Young people living on the edge and, for the most part, living out of sight in East London today based around inner-city drug and gang culture.

Raikes gives Sully and Dushane two weeks to retrieve the stash stolen by rival Kamale and they find a mysterious present of guns to help them. To remind them of their responsibilties Raikes' henchman Greene attacks Dushane's brother Chris and gets badly beaten up in revenge. The boys decide to kidnap Kamale's cousin Shaun and hold him to ransom but they hit him just that little bit too hard and end up with a corpse on their hands. Meanwhile Ra'Nell misses seeing his mother on her day out from hospital as he is helping Heather tend her illegal crops and Gem loses his cherry in as disused warehouse.

After Heather has shown him the flat she hopes to buy with her drugs money Ra'Nell welcomes his mother home. Sully visits his daughter but Chris bars Dushane from his house as a liability. Sully suggests to Dushane that an informant in their group is in league with The London Fields. He names Gem and sends a thug,Dris,to kill the boy's dog and send him into hiding before Ra'Nell gets the courageous Leon to call the gang off. Though Kamale does not turn up to Shaun's funeral a chance sighting leads Dushane and his gang to their rival where,after claiming another victim,they locate the missing drugs at a tyre depot,where Lee Greene just happens to be so they shoot him too but now a full-scale gang war erupts as Kamale's associates seek revenge.

A year has passed and Dushane is still the Top Boy, engaging in large scale drug smuggling with the older Scotsman Joe and using street-wise kid Michael as a courier. However the police discover Kamale's body and arrest both Dris and Dushane. They are visited by lawyer Rhianna Parkes, who gets them released and whom Dushane takes out for a drink. Meanwhile Ra'Nell is approached for help by Gem, whose marijuana plants seem to be dying, putting him in debt to Vincent whilst Ra'Nell's mother, hair-dresser Lisa and Gem's father are perturbed that their rents are being troubled. Dushane's old partner Sully now turns against him with new cohort Mike, though Michael steals his phone whilst Joe is attacked in a shoot-out and left for dead, robbed of his ill-gotten gains.

Gem's father Mustapha tells him he is planning a move to Ramsgate where shop prices are cheaper but Gem feels compelled to stay and work out his debt to Vincent by drug running for him. Caught shop-lifting with drugs on him Michael tells the police they belong to Dushane. He also tells them that Kamale was killed in a house where Kayla Thomas once lived. Released with a caution he says none of this to Dushane. Dushane himself, now having sex with Rihanna, visits Joe in hospital and learns that the drugs were stolen by an Albanian gang. Sully and Mike are summoned by former hit-man Tony and offered twenty thousand pounds to kill Jermaine Newton. Since Jermaine is Sully's cousin he goes to warn him but demands twenty grand to spare him. Jermaine contacts his brother Rafe to sell his car to raise the money so Sully and Mike keep him hostage until the cash arrives.

Rihanna is appalled when Dushane asks her to tell Kayla to keep quiet about his involvement in Kamale's death or else he will kidnap her son. She manages to get Kayla free and takes the heat off Dushane but ends their relationship in disgust at his ruthlessness. Lisa seeks Dushane's help in sorting out Vincent and Dushane goes to see him. However, before he can do anything Mustapha, who has learned the truth from Gem, stabs Vincent in the leg. The next day he and Gem move to Ramsgate whilst Lisa also prepares to move on with Ra'Nell. Dushane and Sully and their gang invade the Albanians' lair and recover their drugs but the Albanians give chase, killing Michael when he tries to warn Dushane and forcing Dushane to go on the run.