HBOs Show Me a Hero is the Mini-Series of the Year | TV/Streaming

Oscar Isaac plays Nick Wasicsko, who was elected Mayor of Yonkers in 1988 and was the youngest Mayor in the country at the time. When elected, the city was going through major upheaval over a proposal for lower income housing. City council meetings were almost impossible to hold over the loud, screaming, borderline violent protests both in the room and outside. The people of Yonkers wouldn’t take no for an answer. In stereotypical New Yorker fashion, they dug in their heels and demanded to be heard. They voted out Wasicsko’s predecessor (Jim Belushi) because he couldn’t stop the proposal. It’s now Nick’s job to appeal it in the premiere episode.

Of course, that’s not going to be easy. A judge (Bob Balaban) has ordered that the proposal will pass, planning will commence, and construction will shortly follow, or he will hold the entire city of Yonkers in contempt, fining its government at such a rate that it will be bankrupt in a few weeks. Suddenly, the favorite young Mayor becomes the guy who couldn’t meet his constituent’s needs. The hotshot on the block goes from favorite son to pariah. And the political games behind the scenes don’t help, especially as people like Councilman Henry J. Spallone (Alfred Molina) conspire against him to get his seat. As Nick battles for his political status, he also seems to grasp that the housing project is an important one, even if making it a reality destroys his entire career.

Meanwhile, “Show Me a Hero” cuts to several subplots that remain unrelated for multiple episodes. We meet several supporting characters, often in brief scenes as their lives progress unaware of the politics that will influence them, including a Dominican woman trying to support her family, a new couple who seems to be headed to happiness, a woman in the projects going blind from Diabetes, and a girl who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. They don’t intersect for several nights, and yet they always feel like patches in the same quilt. It’s also interesting to me that the government cast is filled out with recognizable faces (including Catherine Keener, Winona Ryder, Jon Bernthal, Peter Riegert, and more) while the subplots are cast largely with unknowns. It adds to the sense that political office is as much a popularity contest as anything.

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