So I've finally worked my way through the stages of grief and have come to accept Omar's brain splattering on the bullet proof glass at the bodega. Looking back at his killer, Kenard's, trajectory, I can't help but thinking how astonishingly well-telegraphed Kenard's move was. In a world of sociopaths and cynics, Kenard's angel face always stood out. It belied his deep-seated fearlessnes and his inherent understanding of the Darwinian nature of the Game: a lesser kid would've been cowed by Namond--considering his bloodline--but Kenard saw weakness in Wee-Bay's heir; he scammed him and when it was time to get beat down, he took that (at Michael's hands, no less)--though his tears were the tears of a child.
When he saw that Dukie couldn't command respect on the corner, he punked him, he ridiculed him, and took another beating. I suppose it's vintange David Simon: He gave us four kids--Dukie, Michael, Randy, and Namond--and had us watch, obsess, over their every move. But the one kid we thought was just a supporting player, just a hopper like all the hoppers before him, turned out to be the one to make the ultimate power-play.
And what of the victim of that play? Omar was always The Wire's most fantastical character; his existence made no sense. He defied the Darwinian order. But we loved him, so we let Simon slide. He gave us a show committed to urban verisimilitude and we lauded him for it, but at the same time we accepted--we craved--the ridiculous notion that Omar might survive a five-story jump, that he could walk through stash-houses with just a sawed-off in his hand and "Farmer in the Dell" on his lips, that he could limp through B-more in the daylight calling out Marlo's name, that he could do all this and more and live to see another day. During Bird's trial, when asked how he managed to survive in so perilous a living, he said only, "Day at a time, I suppose." And that shrugging, almost disinterested view of his own mortality is what I'm left with now.
Just before his death, Omar walked by a scattering mess of boys, paying no mind to the one who remained. Cold-hearted and clear-eyed, Kenard confirmed in that moment what he had seen before--that Omar was not the legend that Chris, Snoop, Michael, Avon, Stringer and the rest of 'em--us viewers included--had made him out to be: He was just "gimpy as a motherfucker," and he needed to die. How could I have missed that the kid calmly torturing a cat would be the one to do him in? I suppose I just didn't want to see. For Omar to have survived, for the viewers who came to fetishize his bad-assed ways to have their inner, emotional pleas heard, would've been a criminal disservice to the show. That's not to say in that split second before Omar got capped, as the camera framed him through the bullet proof glass, when it became obvious what was about to happen, I didn't scream, "No, please, no!" at my TV. I did. I knew but I didn't want to accept. Omar walked above the Street and above the Law, and, I had hoped, above the Game. We saw him cloaked in darkness and bathed in Caribbean light. We heralded his legend to all who would listen.
I thought Omar was David Simon's greatest gift to us, but really he was just Simon's greatest ruse: he made us believe that magic exists even in West Baltimore and then he punched us in the stomach and he was right to do it because, after all, there is no such thing as magic.
1 comment:
Great post, c4ts. Although in light of your final graf, shouldn't it have been titled "The Wizard is Dead?"
My take on Omar's demise is that after he sees Kenard setting fire to the cat, he wrongly sizes him up as outside the game. Omar sees a sociopath in training (Kenard in that scene hits two of the three indicators correlated with serial killers - setting fires and torturing animals. As for the third, I'll presume he still wets his bed), but sizes the boy up to be a few years from the game. It's interesting that Kenard's the only one not to run away. I think Omar notes this, but sees a nascent killer instead of one on the precipice of consummation. Omar notices Kenard come into the store, and still counts him out of the game. [Bill Miller would have a thing or two to say about that, I'm sure.] He guessed wrong, but I think it was reasonable for him to do so - I don't think Omar slipped, I think it's Mo' Fierce evolution as you suggested. Kenard is the inheritor, sad to say.
Initially I was frustrated by the pint-sized hand of death, as Stringer's and Prop Joe's deaths led me to believe that only big fish working together can take out the stars of the show. I was thinking The Greek + Marlo + Avon + Chris + Snoop + the ghost of Bodie. But I agree with your take on Kenard as preturnaturally perceptive of the workings of the game, and that only a new threat could defeat the man with the code.
A weird thing I noticed was that Omar's age is misstated in 5.8. I think in the newsroom, they refer to him as 34, while his body tag showed a date of birth in 1960, which would make him about 47. Considering Bunk was on the scene, and Bunk went to the same school as Omar (I forget who's older), shouldn't he have been able to make the details right on both the body bag and the crime report? This discrepancy is pretty subtle, and in comparison to the heavy handed morgue screw-up and the story-spiking of Omar's death, I'm not sure it was intentional. Anyone else notice this?
My final emotion on Omar's passing - I went through a few in the space of that episode - is that I think I'm ready for the show to end in 150 minutes. With Omar potentially surviving, The Wire would never really be over for me, it would continue playing in my emotional cinema, without new plot developments or the growth of characters, and I'd pine in vain for this lost, tragic world. With Omar, the last romantic, in the ground, I can accept The Wire's finality.
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