This City Is Ours premiered last year in the UK, and has already received a Season 2 renewal as it makes its US debut on AMC+. Created and written by Stephen Butchard, the eight-episode series stars Sean Bean as Ronnie Phelan, king of the Liverpool cocaine scene. Ronnie’s on top, but looking at retirement – to spend more time at his gleaming villa in Spain – and this opens the potential for conflict between his successors. Have any of the characters on these sprawling family-based crime dramas ever watched one of TV’s many, many family-based crime dramas? Because then they might better understand how the son of the big boss will always spell trouble for the guy who rose through the ranks to be hand of the king. This City is Ours also stars James Nelson-Joyce, Hannah Onslow, Jack McMullen, Stephen Walters, and Mike Noble.
Opening Shot: While the men of this Liverpudlian crime family play golf, the women look on with a mixture of love, irritability, and sarcasm.
The Gist: Everyone from Ronnie Phelan (Bean) and his wife Elaine (Julie Graham) on down through their son Jamie (McMullen), his fiancée Melissa (Darci Shaw), Ronnie’s right-hand man Michael Kavanagh (Nelson-Joyce), his restaurant manager girlfriend Diana (Onslow), and the various gang members with their wives and girlfriends – like Davey (Walters) and his wife Cheryl (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) – know what the score is. Shipping containers full of cocaine are purchased through Colombian cartel contacts based in Spain, and the contents are distributed throughout the port city of Liverpool. The gang makes a nice living doing this, though they retain their working class roots. And while business is good, Ronnie’s getting old, and he’s looking to step back. Jamie’s resting face is that of the heir apparent, biding his time until this empire is his. But Ronnie pulls Michael aside. “My clogs would fit you nicely.”
He seems to understand the boss’s son must still have a role, but Michael clearly doesn’t trust Jamie, and has been waiting for his own opportunity at a promotion. Ronnie making noises about retiring could be it. While Michael works with “the Amigos,” the gang’s cartel suppliers, he’s also working on starting a family with Diana, which involves fertility treatments. She knows what he does for a living. Even asks him direct: “Have you ever killed anyone?” But despite this life of crime, they believe their relationship could outlast the family business. “In three years,” Michael tells Diana, “we can go wherever.”
Ronnie’s moves to get out and Michael’s moves to take over could also run into the problem of Jamie making moves of his own. The early going of This City is Ours includes Ronnie’s son having side conversations with Davey that sound a lot like schemes. Is there a rat in the Phelan operation? Worse, is someobdy on the inside setting up a hostile takeover? Ronnie is already putting pressure on his right hand to handle the Amigos and power-up his retirement fund. As Michael is further asked to dig down and discover what’s dirty in this fam’s Liverpool drug game, he’ll have to reach back into his old violent toolkit. Which might not jibe with the exit strategy and timeline he has devised with Diana.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The line starts at The Sopranos and continues through MobLand and Gangs of London. The This City is Ours version of a British crime family is building in its own quirks, but there is a lot here that will feel familiar.
There are also faces you’ll know. A Thousand Blows is well-represented in the cast – This City features James Nelson-Joyce (Treacle) and Darci Shaw (Alice Diamond). But the packed cast of This City Is Ours also includes Saoirse-Monica Jackson of Derry Girls and Jack McMullen of Hijack.
Our Take: Its evocative scenes of Liverpool at street level and a full commitment to regional accents help set This City Is Ours apart from something like Gangs of London, which leans so far into the slickness of its own setting – and heaps on loads and loads of violence – that it threatens to tip over into graphic novel-like gangster fantasy. In Liverpool, the leadership of the Phelan gang wear off-the-rack suits that don’t quite fit. They slick their hair back. They drive nice cars, but not the flashiest models. It’s all part of the suggestion that this crime family knows where they came from, is still close to the streets, and that helps us understand them. It gives Ronnie, Michael, and the gang something to set them apart from the multitude of crime dramas that already exist.
Whether This City Is Ours can keep up this distinction across a full season is another story. We really like James Nelson-Joyce and Hannah Onslow as Michael and Diana, who aspire to do their own thing, though that is a plot point we’ve encountered before. And if there is dissension within the gang’s ranks transforming into aggressive plays against family and loved ones, well, that’s something we’ve seen before, too. This City has a few defining characteristics, and a fully-stacked cast, which will come in handy, because it’s crafting a story that’s been told way more than once.
Performance Worth Watching: Sean Bean inhabits Ronnie Phelan immediately. Just a total pro. We understand what drives this man without Bean having to do much more than grunt and wince.
Sex and Skin: Nothing early on.
Parting Shot: We’ve decamped from rainy Liverpool to a gorgeous white villa in Spain. The entire crew is there to relax, but Ronnie and Michael are moving on their ulterior motive for the trip.
Sleeper Star: Mike Noble is “Banksey” in This City is Ours, another gang enforcer, whose friendship with Michael could test his loyalties.
Most Pilot-y Line: Helping his boss with a spot of dirty work could brighten Michael’s chances for a promotion. “We’ve got a rat in the house, and it’s gotten heavy. But I’m sorting it. After this, Ronnie owes me.”
Our Call: Stream It. This City is Ours features a few wrinkles in its setting and approach that set it apart from the many, many similarly sprawling family crime dramas. We’ll stick with it and see what an impressively deep cast can bring to the story, which features a lot of other elements that strike us as pretty familiar.
How To Watch The City Is Ours
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Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.