Top Boy: Summerhouse

TV review by Martin Brown, Common Sense Media
Top Boy: Summerhouse Poster Image

Common Sense says

age 17+

British crime drama revival feels real but lacks drama.

Netflix Drama 2019
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Parents say

age 15+

Based on 3 reviews

Kids say

age 14+

Based on 4 reviews

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A Lot or a Little?

The parents' guide to what's in this TV show.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Top Boy: Summerhouse is a crime drama about two drug dealers operating in the East London public housing projects. The original Top Boy series aired in the 2010s, and after rapper Drake signed on as Executive Producer Netflix revived the show and set it a few years later with much of the original cast. Top Boy: Summerhouse features gun violence, simulated sex, drug use, and a lot of profanity.

Community Reviews

cnh
cnh Adult
June 14, 2022
age 18+

Gratuitous violence, shocking, and depressing

Gory, explicit, gratuitous violence. They say the F word every second and I mean EVERY SECOND, so it starts to sound really stupid and overdone. The drama, spectacle, tension and thrill is there, acting is good, filming is good, but it's depressing and you know every episode something really awful will happen any moment. There are long scenes of heads getting battered to death and people getting stabbed multiple times. There is glamourisation here in that it's still drama, exciting, and on tv, though probably true to what actually happens I'm just not sure it goes very deeply into why or how everyone really feels about how awful it all is. It's like East Enders on crack cocaine, so if you thought EE is depressing and full of sensational drama and horrible people then this is it x100. My main issue is the worry of the influence it has on the young and how all this bad language spoken by youngsters and gratuitous violence negatively affects our kids.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
Human._
Human._ Adult
March 24, 2022
age 12+

This title has:

Educational value
See all 3 parent reviews

What's the Story?

TOP BOY SUMMERHOUSE picks up years after the original Top Boy series left off. Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson, also known as the British rapper Kano) find themselves estranged from the drug trade. Sully is in prison, while Dushane works in an auto body shop in Jamaica. Slowly, the two find themselves pulled back into criminal life while new faces around town, like ruthless Jamie (Micheal Ward), who is a murderous gangster as well as a doting parental figure to his two younger brothers are their parents were killed. When Sully and Dushare reemerge on the scene, all the players battle of the new power dynamics.

Is It Any Good?

Though it's mostly by-the-numbers plotwise, this series has a couple of fun things going for it. Top Boy: Summerhouse's history makes the characters feel lived in and relaxed, like the audience has just happened to turn the corner into the housing works where the primary action takes place. There's no exposition dump of the sort that weighs down a lot of new ensemble-driven dramas. And the setting feels unique. Not the depiction of the drug trade itself, which feels like a knockoff of The Wire after years of diminishing returns, but East London, a complex and underseen area that here feels ripe with discovery and dramatic possibility.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about East London. How does Top Boy's setting compare with similar shows set in the U.S.? What can you learn about British culture from Top Boy? How does the show compare to what you know about London?

  • What are the positive and negative choices that Dushane and Sully make in their lives? Do they make any ethical or moral decisions? What are they? How do they arrive at those decisions?

  • How does Top Boy portray drug dealing? What do you think the show's opinion of drug dealers is? How does this come out in the action?

TV Details

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