This Collider article argues that Oscar Isaac's finest television performance came in David Simon's 2015 HBO miniseries "Show Me a Hero," in which Isaac plays Nick Wasicsko, the real-life mayor of Yonkers, New York. The piece situates the series within Simon's broader body of work, alongside "The Wire," "Generation Kill" and "We Own This City," praising his recurring focus on the unintended consequences of political decisions on marginalised communities and his forensic attention to civic institutions.

Based on Lisa Belkin's 1999 nonfiction book of the same name, the miniseries dramatises the late-1980s desegregation crisis in Yonkers, triggered when federal judge Leonard B. Sand (played by Bob Balaban) ordered new public housing to be built in the city's predominantly white, middle-class east side. The article highlights how Simon depicts this ruling turning local elections into "single issue campaigns" that exposed deep-seated racial and class tensions, and frames the show as a richer, more detailed exploration of a divisive local political battle than typical films about contested elections.