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TL;DR:

  • ‘We Own This City’ premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Monday, April 25
  • ‘The Wire’ creator David Simon created ‘We Own This City’
  • ‘We Own This City’ cast includes Jon Bernthal, Josh Charles, and Jamie Hector
Jon Bernthal as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins stands outside a door in 'We Own This City'.'We Own This City' release date is scheduled for April 25.
Jon Bernthal in ‘We Own This City’ | Photograph by Paul Schiraldi/HBO

If you’re a fan of The Wire and other David Simon dramas, you need to check out We Own This City, a new HBO series. Simon wrote and developed the series along with George Pelecanos. Reinaldo Marcus Green directed the series, which is based on the book of the same name written by Justin Fenton, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun.

‘We Own This City’ release date, time, and episode schedule

We Own This City premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Monday, April 25, 2022. The premiere, titled “Part One,” airs at 9 p.m. ET. The episode will also be available to stream simultaneously on HBO Max.

There are six episodes in the TV series. Each episode airs weekly on Mondays on HBO and HBO Max. Check out the episode count and schedule below:

  • “Part One”: Monday, April 25 at 9 p.m. ET
  • “Part Two”: Monday, May 2 at 9 p.m. ET
  • “Part Three”: Monday, May 9 at 9 p.m. ET
  • “Part Four”: Monday, May 16 at 9 p.m. ET
  • “Part Five”: Monday, May 23 at 9 p.m. ET
  • “Part Six”: Monday, May 30 at 9 p.m. ET

What is ‘We Own This City’ about?

We Own This City tells the story of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force during the 2000s and all the crime and corruption associated with it, according to HBO.

The series is based on the true events chronicled in Fenton’s book on the subject. Fenton’s book, titled We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption, hit shelves in February 2021.

According to a press release from HBO, the series follows the people and strategies of the Baltimore P.D. where “policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of actual police work.”

Is ‘We Own This City’ connected to ‘The Wire’?

With Simon and Pelecanos returning to Baltimore for We Own This City, fans are wondering if and how this series is connected to The Wire, which aired on HBO from 2002 through 2008.

The series takes place after the events of The Wire. As HBO notes in their press release for We Own This City, The Wire was a fictional series, but it was shaped by many of the tactics and policing strategies identified in the series leading up to the scandal involving the Gun Trace Task Force in 2017.

“WE OWN THIS CITY shows how the department’s desperate reliance on statistics over substance eventually led to the inability of department officials to supervise the Gun Trace Task Force and the further inability of the department to discipline rogue police. At the time of the GTTF scandal in 2017, though there were numerous indications of corruption within several plainclothes units going back almost a decade, Baltimore police commanders held to the belief that any street unit that could bring in guns and drugs consistently had to be championed and protected. WE OWN THIS CITY depicts the inevitable corruption of a unit given this carte blanche.”

HBO

There are also a number of cast members in We Own This City who appeared in The Wire, including Jamie Hector, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Domenick Lombardozzi, and more.

‘We Own This City’ cast

Related

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We Own This City has a huge cast, led by Jon Bernthal, Wunmi Mosaku, Jamie Hector, and Josh Charles.

Check out the full cast of the new series below, via HBO:

  • Jon Bernthal
  • Wunmi Mosaku
  • Jamie Hector
  • Josh Charles
  • McKinley Belcher III
  • Darrell Britt-Gibson
  • Dagmara Domińczyk
  • Domenick Lombardozzi
  • Rob Brown
  • Don Harvey
  • David Corenswet
  • Larry Mitchell
  • Ian Duff
  • Lucas Van Enge
  • Trey Chaney
  • Delaney Williams
  • Jermaine Crawford
  • Anwan Glover
  • Chris Clanton
  • Nathan Corbett
  • Maria Broom
  • Susan Rome
  • Michael Salconi

Watch We Own This City weekly on HBO and HBO Max.

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