We Own This City

[Never Cursed]

David Simon and George Pelecanos to return to the world of corrupt Baltimore policing in new limited original series We Own This City, set during and after the Freddie Gray protests

[swo17]

David Simon and George Pelecanos to return to the world of corrupt Baltimore policing in new limited original series We Own This City, set during and after the Freddie Gray protests

Did anybody watch this? I'm not to be trusted, as I once called The Deuce "about as good as The Wire" but this is about as good as The Wire. Fantastic acting all around, including very different roles for Jamie Hector (Marlo) and Delaney Williams (Sgt. Landsman). I'm also curious to see Sonja Sohn's (the actress who played Kima) two documentaries on the same subject. Has anyone here watched either of those?

[DarkImbecile]

I’ve not caught up with the last episode yet, but I think it’s very good so far; Bernthal really nails a particular breed of cop who truly believes they’re a hero and that anything they do is righteous by virtue of their having decided to do it. I read Justin Fenton’s book as well which is very much a work of excellent reporting, but it’s clear that Simon, Burns, and Pelecanos brought a lot to the adaptation process in terms of their dramatic sensibilities and eye for character details.

[swo17]

You might be interested in reading this after finishing the series

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, I liked it, but also thought there was too much leftist winking and frustratingly-pat exhibitions of the systemic inhibitors to change with the lawyer character and her associates, especially every time Trump gets name-dropped, obstructing a fluid tone Simon's best work concocted and sustained. I'm not saying these things didn't happen or that conversations involving the new administration weren't met with similar frustrations, but Simon's miniseries, while still good, lose the realistic docu-drama feel of The Wire through an economical need to squeeze in so much into so little time. Consequently, dialog and ultra-significant chosen exchanges feel too dramatized and pandering against the grain of the sobering portrayals on the ground floor that are riveting right up with The Wire. So yeah, I think it's great and an important work that demonstrates a need to examine systemic issues rather than solely scapegoat the micro-planted aggressors as The Problem (the transition between the early three episodes' structural awakening to these reinforcing political components highlights this Simon-stamped vision extremely well), and yet, there are a few too many contrived narrative fasteners that took me out of the miniseries' ethos. Still, a highly recommended series (though I've heard that the doc on HBO is better).

[Persona]

David Simon and George Pelecanos to return to the world of corrupt Baltimore policing in new limited original series We Own This City, set during and after the Freddie Gray protests

Did anybody watch this? I'm not to be trusted, as I once called The Deuce "about as good as The Wire" but this is about as good as The Wire. Fantastic acting all around, including very different roles for Jamie Hector (Marlo) and Delaney Williams (Sgt. Landsman). I'm also curious to see Sonja Sohn's (the actress who played Kima) two documentaries on the same subject. Has anyone here watched either of those?

I'm about 2/3rds through and while I like it a good bit, so far it is nowhere close to THE WIRE for me. The writing/directing/acting all feels a bit more flat/blunt/stilted. The show feels like it is talking at me half the time. THE WIRE had aspects of that but I felt it was folded in more artfully. Also, I'm not sure the non-linear narrative approach in WE OWN THIS CITY was the right move, or at least it doesn't always work well in practice.

But it's fascinating material, of course, and Bernthal is quite good.

[therewillbeblus]

The show feels like it is talking at me half the time.

This is pretty concise way to evoke my small irritations with the miniseries, floundering in attempts to have its cake and eat it too with both realist ambitions and overly didactic digestible layman summaries of injustices. Overall I still think it's a welcome and important work, but comparisons to The Wire miss the cumulative and effective consistency of that show's tonal approach to engage its audience.

[swo17]

Well it certainly doesn't have anywhere near the same breadth and scope, by design. I guess I don't really get the same feeling of speechifying out of it that you're all describing, no more so than The Wire anyway, and certainly not to the extent of, say, Treme. Perhaps it's a little over-directed (by, uh, the guy who did King Richard) and the non-linear narrative isn't entirely necessary, though these don't really detract from the experience for me. I think the series is a worthy addendum of sorts to The Wire. Not that it covers new ground so much as real-life events since the series ended demanding an update.

I forgot to mention earlier that it was also great to see Jermaine Crawford again, in a small but pivotal role that feels a bit redemptive given all that his character went through in The Wire

[therewillbeblus]

Definitely, of all The Wire alum on this series, I had the same cathartic experience. And sure, by design it can't deliver the same scope and necessitates condensing, but depending on the narrative arcs I felt occasionally pandered to (Nicole Steele et al.) or graced with brief but powerful snippets of truth (Bernthal et al., and sometimes Nicole Steele et al.) - and I don't think the non-leaner narrative structure took away from it at all. I really liked that aspect and it helped to compartmentalize the pieces with humility, as the creators understand that they can cover only pockets of a vast and untraversable system of power in six hours. It just felt like sometimes they tried to force a lot in, in a manner that undercut Simon and Pelecanos' typical strengths. I feel like I'm harping on the negatives when I had an overall positive experience. It's worth nothing that I never watched Treme, felt mixed on The Deuce (never watched season three), and can only fairly compare this in mini-series form to Show Me a Hero, which I thought was more effective in how it breathed, yet its ambitions were covering a less densely compacted system of injustice, so they were more or less equally-compelling works in their own rights.