HBO’s We Own This City Is the Next Generation of The Wire Fans Have Been Waiting For
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“He pointed a gun right at me, I had to hit him with a car,” says Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal), an over-the-top and braggadocious police sergeant in HBO’s new limited series We Own This City, as he tries to explain to a supervising officer why he hit a suspect with his vehicle.
It’s a laughable excuse, but Jenkins is a master manipulator who can talk his way out of almost anything. Of course, in his eyes, he’s earned that right. He’s the Baltimore Police Department’s golden boy because he consistently brings in guns and drugs, so hitting a suspect who didn’t actually have a gun with a car is minor on Jenkins’ list of offenses. Robbery, racketeering, and selling seized narcotics are just a few of the more salacious crimes Jenkins gets away with, although he’s quick to rationalize his actions.
Jenkins’ story, along with the stories of those he works with on the rogue Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), is the driving force behind the brilliant—albeit at times meandering—six-episode limited series, which is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by former Baltimore Sun crime reporter Justin Fenton. We Own This City showcases not only the corruption within the GTTF, but the tireless work of the FBI agents who broke the real-life scandal in 2017, and the Department of Justice lawyer who tries to repair one of the most corrupt law enforcement agencies in the country.
Of course, when you hear the words “law enforcement” and “Baltimore” together, the TV show The Wire quickly springs to mind—and for good reason. The crime series, which was created by David Simon and featured George Pelecanos and Nina K. Noble as producers, was set in Baltimore and followed several members of law enforcement. It’s also one of the greatest television shows of all time. The trio of Simon, Pelecanos, and Noble join forces again for We Own This City, so naturally, there are fingerprints of The Wire all over the show’s six-episode, one-and-done season.
The settings, cinematography, music, and rapid-fire dialogue in We Own This City are all reminiscent of The Wire. Even the cast is loaded with veterans from the series. While you won’t see McNulty (Dominic West) or Bunk (Wendell Pierce) pounding beers at Kavanaugh’s, fans of the show will see plenty of familiar faces, albeit in new roles. Actors Jamie Hector, Delaney Williams, Trey Chaney, and Domenick Lombardozzi will all get eye-popping reactions from The Wire faithful, and they are just a few of the vets making their return to Baltimore. While you may be wondering how in the world drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield (Hector) became a homicide detective, it’s important to remember that this series is based on real-life events—even if the show does work, in a unique sense, as a continuation of The Wire.
“This is the coda to what we were arguing with The Wire,” Simon said during a Television Critics Association press conference in February. “If you emphasize the wrong things, if you play the stat games, if you promote people for the wrong reasons, if you stop attending to the basic notions of protect and serve, you get the kind of police department, eventually, that they got in Baltimore, and in other places, too.”
That message is integral to both series, but because the events of We Own This City are based in fact and not fiction, its impact is felt with much more force. And while the new limited series shares DNA with The Wire, it also stands on its own, taking four initially separate plotlines and gradually weaving them into a cohesive and complex story.