![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() So it’s up to Gus to give us a new character to root for, and represent what’s good and under siege in the paper biz.Omar Devone Little is a fictional character on the HBO drama series The Wire, portrayed by Michael K. I understand that this is The Wire‘s final season and that those involved have brought us so many rich and rewarding characters that to introduce too many more would take valuable screen time from the ones we’re already invested in. And then there’s Bubbles, each season, giving me hope and setting me on edge. Then there was that gut-wrencher fourth season with the boys, and I’m still not sure I’ve recovered from Dukie handing over a Christmas present to Prez or Randy yelling at Carver down the hospital corridor. (Ack.) In the following seasons, I worried over the Sobotkas, Omar, Cutty, Bodie, and even Stringer Bell. In season 1, I figured if I could just keep Wallace and D’Angelo, I’d survive. Apart from my beloved Gus, there’s no one else who’s going to make me start chewing my knuckles, knowing that these tough-minded TV writers might rip them from me. If I had any complaint about this season, besides my constant waffling over whether I’m sold or not on this serial-killer plot, it’s that there aren’t as many new characters whose lives we can sneak inside. They need copy for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. When they praised the eager reporter for his story, they also quickly reminded him that it was yesterday’s news. Gus still smells something sour in his newsroom, but the higher-ups, chinless Yick and syrup-tongued Yack, want Scott to keep cranking out more Dickensian features on the plight of the homeless. Even Gus was proud of the copy he turned in (”Read it and weep…literally”), but he also wanted Scott to make a couple calls about a woman complaining that he’d gotten a past story all wrong. He’ll cook up anything in a jam, and get called the Jimmy Breslin of Baltimore by Nancy Grace because of it, but this sudden burst of real work seemed to both calm and inspire him. The worm has what’s coming to him, but something about seeing him in his earnest man-of-the-streets Kansas City Star T-shirt, getting chased off the tracks by a German shepherd but sticking it out anyway to hear a ruined ex-marine’s story, was endearing. So now Scott’s juked serial-killer beat will get further play on the front page of The Baltimore Sun. Alas, this is Baltimore, and McNulty got the news that he was screwed while Patsy Cline weeped in the background on the boss’ radio about going ”walking after midnight, searching for you.” Those are night shifts without overtime, mind you. ”You are a supervisor’s nightmare!” shouted McNulty, who had been so sure more money and resources would come rolling in after the serial killer made front-page news and the mayor gave an impassioned speech about it being his job to protect the city’s most vulnerable citizens. So Lester needed more money, and the tools to intercept photo images, and his growing list of demands frayed McNulty’s last nerve. Meanwhile, Lester finally figured out that Marlo was back on cell phones not for conversing, and certainly not to text-message his associates (”Need I remind you that these fine men are products of Baltimore public schools?”), but to send pictures back and forth. He lied to the council that Omar was to blame for Prop Joe and Hungry Man’s murders (not that any of those savvy men were buying his lies), called off future meetings, and told everyone the price of a brick was going up. Marlo, though, follows a different code, and I can’t see him ever showing up for a ghetto duel. ![]()
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