You Come At the King,You Best Not Miss

With the exception of maybe Tony Sopranao from The Sopranos and Al Swearengen from Deadwood, Omar Little might be the most charismatic character in all of television history. At least in HBO drama television history. A Robin Hood of The Hood. A player of The Game. A thug with a code. A sociopath. A murderer. And a homosexual one to boot.

Not only is Omar one of--if not the--first gay characters on a major television program that wasn't portrayed in stereotypical fashion, he is also one of the first characters on The Wire by which we, the audience, fall in love with. That fact that Omar is gay is irrelevant on the show except for the storyline that starts it all: when Stringer takes out his lover Brandon in season 1.

That event alone lead to the death of Wallace and one of most intriguing plotlines of the entire show: Omar vs. The Barksdale Crew. Who can forget the classic courtroom scene with Omar (dressed in a ramshackle suit and tie) ammuses the jury and courtroom with his blatant bantar with Levy. "I robs drug dealers."

Perhaps it is Omar's relentless pursuit of Barksdale that drives the character. Or his hypocritical moral code of hurting no civilians (ask Bunk what he thinks of Omar's "parasitical" ways). Or perhaps it his bluntness and willingness to hold nothing back when talking to anyone. For me, it's scenes where Omar rolls up on a crew and has proven himself so much in the past, that they simply just give in to him without a fight. Omar's name rings out in West Baltimore and everyone in the game knows who he is. The man with the shotgun.

Like Tony Soprano, with whom an audience attaches itself regardless of character decency, Omar is a character we root for. He plays the game by his own rules and we view him as a sort of Street Justice Vigilante taking out the "bad" dealers. Omar doesn't kill civilians, he doesn't deal the drugs, and his charisma and humor (not to mention whistling "Farmer in the Dell" while rolling through the hood), make every scene with him astonishing. The jury's reaction to him during Levy's questioning is very much an analogy of how we the audience view Omar. He is one of the good "bad" guys because he is only doing harm to those that are doing harm to others.

It would be quite tragic for Omar to die. Like Wallace, D'Angelo, Bodie, and Stringer, we have grown attached to Omar and to see him die would be a major blow to our faith in happy endings. But if there is one thing The Wire has shown time and time again it's that no one is safe from death when playing The Game.