Are The Wire and We Own This City connected?

The Wire creator David Simon’s latest HBO series, We Own This City is reminding fans of his critically acclaimed original series. However, We Own This City show centers on the 2017 scandal involving the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF).

Still, both shows have some major similarities. Here’s how they are connected to one another.

Are The Wire and We Own This City connected?
Jon Bernthal as Wayne Jenkins in ‘We Own This City’ | HBO

What is ‘We Own The City’ about?

In 2021, Baltimore Sun reporter, Justin Fenton wrote a book titled We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption. The book was based on the 2017 Gun Task Force Scandal (GTTF). HBO said in a statement,

WE OWN THIS CITY shows how the department’s desperate reliance on statistics over substances 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 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.

Though both We Own the City and The Wire examine various aspects of the Baltimore Police Department, the recent show isn’t exactly a sequel to the critically acclaimed The Wire. However, the two series, are in conversation with one another. Though there are certainly true elements in The Wire, however, We Own This City, is based on a real-life scandal.

According to Vulture, Simon has described the series as a “coda” to The Wire. However, fans will certainly see some familiar faces in the series. The Wire alum includes Delaney Williams as the new BPD police commissioner. Jamie Hector, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Tray Chaney, Chris Clanton, and Jermaine Crawford all portray police officers/ Domenick Lombardozzi stars as the head of the Fraternal Order of the Police. Finally, Maria Broom is a citizen concerned about criminal activity in her neighborhood.

‘We Own This City’ is just six episodes

Though the limited series is just six episodes, We Own The City covers a ton of ground. It stretches back in time into GTTF leader Wayne Jenkins’ (Jon Bernthal) rookie years as a beat cop. The show examines the city’s obsession with numbers and the over-policing of Black communities. Moreover, the politics within the police department pitted the Homicide department against the Drug department.

The HBO press release says it follows the Baltimore Police Department’s “policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of actual police work.”

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HBO's We Own This City is from The Wire creator David Simon and brings back some of the cast of the iconic crime show, but is it a sequel?

We Own This City Jon Bernthal The Wire Dominic West

HBO's We Own This City reunites The Wire creator David Simon, George Pelecanos, and several cast members from the iconic HBO show, but are the two linked more closely? Already, very positive reviews for We Own This City have explored links to The Wire and it's somewhat inevitable that Simon's involvement would inspire parallels. But We Own This City is so much more than a belated The Wire season 6.

Set in a Baltimore still fighting the war on drugs that The Wire called never-ending, We Own This City is a dramatized, but very much real account of the BPD Gun Trace Task Force, led by Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal) who were revealed to be running a criminal racket throughout the city. Just as Michael K Williams' Omar Little taxed drug dealers in The Wire, Jenkins' crew stole money and drugs from Baltimore's drug dealers for their own profit, taking an era of police brutality to another level.

While We Own This City is not a direct follow-up to The Wire, both are based on the real-life experiences of the people of Baltimore and their relationship with law enforcement. Rather than being based on the experiences of David Simon and writing partner Ed Burns, We Own This City is based on a book by Baltimore Star journalist Justin Fenton, with some dramatized details thrown in. The fact that the worlds of both shows feel so similar is a chilling indictment of the failure of The Wire's chief objectives - to politically agitate change in the system - and explains why Simon didn't reboot The Wire in its place. If The Wire held hope that the system was flawed but not corrupt, We Own This City takes a step further. It's a sequel to The Wire in spirit, because it answers the original's hopes resoundingly with a fear that everything is a lot more broken than it seemed.

How We Own This City Takes The Wire's Message Further

Jimmy and Bunk standing by a car in The Wire.

There are still good cops, working in the right way, but policing in We Own This City is morally repugnant at a street level and failing at its most basic objectives. To protect and serve. Jon Bernthal's opening monologue in front of new recruits sets out his stall perfectly: they don't care how we do it as long as we report the numbers. In a Baltimore still rocking after the criminal killing of Freddie Gray in police custody, and with police brutality scrutinized, the GTTF were hailed for putting up numbers, and getting out there and making arrests when they were on a decline. As Josh Charles' Daniel Hersl and his 50 public complaints of brutality prove, policing in Baltimore is a numbers game. The Wire was about a system in decline that was failing people by ignoring their welfare and "real crime" thanks to an obsession with the War On Drugs, but We Own This City is about the system revealing its horrific priorities. Numbers over people. The Wire and We Own This City aren't linked directly, but it's impossible not to see how they fit together.

The Wire Actors Who Return In We Own This City

kevin Delaney The Wire We Own This City

On top of the narrative and symbolic themes that We Own This City and The Wire share, there are a number of The Wire actors who return in the 2022 show. Delaney Williams plays BPD Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, having played Sgt. Jay Landsman on The Wire; Marlo Stanfield actor Jamie Hector returns to Simon's Baltimore to play Detective Sean M. Suiter; Tray Chaney (who played Poot Carr) plays Narcotics investigator Gordon Hawk, and Bobby J. Brown plays GTTF member Thomas Allers having played Officer Bobby Brown in The Wire. The Wire's Donut, Nathan Corbett also returns as a Baltimore criminal; Detective Herc Haulk (Domenick Lombardozzi) appears as the head of the police union; Chris Canton (who played Savino Bratton) turns up, and The Wire supporting actors like Kevin Murray and Seth Hurwitz both got the call for We Own This City too.

Next: How Michael K. Williams’ Most Famous Role Changed TV

We Own This City releases every Monday on HBO.

Are any characters from The Wire in We Own This City?

1. Jamie Hector. At the forefront of We Own This City is Jamie Hector, who was Marlo Stanfield in The Wire and he plays police officer Sean Suiter and in We Own This City. Suiter was a detective who died a day before testifying in court against the officers.

Is We Own This City a sequel?

'We Own This City' Review: A Spiritual Sequel to David Simon's 'The Wire'

What city is The Wire based on?

Season 3 of The Wire is set in 2004. The Wire is an American television drama series created and written by David Simon. The show is set in Baltimore, Maryland, and follows the lives of the city's drug dealers and police officers as they struggle to control the drug trade.