‘City on a Hill’ Star Aldis Hodge on Ward Getting His Hands Dirty in Season 2

The rough-edged Boston crime drama, City on a Hill, returns for Season 2 with new trouble in Beantown, and it fires up an old beef between racist, corrupt FBI vet Jackie Rohr (Kevin Bacon) and principled prosecutor Decourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge).

Picking up in 1993, a year after the combative pair’s dodgy plan to bust an armored-car robbery ring derailed Ward’s political ascent, Decourcy “has been demoted a little bit,” explains Hodge. “He’s not working the prime cases that he wants.”

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Still, that won’t stop him from trying to do right by the community of Roxbury after a gang rivalry triggers a housing-project tragedy — even if it means doing the wrong thing and using proof of Rohr’s latest slipup to get his help with the case. “It’s like a toxic relationship,” Hodge says with a laugh. “I think they’ll always find their way back to each other in a harmonious rhythm of insanity.”

As the season progresses and things get even crazier, we may watch the worst parts of Rohr rub off on Ward. “The challenge I like about [Decourcy] the most is that he’s always trying to stay on the side of good,” says Hodge, seen most recently playing football great Jim Brown in the film One Night in Miami.

(Credit: Francisco Roman/Showtime)

“But what does he have to do in order to accomplish the greater good at the end of the day? Sometimes, you have to get your hands dirty. And for me, personally, I like to see him get his hands a little dirty.”

City on a Hill, Season Premiere, Sunday, March 28, 10/9c, Showtime