To mark the twentieth anniversary of The Wire, creator David Simon, his creative partner Ed Burns, and writer George Pelecanos have returned with We Own This City, another HBO show set in Baltimore. While The Wire always had Baltimore police as a focal point, the sprawling show also touched on urban crises ranging from deindustrialization to under-resourced public schools to the decline of traditional media, all over the course of five sensational seasons. By contrast, Simon’s new show is a taut six-episode series that focuses exclusively on the troubled state of Baltimore policing in the wake of Freddie Gray’s murder in 2015.

We Own This City paints a devastating portrait of Baltimore police. If there was any hope for viewers of The Wire that progress had been made in urban policing in light of that show’s popularity and changes in the discourse surrounding criminal justice in the last twenty years, We Own This City is here to break the news that circumstances have only gotten worse.

Simon’s new show follows the true story of the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force headed by rogue officer Wayne Jenkins. Simon retains his penchant for unflinching portrayals of modern policing: the degree to which Jenkins’s unit, as portrayed in the series, breaks the law and terrorizes African-American residents of Baltimore is stomach-turning. Jenkins, in a captivating performance by Jon Bernthal, leads his unit in an ever-escalating series of unconstitutional incidents: stealing money and drugs from crime scenes, planting evidence, and assaulting Baltimore residents. The show also delves into the crisis Jenkins’s unit created as it pillaged the city’s overtime fund, lying about hours worked and cashing obscene checks that warped the department’s budget.