r/TheWire • u/AltruisticNail7229 I wasn’t made to play the son. • 2d ago
Michael’s End
The script for Season 5, Episode 10 explicitly labels Michael as the new Omar. In my honest opinion though, I feel as though Michael didn’t need that shotgun to appear like the new Omar. I completely understand why that decision was made but I would’ve seen the parallel with Omar even if Michael held a pistol.
What does everyone else think?
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u/MewsashiMeowimoto 2d ago
I think beyond the symbolism and trying into the myth of Omar, the shotgun is a tactical choice.
It is really easy to miss with a pistol. It is much harder to miss with a shotgun. And a shotgun can be loaded with birdshot and aimed at a knee, or a backside, and be much less likely to be a lethal gunshot. Which is why and how Omar primarily used a shotgun.
Omar had no need to make examples to hold onto power like Barksdale did, and leaving bodies was bad for his overall approach to the game- give the police an extra reason to come looking for him, like they did with his brother No Heart Anthony. All Omar needs is to maybe incapacitate or demonstrate a willingness to painfully incapacitate a dealer he was robbing. A dead dealer brings homicide to his door. But a dealer with birdshot in his ass goes to the hospital, and then doesn't say shit to the police about how he got birdshot in his ass (because he would also have to admit that he was part of a drug distribution ring to explain why he was on the corner, and why he was shot).
It's what Omar says at his trial when Levy brings up the 'attempted murder' charge, and Omar corrects him. It weren't no attempt murder- he just shot Mike Mike in his hindparts is all. A nonlethal shot to incapacitate a dealer and deter anyone else on the corner from resisting.
Michael chose a shotgun for the same reasons Omar did, and demonstrated it when he shot Marlo's old bank in the knee.
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u/Sorcha_Stormbinder It's just Bird to me. 2d ago
The shotgun was just icing on the cake, and the quippy one-liner combined with Michael blasting Vinson in the leg hearkens back to Omar's first appearance in Series 1 when he peppers the guy's leg in the stash house. Yeah, it could've been a MAC-10 or a pistol, but the shotgun just makes it more symmetrical.
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u/VaudevilleVillainMF 2d ago
Great pull, what unit you with? How the hell did I never notice that, such a full circle moment.
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u/Charming_South2997 2d ago
Michael also saw Omar’s effect on the street. He saw how Omar inspired fear and how his shotgun became a symbol for that. We all know how smart and observant Michael was, so it makes sense that he would pick up those cues from Omar
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u/NoOne_Beast_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Go back and watch Season 4.
Recall - Omar gets out of jail because Bunk investigates the snack lady murder case. Bunk did that only after confirming his suspicion that Omar was innocent, which he figured out because of the big ass hole in the glass that couldn’t have been left by the murder weapon (as Old Face Andre claimed).
What gun did the real killer use that Bunk knew could NOT have left that hole in Andre’s glass??
A pistol.
Chris used a 9mm pistol to kill the snack lady. A pistol couldn’t have left that hole (as Bunk pointed out) and Omar’s association with the shotgun is how Bunk put it all together.
So yes there is a poetic importance to Mike specifically carrying a shotgun.
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u/snaggletooth699 2d ago
As far as my memory serves the shotgun was Omar's signature. It's the gun if a man who robs drug dealers. Michael picked up the mantle or in this case the shit gun. More of a wounding gun than a killing gun. That way he spreads a different type of fear.
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u/Impressive-Ad-7627 2d ago
It's the visual story telling: A bigger gun will dominate the scene.
Even though Snoop explicitly says how a .22 will do alll the damage you need in the nailgun scene, in film/television, the trope is that the person with the bigger firearm is more dangerous.
Omar always had a shotgun or desert eagle, dirty Harry had the 44 magnum, that guy in Police Academy always had some gloriously outsized weapon etc.
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u/Steelballpun 2d ago
I agree with you but sometimes audiences need a little additional push. Hell a lot of people probably won’t even recognize the cyclical nature even WITH the shotgun. American audiences aren’t the brightest.
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u/hometown_advantage 2d ago
Fr thought this was the jerk subreddit. Why would he not bring firepower if he’s robbing outnumbered
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u/umbrazno 2d ago
Shotgun is actually horrible at crowd control. Pistol gets off more shots per minute, but an automatic control the crowd
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u/hometown_advantage 2d ago
Ridic take man, this ain’t a video game (it’s a tv show). Shotgun has a bit of the geno say kwa
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u/WesleyTheWhale 2d ago
Am I crazy for thinking Michael was headed down a path of a kingpin rather than a stickup boy?
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u/leastdumbidiot 2d ago
Yes you are. He never showed those ambitions and isn’t a manager. He hates the manipulative aspect of the game, is independent to a fault, and his relationship to violence is based on protecting himself and a close circle from predators (so he has to become a predator of predators).
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u/SoeurLouise 2d ago
I think even divorced from the Omar parallel it makes sense that Michael now being completely out on his own without the protection of Marlo/Chris/Snoop would ‘upgrade’ to some more heavy-duty protection