Yeah....that was weak, but IMO they get a pass because everything else was so strong, there were always multiple storylines...that one sucked ass
To be honest, it really wasn't weak. Check out a bit of this interview with the creater David Simon in regards to that scene. When Omar went into Monk's apartment and Snoop, Chris and Michael were waiting for him the guy who accompanied Omar was one of the REAL LIFE "stickup boys" that the character Omar was based on. His name is Donnie Andrews.
"
A big thing I wonder about in terms of writing The Wire is how you went about constructing composite characters from real-life influences, like Omar is a big one, of course, but—Why don’t I do Omar, because that’s the one everybody always asks about. Here are some people that we used for the Omar story line—and they are real people and real names that would be known on the streets of Baltimore. Anthony Hollie, Ferdinand Harvin, and Cadillac and Low. I don’t know their real names, but they were a team. And there’s also Donnie Andrews. He was the big man who went to war with Omar the last time. He got killed in the shootout in the apartment in the ambush. That’s actually the real Donnie.
Oh man, the guy who was with Omar and Butchie and then he was Omar’s backup against Marlo? Oh wow. No kidding.
Yeah, that’s the guy. The actor who plays the Deacon was also from the streets, right?He was a major drug trafficker. Melvin Williams, little Melvin. He was famous going back to the 60s. He had maybe 30 years of selling heroin and coke in Baltimore. He was busted by Ed in ’84 and got out in 2001. We all had lunch and then he came to work as an actor.
So out of all these people, did you pick and choose traits and stories from their realities for Omar? For instance, Omar carries a shotgun. He’s gay. He’s got all these really great characterizations.Listen, when he jumps out the window during that shootout, that was something Donnie Andrews actually did. He jumped out of the sixth floor of the Murphy Homes when he was caught in an ambush and out of ammunition. Did he think about it? No, but he did it and he survived and he was able to limp away. It happened. He also jumped off the Poplar Grove rail bridge another time. It’s legend. There are people who will tell you about it in West Baltimore other than Donnie. It’s not just something he’s making up. If you make that jump, you’re dead. If I make that jump, I’m a puddle on the ground.
But he did it.He needed to make the jump and he wasn’t gonna die that time.
I love that Omar’s jump was based on a real story, because that was one of the things in the series where people were like, “Ah, that would never happen. He’d be dead.”And we actually only had Omar jump from the fourth floor.
Whereas Donnie really jumped from the sixth. "
