KILL YOUR ENTHUSIASM (20)
By:
November 28, 2022
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of favorite killed-off TV characters. Series edited by Heather Quinlan.
OMAR LITTLE
Sometimes the death of a compelling character is a narrative lesson, a reminder that scary contingency cannot be controlled by the mechanisms of foreshadowing and expectation. Resolution, like justice, is satisfying because we get exactly what we anticipated: the leading chord resolves to the tonic and our brains go “ah.” Satisfying, but also artificial.
A loner criminal, charismatic and beautiful with distinctive facial scar, ironic sneer, long coat, and handy concealed shotgun, he lives by his own code. No civilians harmed. No profanity. Love is love. Drug crews are to be preyed upon, not rivalled. “Omar comin’” echoes everywhere Omar Devone Little (Michael K. Williams) walks in gangland Baltimore. You can’t take your eyes off this dark gun-toting Robin Hood, nimbly stepping across a chosen tightrope of principle, independence, and mayhem.
Omar as graceful anti-hero seems like he will live forever, so transcendent is his appeal. So why are we so tense whenever he is on-screen? At the end, enemies closing in, on the hunt and on the run, limping with a post-ambush broken leg, busting up the gang that framed him, he enters a convenience store to get cigarettes. And that’s where a youngster shoots him in the side of the head. When the inevitable comes, it is oddly banal.
The young killer is as shocked as we are at this narrative hiccup, somehow at once expected and blind-siding. He drops his gun and runs. Boom: this is the fragile artifice of being here at all.
Michael K. Williams seemed like he would live forever too. That luminous, unforgettable face! That rasping voice! But, just as suddenly as Omar Little, he slipped over the edge he had walked as an actor and a man, dead of an overdose at 54.
KILL YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Max Alvarez on LANE PRYCE | Lynn Peril on PETE DUEL | Miranda Mellis on LISA KIMMEL FISHER | Trav SD on COL. HENRY BLAKE | Russ Hodge on DET. BOBBY SIMONE | Kathy Biehl on PHIL HARTMAN| Jack Silbert on MARTY FUNKHOUSER | Catherine Christman on MRS. LANDINGHAM | Kevin J. Walsh on YEOMAN JANICE RAND | Heather Quinlan on DERMOT MORGAN | Adam McGovern on LT. TASHA YAR | Nick Rumaczyk on BEN URICH | Josh Glenn on CHUCKLES THE CLOWN | Bart Beaty on COACH | Krista Margies Kunkle on JOYCE SUMMERS | Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons on DENNY DUQUETTE | Marc Weidenbaum on SGT. PHIL ESTERHAUS | Michael Campochiaro on GORDON CLARK | Fran Pado on EDITH BUNKER | Mark Kingwell on OMAR LITTLE | Bridget Bartolini on ALEX KAMAL | David Smay on VANESSA IVES | Tom Nealon on JOSS CARTER | Michele Carlo on FREDDIE PRINZE | Crockett Doob on AUNT LOUISE.
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