What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T10 WHATS UP! June 16 - 22, 2019 city's entire law enforcement to its core, "City on a Hill" writer Chuck MacLean said, "Everything had been one way for such a long time, it seemed impossible to change, and it did, very quickly." The show depicts Boston as it was in the 1990s, a world in which rampant crime and gang violence is propped up by a cesspool of corrupt law enforce- ment officials who are invested in the status quo of a crime-driv- en economy, and a culture of un- checked racism. Bacon stars as corrupt-but-respected FBI agent Jackie Rohr, while Hodge por- trays Decourcy Ward, a newly appointed assistant district at- torney from Brooklyn. According to Showtime, the tension-fraught pairing "take on a family of armored car robbers in a case that grows to involve, and ultimately sub- vert, the entire criminal justice system of Boston." The series also stars Jonathan Tucker ("Kingdom"), Mark O'Brien ("Republic of Doyle"), Aman- da Clayton ("If Loving You Is Wrong") and Jill Hennessy ("Crossing Jordan"). Bacon's Rohr is smug and dismissive, a man well prac- ticed at tampering with local justice to his own ends. As comfortable with partaking in the city's illicit underworld as he is with policing it, he over- sees corruption in dealings with Boston street gangs. He is not pleased with the prospect of an "affirmative action hire," as he calls Ward, stepping in to crack down on local crime. Ward shakes up the en- trenched status quo when he comes to town, dealing first- hand with the racism of local cops and driving hard for a major upheaval of the current gun policing. "I want to rip out the machinery in this city," he says. First, however, he needs to walk the line between main- taining his integrity and get- ting his hands dirty in order to operate within Boston's tight- knit network of corruption. When Rohr and Ward wind up working together on the Charlestown car robber case, their pairing sparks a more revolutionary change than ei- ther of them could have imag- ined. The relationship be- tween the two leads isn't just an unlikely investigative duo; "City on a Hill" attempts to delve into the complicated hu- manity of the players involved, to tell a story of struggling communities and determina- tion to affect change. In an interview with Show- time, actress Clayton ex- plained the other side of the coin when it comes to the suc- cess of Operation Ceasefire: "What we don't acknowledge is that it broke apart a commu- nity doing their best," she said. The cost of the Boston Miracle was that the police force bore down on poor inner-city neighborhoods that were al- ready struggling. Clayton's character is a tough inner-city mom whose husband, Frankie (Tucker), is a gang kingpin. She holds her family together and tries to arm them emo- tionally for survival in a world where they are caught be- tween the rival forces of gang violence and crooked cops. Bacon has expressed his ex- citement about the upcoming show. "It's just down-and-dirty crime and politics. I don't see too much of that on television now. It's a refreshing show in that way," Bacon said in a be- hind-the-scenes featurette. Ba- con is a co-executive producer on the show along with Af- fleck and Damon. "City on a Hill" is expected to be a gritty and complex pic- ture of an era when Boston's crime rate was at its highest in history, and the surrounding culture of debauched law en- forcement added yet another layer of violence and chaos. Watch the first episode of the candid drama when the series premieres Sunday, June 16, on Showtime. Aldis Hodge and Kevin Bacon star in "City on a Hill" continued from page T2 Boston's darkest hour: 'City on a Hill' tells a story of crime and redemption TV FEATURE