing to get his hands on his Jamaican passport and money, he holes up at Summerhouse where residents are protesting against evictions. When police knock a young girl over with their car whilst attending to the protest, seemingly killing her, things quickly turn violent.

As Dushane hears the chaos outside the flat he is hiding in, the episode ends, leaving everything up in the air for the big finale. 

*Major spoilers ahead for Top Boy season 3*

What happened in the Top Boy season 3 finale?

Episode six, If We Are Not Monsters, begins with the riot at Summerhouse, where residents have lit police cars on fire and are destroying properties across the estate.

Dushane meets with his lawyer’s contact at the estate, but lacking both money and his passport, the contact leaves, telling him to text him when he has both.

Sully tells Kieron that he knows he lied to him about being aware of Jaq’s actions - he is dragged away into a van and we don’t see him again. It is assumed that Kieron was killed.

Shelley brings Dushane his passport and an envelope full of cash - it doesn’t look like nearly enough to cover his escape fee. The pair have a heart to heart and Shelley tells Dushane that she loves him but she will always come second to his love of money and power.

Jaq arranges to meet with Sully at the estate to hand him back the drugs she stole, and Dushane tells her he will be at the meet to make sure things go smoothly.

However, Dushane instead jumps Jaq, punching her in the face and stealing the heroin from her. He tells his contact he will pay him with the drugs in lieu of the money and after some frantic haggling they agree and two henchmen are sent to retrieve Dushane and get him safely to Turkey where he can reset his career in the drugs game.

However Sully and his allies get into a shootout with the men, eventually killing them both. As Dushane attempts to flee the estate, Sully shoots him in the side. As Dushane lays dying the pair have a deep talk and Dushane tells Sully that he did always respect him, something Sully had never believed, always feeling like the younger brother.

Sully tells Dushane: “Look at where we’re from. If we are not monsters we’re food, and I could never be food”. 

Dushane dies and Sully picks up the bag of heroin and leaves the estate. He visits his daughter Tash, before presumably heading out to start his own life on the run.

Shortly after leaving his daughter he is confronted by Stefan, the younger brother of Jamie, whom Sully killed in the previous season. Stefan holds a gun to Sully but ultimately decides he is not worth it and walks away.

Sully gets into his car and laughs to himself, believing he is home free. But suddenly an unknown man walks past his car and shoots him through the window, killing him instantly, and the episode, season, and show ends.

What does the Top Boy ending mean?

Well, there’s a lot to unpack but the main takeaway is that the two friends turned enemies who led the show through five seasons, Dushane and Sully, are both dead. Kieron has also been killed, as have several other minor characters from the series in the gunfight.

Jaq seems to be safe as Sully was the biggest threat to her and has not been taken out of the picture.

Stefan has avoided becoming a murderer and may have a chance to avoid going down the same path that led to his brother’s death. For the other residents of Summerhouse, things are much less certain. 

The estate has been rocked by riots and police are likely to go ahead with the forceful removal of residents in their plan to gentrify the area.

The burning question though, is who killed Sully? His assailant is obscured by Sully’s car so can’t be clearly seen. It seems to have been a man with blonde hair, and no doubt many viewers will be pausing the episode in an attempt to identify him.

But Sully made many enemies during his to power and his killer could be one of any number of people - perhaps someone connected to the Irish gangsters he killed earlier in the season, a friend of Jamie’s, or anyone else he has wronged.