On The Wire, Michael K. Williams’ Omar had a matter-of-fact understanding of “the game” that is the drug culture that bordered on scientific remove. Now he’ll apply some of that observational wisdom to the more cartoonishly mean streets of Community, playing a recently released ex-con who uses the degree he earned in prison to teach biology at Greendale, and once more expounding on the natural order—for example, the mammalian pack hierarchy of not expecting to run with the wolves come night when you spend all day sparring with the puppies, ya feel me? As it turns out, the casting decision is a bit of Internet wish fulfillment in more ways than one: Creator Dan Harmon told Vulture recently that bringing in Williams is an effort to add “a certain amount of groundedness and reality to the series, because the detractors of our show complain that there's a distancing that takes place because we have such a silliness and far-fetchedness.” And with Omar around, that cheese will now stand alone—oh, indeed—and other Wire quotes.

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