Does Dushane Die in Top Boy? [Spoiler]

Netflix’s ‘Top Boy’ follows the power struggle in east London, where several gangs are pitted against each other to establish themselves as the most powerful one in the business. Dushane is the leader of the Summerhouse gang, and all he has ever wanted is to be the top boy. However, all that power and money comes with a cost, which Dushane pays in the final season of the show. He is torn between wanting a quiet life and the allure of the world he feels he always belonged to. The choice decides his fate.  SPOILERS AHEAD

Dushane’s Death Ends His Cycle of Crime

When Dushane was young, he wanted to be the top boy. However, as he gets older, he realizes he cannot keep doing this forever. He will have to leave the business someday, and he starts working on a retirement plan in the second season, where he chooses Jamie as his successor. This causes trouble with Sully, who doesn’t trust Jamie and is angry with Dushane for choosing the boy who tried to kill them over him, who has been with Dushane since the beginning.

The final season begins with Sully pushing Dushane out and taking over the reins of the gang. For old times’ sake, he asks Dushane to step aside quietly or die. Dushane chooses to live and focuses on a quiet and peaceful life with Shelley, which is what he eventually wanted for himself. Shelley plans to expand her business, which means buying a line of shops, which requires a lot of money. Dushane promises to finance her dream, but everything falls apart when he discovers that Lizzie has run away with his money.

Dushane asks Jeffrey to find out what happened to Lizzie, and the man returns with disappointing news. He doesn’t know where Lizzie is, but it is confirmed that he cannot get Dushane’s money back. Angry about losing everything he’d worked for all this time, Dushane becomes so blinded with rage that he beats Jeffery to death. He doesn’t even bother disposing of the body, leaving his DNA and fingerprints all over the crime scene.

He asks his lawyer to get someone to track down Lizzie. Instead, he is told that the cops are after him and that if he doesn’t want to go to prison, he should leave the country and not come back, at least for a while. Because he cannot leave the country legally, it will have to be arranged through someone else, which will cost Dushane a lot of money, which he doesn’t have anymore.

With the cops chasing him and things worsening in Summerhouse, Dushane hides in his mother’s house. Shelley gets his other passport, which he can use to escape, but there is still the question of money. This is when an opportunity presents itself. A day before all this, Jaq stole the drugs from Sully but then realized she’d made a mistake and decided to return it. She knew Sully would want to kill her for this and hoped that Dushane could help change his mind. So, she notifies him about the time and meeting place where she would come with the drugs.

Jaq doesn’t know that Dushane is in desperate need of money, so she is shocked when he attacks her and runs away with the drugs. The drugs are worth millions of pounds and would easily cover the money he needs to pay the middleman who will get him out of the country. In the meantime, Sully discovers what Dushane has done and chases after him to get the drugs back. When Sully catches up with him, Dushane is trying to climb over a gate. Sully knows that once Dushane crosses over, he will be out of reach. He doesn’t know why Dushane stole the drugs and thinks he did it to sabotage Sully. So, he shoots at Dushane, who falls over to the other side.

When Sully asks him why he did all this, Dushane comes clean. Sully says he should have come to him if he needed the money, but Dushane says that things were already too broken between them and Sully would never have helped him. While they talk it out, Dushane bleeds to death. When he stops speaking, Sully climbs over the gate and sees his friend’s dead body. He leaves with the bag, with Dushane lying dead by the gate.

Read More: How Did Jamie Die? Did Michael Ward Leave Top Boy?