Ranking Every HBO Miniseries From Worst To Best

It’s easy to write off The Corner as David Simon’s run-up to The Wire. The 2000 series, based on his own journalistic book of the same name, tackles the same subjects and in the same environment as his masterpiece which followed shortly after.

Admittedly it’s not quite on The Wire’s level - though very little is - but The Corner stands up on its own as a portrait of a family torn apart by the horrors of the drug epidemic, an unsupportive system, and a chain of poverty and addiction that’s immensely difficult to escape from.

Starring here is Khandi Alexander as Fran Boyd, a mother and an addict. Alexander’s performance is dynamite, a strong woman who can’t quite hide either her vulnerability nor the effects drugs have had on her. Her ex-husband is similarly hooked, and as the show unfolds, we see her son go the same way.

It’s a distressing piece of TV with little in the way of hope, but anything else would be flinching from the problem, and that’s something Simon rarely does. It’s a tough watch but an empathetic one, never a slog due to its tremendous writing and acting.