The director of the last episode of Top Boy opened up about the thinking behind that final scene which left viewers going mad trying to figure out who killed Sully.
Top Boy follows the lives of Dushane, played by Ashley Walters, and Sully, played by Kane Robinson, as they navigate the dangerous world of organised crime in London.
After running for five seasons, the show finally came to an explosive finale back in 2023, with Sully having a tense standoff before returning to his car and revealing that he had a gun the whole time.
Everything seems fine, but just as the tension from the standoff is easing, a mystery attacker suddenly shoots Sully dead in his car, leaving him leaning on the steering wheel with the horn blaring as blood is sprayed all over the car’s interior.
William Stefan Smith directed the final episode, and explained that they had originally filmed that last scene to show who it is that kills Sully.
“So the first way we shot the ending, where we revealed the killer, that’s what was on the page, we revealed the killer,” said Smith on the YouTube channel Still Watching Netflix.
Kane Robinson starred in Top Boy, which ended in 2023 (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Burberry)
But then, as is often the case in the creative process, something happened which completely changed the direction of where the show was intended to go at first.
“Then we had one more take, and I was like let’s do one where we don’t see the killer,” Smith revealed. “And then we put that in the cut, gave it to Netflix, gave it to the execs, Ashley and Kane saw it, and I think everyone agreed it was just stronger.”
Smith went on to explain why leaving the identity of Sully’s killer ambiguous was a very deliberate choice – he felt that it was a better way to portray the chaotic world that people like Sully inhabit, where death can come at any moment from an unknown quarter.
“The idea of not showing the killer for me the reason was it could be anyone because Sully is a person that just has so much enemies,” he said.
“The idea that one of these enemies came and shot him, for me demonstrates what life can be like on the roads, so that’s why we did that.”
Top Boy co-stars Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson (Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)
He added: “I can understand that some people want to know who killed Sully, but I won’t be the one to tell you.”
Walters has previously spoken about how he and his costar had made the season the ‘best’ they could, but didn’t have the levels of ‘creative input’ they had previously.
Speaking to the Diary of a CEO podcast in 2023, Walters said: “Filming the last season bought me and Kane probably even closer than we’ve ever been doing that show because we didn’t have the greatest time. Fighting for what we believed in and making it the best show that we could make it be, the best last season for the fans.
“People don’t understand, like we go hard for that show, we go hard to make sure that the scripts are right, we go hard to make sure other characters are being represented in the way they should be and storylines make sense.”
He added: “It was tough, we went through a tough experience that we haven’t been through before and that brought us closer together.”
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