10 Most Shocking Deaths In TV History
2. Omar Little – The Wire
Just like The Sopranos, HBO’s universally acclaimed crime epic The Wire had a host of surprising and significant deaths, from the tragic slaying of young drug dealer Wallace to the disturbing strangulation of D’Angelo Barksdale. The season three murder of Idris Elba’s iconic Stringer Bell was a strong contender for this list, but surely the show’s most shocking death was that of Omar Little.
A sort of urban Robin Hood, Michael K. Williams’ gay stick-up man was a breakout character, and to this day is the favourite fictional character of former President Barack Obama. Throughout the fourth and fifth seasons of the show, a rivalry brewed between Omar and psychotic kingpin Marlo Stanfield.
Fans of the show expected a confrontation between the two, but in typical The Wire fashion, reality brutally intervened. In an innocuously placed episode, after calling Marlo out, Omar goes into a shop to buy a pack of cigarettes and is abruptly shot in the head Kenard, a young boy still in school. It comes completely out of nowhere, but The Wire is hailed for its realism, and in life, death often comes in unexpected and awful ways.