My take on the limping stuff was this: he was certainly injured but he was playing that up in public trying to draw Marlo out. There was a couple of episodes where he was walking around with a limp but definitely not leaning on his makeshift crutch like he was on Michael’s corner. I think he wanted them to think he was more injured and vulnerable than he was. I’d just been remarking on that to Chris when I, too, noticed that he wasn’t limping in the store.

As disappointed as I was that he went out like a punk, I can also totally see him not paying attention to that little kid and truly getting it, because that’s part of his code. He doesn’t run around capping kids and grannies, you know?

I’m eager to see what comes next, though.

I’m not certain the book is closed on Omar just yet. There’s something very, very odd about his death.

1) His whole plan of stepping out on random Stansfield street corners and screaming out insults always struck me as a particularly stupid (ie. non-Omar) plan. At some point I was expecting a pay off there–something that explains to us what he’s really trying to accomplish and how it’s all part of a more clever scheme. I think that’s still to come.

2) Rewatch Omar’s death scene on Tivo. Notice how he suddenly *stops limping* the minute he enters that liquor store? What’s up with that? There’s just no way that detail isn’t significant somehow. Is this *really* Omar?

3) Ditto that bit at the episode’s very end in which the Omar’s corpse was tagged with the wrong name. What’s up with that? Has to mean something.

4) I’ve been rewatching earlier seasons recently. Omar’s age is *wrong* on his autopsy tag. He’s almost ten years younger than the tag indicates. (He testified to his exact age in court during Season 2). Again, the WIRE writers are just too good to get a detail like that wrong.

On the other hand, Kennard–the kid that shoots Omar–has been hanging around the series in some ominous capacity for years. He was actually the kid who Bunk saw “playing Omar” with his friends in the low-rises back in Season Three. Making him Omar’s assassin is a tidy pay-off.

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

R.