Whacked! Another HBO Main Player Meets His End
By LOLA OGUNNAIKE
Published: December 13, 2004
ans of HBO's hit crime series "The Wire" may have been shocked off their couches last night when one of the show's main characters, the calculating drug dealer Stringer Bell, was gunned down in a gruesome ambush.
But it is unlikely that anyone in the Sunday-night audience was as stunned as Idris Elba, the 32-year-old actor who has brought Stringer to life since "The Wire" began three years ago. "When I first read the script I was like: 'What? No! This isn't supposed to happen,' " Mr. Elba said over dinner at an Upper West Side restaurant. "I was deeply disappointed. It was a surprise, a complete surprise."
It is an unusual move to be sure, but one that has become increasingly common on HBO, a network known for unconventional plot twists and bold, can-you-believe-they-did that? surprises. "The Sopranos" has never been shy about doing away with major characters - Big Pussy, Ralphie and Adriana were all killed off. "Deadwood," the drama series set in the lawless West, lost its Wild Bill Hickok. And D'Angelo Barksdale, the young drug-dealing character who carried much of the first season of "The Wire," was strangled in a brutal prison scene. Another prominent "Wire" character, Frank Sobotka, ended up with a tag on his toe after being shot in the second season.
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