Comparisons between the six-part, self-contained HBO series “We Own This City” and the landmark HBO classic “The Wire” are inevitable and fair, given the creative team behind “The Wire” returns to the Baltimore crime landscape and the cast includes about a dozen alums from that 2000s-era classic, including Jamie Hector, Jermaine Crawford, Domenick Lombardozzi, Tray Chaney, Susan Rome and Anwan Glover. Once again we’re plunged into a gritty, harsh, realistic and unforgettable depiction of various bad actors and law enforcement institutions clashing in often violent and bloody fashion.
And yet, “We Own This City” is a stand-alone crime drama and is in no way a sequel, spiritual or otherwise, to “The Wire.” Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of David Simon’s seminal series, even if you’re only vaguely familiar with the true-life Baltimore police scandals depicted in this show, director Reinaldo Marcus Green, the writing team that includes Simon and fellow executive producer George Pelecanos (“The Deuce”) and the remarkably talented ensemble cast have done a brilliant job of telling this epic and sprawling and yet intimate and intense story, which is based on the book “We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption” by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton.
