''We Own This City'' is an American miniseries based on the nonfiction book of the same name by '' Baltimore Sun'' reporter Justin Fenton. The miniseries was developed and written by George Pelecanos and

David Simon David Judah Simon (born February 9, 1960) is an American author, journalist, screenwriter, and producer best known for his work on '' The Wire'' (2002–08). He worked for '' The Baltimore Sun'' City Desk for twelve years (1982–95), wrote '' H ...

, and directed by

Reinaldo Marcus Green Reinaldo Marcus Green (born 1981) is an American director, producer and writer. His films include ''Monsters and Men'' (2018), '' Joe Bell'' (2020), and '' King Richard'' (2021), which was nominated for Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards. E ...

. The six-episode series premiered on HBO on April 25, 2022.

Premise

The miniseries details the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force and the corruption surrounding it. The story centers on Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, one of eight officers who were convicted on various corruption charges in 2018 and 2019. It follows a

non-linear narrative Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative, or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, video games, and other narratives, where events are portrayed, for example, out of chronological order or in other way ...

with frequent flashbacks.

Cast

Baltimore Police Department

Jamie Hector Jamie Hector (born October 7, 1975) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield on the HBO drama series ''The Wire'' and as Detective Jerry Edgar in the drama series '' Bosch''. Career Hector began ac ...

as Sean Suiter, a BPD homicide detective caught up in the GTTF case *

Delaney Williams Delaney Williams (born December 12, 1962) is an American character actor from Washington, D.C. He appeared on the HBO drama ''The Wire'' (2002–2008) as a recurring guest star playing homicide sergeant Jay Landsman. He also had a small role o ...

as Kevin Davis, the BPD police commissioner * Don Harvey as John Sieracki, a BPD officer assigned to the public corruption task force who aided the FBI * Larry Mitchell as Scott Kilpatrick, a veteran investigator with the Baltimore County Police Narcotics Unit * Jermaine Crawford as Jaquan Dixon, a young BPD patrolman * Chris Clanton as Brian Hairston, a BPD officer * Christopher R. Anderson as Dean Palmere, Deputy Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department

Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF)

Jon Bernthal Jonathan Edward Bernthal (; born September 20, 1976) is an American actor. Beginning his career in the early 2000s, he came to prominence for portraying Shane Walsh on the AMC horror series '' The Walking Dead'' (2010–2012; 2018), where ...

as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, the central figure in the Baltimore Police Department's (BPD) Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) * Josh Charles as Daniel Hersl, a BPD officer involved in the GTTF *

McKinley Belcher III McKinley Belcher III (born March 23, 1984) is an American actor, known for his starring role as Samuel Diggs in the PBS television series ''Mercy Street'', Anthony Carter in the Fox genre drama ''The Passage'', and as Agent Trevor Evans in Ne ...

as Momodu "G Money" Gondo, a BPD veteran and member of the GTTF *

Darrell Britt-Gibson Darrell Hadari Britt-Gibson (born August 4, 1986) is an American actor, known for his role as Darius "O-Dog" Hill on the HBO series ''The Wire''. He has also appeared on the Showtime series ''Californication'', the Starz series ''Power'', the ...

as Jemell Rayam, a BPD officer involved in the GTTF * Rob Brown as Maurice Ward, a plainclothes officer involved in the GTTF * Ham Mukasa as Evodio Hendrix, a BPD officer involved in the GTTF * Bobby J. Brown as Sgt. Thomas Allers, a BPD officer involved in the GTTF and Jenkins' predecessor * Robert Harley as Marcus Taylor, a BPD officer involved in the GTTF

Federal law enforcement

Wunmi Mosaku Oluwunmi Mosaku (born 1986) is a Nigerian-born British actress. She is known for her roles as Joy in the BBC Two miniseries ''Moses Jones'' (2009) and Holly Lawson in the ITV series ''Vera'' (2011–2012). She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best S ...

as Nicole Steele, an attorney assigned to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice *

Dagmara Domińczyk Dagmara Domińczyk ( ; born July 17, 1976) is a Polish-American actress and author. She has appeared in the films '' Rock Star'' (2001), ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (2002), '' Kinsey'' (2004), '' Trust the Man'' (2005), '' Lonely Hearts'' (200 ...

as Erika Jensen, an

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

agent who investigated the GTTF * Ian Duff as Ahmed Jackson, a former

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

trial attorney who is now working for the

Office of Civil Rights The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Education that is primarily focused on enforcing civil rights laws prohibiting schools from engaging in discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, se ...

* Lucas Van Engen as Leo Wise, the lead

federal prosecutor An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...

assigned to the GTTF case *

Gabrielle Carteris Gabrielle Anne Carteris (; born January 2, 1961) is an American actress and trade union leader. Her best known acting role was as Andrea Zuckerman during the early seasons of the 1990s television series ''Beverly Hills, 90210''. In 2012, Carte ...

as Andrea Smith, the head of the

Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) is a federal drug enforcement program in the United States, overseen by the Attorney General and the Department of Justice. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disr ...

Maryland law enforcement

David Corenswet David Packard Corenswet (born July 8, 1993) is an American actor. After graduating from the Juilliard School in 2016, he began guest starring in television series, including ''House of Cards'' in 2018. He then played lead roles in the Netflix seri ...

as David McDougall, a veteran investigator with the Harford County Narcotics Task Force *

Treat Williams Richard Treat Williams (born December 1, 1951) is an American actor, writer and aviator who has appeared on film, stage and television in over 120 credits. He first became well known for his starring role in the 1979 musical film '' Hair'', and la ...

as Brian Grabler, a retired Baltimore detective now teaching at the police academy *

Tray Chaney Tray Chaney is an American actor. He appeared on the HBO program ''The Wire'' as Poot Carr, which became his most successful acting role. He also appears in the Bounce TV soap opera Saints & Sinners as Kendrick. Career Chaney began his entert ...

as Gordon Hawk, a recent addition to the Harford County Narcotics Task Force *

Domenick Lombardozzi Domenico "Domenick" Lombardozzi (, ; born March 25, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Herc in ''The Wire'', and is also known for his roles in ''A Bronx Tale'' (1993), '' Entourage'', and ''The Irishman'' (2019). Ca ...

as Stephen Brady, the president of the Baltimore City

Fraternal Order of Police The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is a fraternal organization consisting of sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. It reports a membership of over 355,000 members organized in 2,100 local chapters (lodges), state lodges, and th ...

Citizens

* Thaddeus Street as James Otis, a Baltimore resident and HVAC

repairman The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure, and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential install ...

* Nathan E. Corbett as Tariq Touré, a West Baltimore author and community activist * Paige Carter as

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake (born March 17, 1970) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 50th Mayor of Baltimore from 2010 to 2016, the second woman to hold that office. She has also served as secretary of the Democratic Nationa ...

, the Mayor of Baltimore

Episodes

Production

In March 2021, HBO ordered a six-episode series based on the book ''We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption'' by '' Baltimore Sun'' investigative journalist Justin Fenton, to be written by

and George Pelecanos.

Filming

In May 2021, it was confirmed that

would direct the series. Production was reported to begin in July 2021 with filming occurring in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. Production was temporarily halted for a week in September 2021 due to a "

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

event".

Casting

In May 2021,

, Josh Charles and

were announced to have been cast in leading roles.

, Rob Brown,

, Larry Mitchell and

were cast in June. In August, several castings were announced, including

, Don Harvey,

, Ian Duff, Lucas Van Engen,

and

. In September, several recurring and guest roles were announced, including Thaddeus Street,

, Chris Clanton, Jermaine Crawford and Nathan E. Corbett.

Reception

Critical response

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 93% approval rating with an average rating of 8.3/10, based on 54 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "A spiritual successor to ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...

'' with an even more pessimistic outlook on law enforcement, ''We Own This City'' deftly explores compromised individuals to paint an overall picture of systemic corruption."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 83 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Andy Greenwald Andy Greenwald (born May 19, 1977) is an American author, critic, podcaster, screenwriter, and television producer. Life and career Greenwald grew up in Philadelphia and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Friends' C ...

of '' The Ringer'' said

gave "one of the great TV performances of this century."

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{HBONetwork Shows 2020s American drama television miniseries 2022 American television series debuts 2022 American television series endings English-language television shows Fictional portrayals of the Baltimore Police Department HBO original programming Television series by Home Box Office Television series created by David Simon Television series set in the 2010s Television shows filmed in Maryland Television shows set in Baltimore