Ask anyone who gives half a damn about the greatest TV shows of all time. Chances are, they’ll rattle off a procession of familiar names like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Deadwood, Band of Brothers, The Sopranos, and of course, The Wire. This year, the latter’s creator – crime journalist turned screenwriter David Simon; alongside The Wire staff writer and The Deuce collaborator George Pelecanos – returns to HBO, revisiting crime and corruption in their brand new miniseries, We Own This City, starring Jon Bernthal and Wunmi Mosaku.
Similar to The Wire, this upcoming six-episode affair has been inspired by real-life events. Considerably more than its predecessor, in fact. Adapted from the non-fiction book of the same name by yet another veteran Baltimore Sun journalist, Justin Fenton, David Simon’s latest endeavour chronicles the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), the “moral collapse that befell an American city” in which drug prohibition and mass arrest policies were championed “at the expense of actual police work,” and all the rotten business surrounding it.
The ever-dedicated Jon Bernthal takes centre stage as Sergeant Wayne Jenkins – the key figure in the “sprawling federal corruption case” regarding BPD’s Gun Trace Task Force, and a plainclothes officer that went “completely rogue… hunting and robbing citizens and drug dealers alike as decades of a relentless drug war and mass incarceration in Baltimore spun wildly out of control.” Given Bernthal’s resume when it comes to (successfully) inhabiting morally-ambiguous characters and the odd anti-hero, the casting could not be more perfect.
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In addition to the talented Mr Bernthal, HBO’s We Own This City has been brought to life by the following cast members:
- Wunmi Mosaku as Nicole Steele – attorney assigned to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice
- Jamie Hector as Sean M. Suiter – BPD homicide detective caught up in the GTTF case
- McKinley Belcher III as Momodu “G Money” Gondo – BPD veteran and member of the GTTF
- Darrell Britt-Gibson as Jemell Rayam – BPD officer involved in the GTTF
- Josh Charles as Daniel Hersl – BPD officer involved in the GTTF
- Dagmara Domińczyk as Erika Jensen – FBI agent who investigated the GTTF
- Rob Brown as Maurice Ward – plainclothes officer involved in the GTTF
- Don Harvey as John Sieracki – BPD officer assigned to the public corruption task force who aided the FBI
- David Corenswet as David McDougall – veteran investigator with the Harford County Narcotics Task Force
- Larry Mitchell as Scott Kilpatrick – veteran investigator with the Baltimore County Police Narcotics Unit
- Ian Duff as Ahmed Jackson – former Department of Justice trial attorney who is now working for the Office of Civil Rights
- Delaney Williams as Kevin Davis – BPD police commissioner
- Lucas Van Engen as Leo Wise – lead federal prosecutor assigned to the GTTF case
King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green has been tapped to helm several episodes, marking the second occasion he’s guided Bernthal on screen in the past 18 months.
HBO’s We Own This City starring Jon Bernthal and Wunmi Mosaku is scheduled to premiere on April 26th of 2022 via Binge – check out the gripping trailer above.
