I’d grown up in Mississippi and gone to college in North Carolina and could probably count the number of openly gay men I’d met on my fingers and toes a smaller number I’d call friends. I had been catching up on the series after it had just ended a few months earlier in March 2008 - using a now-prehistoric version of Netflix to get the DVDs delivered to my door every three days or so. I was 22 when I saw that scene of Omar kissing Brandon, and it floored me.
And now, the audience learned that he was gay, not as the crux of a plot twist played up for shock, but in a subtle moment of affection. He’d been established as a snarling Rambo who struck fear in the hearts of everyone who heard his name in Baltimore. As the scene progresses, Omar and Brandon tenderly play with each other’s fingers, leading to Omar delivering a light forehead kiss and a tender caress of his chin.īy this point in the series, we’d already watched Omar, trademark shotgun in tow, and his posse rob a drug house. The second member, John, looks on uncomfortably.
One of the men, Brandon, is under Omar’s arm, his head leaning on Omar’s chest. About 15 minutes into the third episode of The Wire, Omar Little is sitting on a stoop with two of his crew members.
