Warning! Contains spoilers for Top Boy season 5!
Summary
- Top Boy season 6 has not been renewed by Netflix and there are currently no plans to continue the show.
- The decision to end Top Boy before season 6 came mostly from the cast and creative team, not Netflix.
- If Top Boy season 6 happens, it may focus on new characters or continue with existing characters like Stefan, Si, or Becks. The story could go in any direction and may explore unanswered questions from season 5.
While the story of Dushane and Sully may have wrapped up nicely, there’s still demand for Top Boy season 6, as many Netflix subscribers haven’t had their fill of the gritty London-set crime drama. British show Top Boy is one of the most innovative and gripping Netflix has to offer, and across five seasons told a truly unique story. Top Boy first aired on Channel 4 in the UK in 2013, but it was Netflix's 2019 renewal under the wing of executive producer Drake that the series took off. Season 5 brought the story to a close, but that doesn’t seem to have stemmed interest in Top Boy season 6
Top Boy focuses on drug dealers Dushane (Ashley Walters, also known as UK rapper Asher D) and Sully (UK rapper Kano, real name Kane Robinson). From season 1 and 2 to Netflix and Drake's renewed seasons 3-5, Top Boy chronicled the highs and lows of their life on the fictional Summerhouse estate in London’s Hackney Borough. Season 5 was a definitive finale, with both Sully and Dushane meeting untimely ends. If Top Boy season 6 happens it won’t be focused either character. However, the Top Boy cast is vast, and while there’s been no news of plans for a new season of Top Boy, that doesn’t mean Netflix can’t bring viewers back to the Summerhouse estate.
Top Boy Isn’t Renewed For Season 6
Top Boy isn’t renewed for season 6, and Netflix currently don’t have any plans to continue the show. After its renewal in 2019 it had always been planned that Top Boy would extend for another three seasons to bring the story to a close in a five volume series (the first two seasons are on Netflix as Top Boy: Summer House, with Netflix counting season 5 of Top Boy as season 3).
However, speaking to GQ, star Ashley Walters revealed that the drive to end Top Boy before season 6 didn’t come from Netflix. The decision instead came down to the cast and creative team of Top Boy. “[Netflix] wanted to go on forever! And Kane [Robinson] and I were like, 'Personally, we can't.' We don't think it's the right thing to do,” he explained. Whether Netflix chooses to renew Top Boy at this point will likely then be down to how much the original cast and team want to continue to be involved, and the logistics of continuing without them.
Top Boy Season 6 Cast
There are two directions the Top Boy season 6 cast could take if the show is renewed. Netflix could create a spiritual successor to the first five seasons, bringing in an entirely new cast and perhaps set in a different London borough (or even UK city) but with similar themes and an equally gripping story arc. In this case the cast would be impossible to predict, but would likely include appearances of characters from prior seasons to establish the connection between season 6 and Top Boy’s Sully and Dushane story arc.
The other direction for the Top Boy season 6 cast would be to continue the show without Sully and Dushane, focusing instead on characters like Stefan (Araloyin Oshunremi), Si (Dudley O’Shaughnessy) or Becks (Adwoa Aboah), among others. Since Top Boy is an original story it would be easy to create a new narrative based on any of the remaining characters, in which case the Top Boy season 6 cast would be similar to that of season 5, minus Walters and Robinson.
Top Boy Season 6 Story
There are no plans for Top Boy season 6, and since the story wrapped pretty definitively any guess at where the story goes is entirely speculative. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some mysteries season 5 left unsolved, and these could be a clue for the narrative direction of season 6.
Chief among these questions is the identity of who shot Sully in the season 5 finale. Since the identity of the killer was never revealed, this could be a catalyst for the start of Top Boy season 6, and inform where its story goes next. The Top Boy season 5 ending, while it wrapped up the core story arcs, still ended on an ambiguous note. This ambiguity was poignant, but it also means Top Boy season 6 could take the story anywhere, even without Dushane and Sully.