The passage of time and the monotonic accretion of accolades makes it difficult to remember with total clarity and honesty the sins and virtues of The Wire, both artistically and politically. It all gets eroded in a certain hagiographic tide: without committing myself to an (overdue, but unlikely) rewatch, I remember the character notes more than the glorious latticework (replete with frayed threads) storytelling.

Whether you want to call it a spiritual successor or not, We Own This City is a work in obvious conversation with The Wire. Pelecanos and Simon are interested in talking about the same things: the impossibility of an individual reformer to heal a corrupt system, the way those systems self-perpetuate even when filled with good intentions, and the bi-directional relationship between the streets (metaphorical and otherwise) of a city and its City Hall.

We Own This City is a decidedly more new show than The Wire. It is a miniseries, rather than a multi-season affair; it is postmodern and non-linear, following multiple threads and timelines to piece together every part of the GTTF story and all of the cohorts impacted by its rise and fall.

Much of this feinting towards the nouveau is neither necessary nor successful. A solid tranche of screen time is devoted towards the DOJ's attempts to build a civil rights case against Baltimore, and this time (largely the same three characters, didactically explaining that Crime Is Bad) provides neither pathos nor revelation given how already heavy-handed the core narrative is. [1]

But the heart of the show is still raw and pumping. Jon Bernthal's performance is as masterful as everyone says it is, even though his character lacks the folk hero complexity of Omar and Stringer; the (true!) story is gripping and masterfully told, and Simon et al manage the same core empathy that made The Wire such a uniquely American piece of art, summoning the jeremiad levels of fury and rage while always grounding things in the humanity and plight of the people victimized by the system, portrayed with depth and nuance uncommon in this decade's television.


  1. This single bit of pay-off from this thread is watching the OCR's initial attempts to solicit the alliance of the then-mayor of Baltimore, whose career ended due to her own fraud and conspiracy charges. ↩︎

★★★★

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About We Own This City

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I'm Justin Duke — a software engineer, writer, and founder. I currently work as the CEO of Buttondown, the best way to start and grow your newsletter, and as a partner at Third South Capital.

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