Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bolzai. I'm Jesse Thorne.

At the very end of 2025, we lost Isaiah Whitlock Jr. who was 71.

Isaiah Whitlock Jr. had been a working actor for a very long time.

He got his first TV parts in the 80s, started acting on stage well before then.

Like any good working New York actor,

he accumulated well over a dozen cameos on various Law and Order shows. In the early 2000s,

though, he got the role that changed the trajectory of his career. He played state senator

Clay Davis on the wire, a corrupt but charming Baltimore politician who manages to gum up plans for drug dealers,

politicos, and cops alike. You might recall his catchphrase, an extended expletive that we cannot say

on the radio. Anyway, while Whitlock's role in the wire was a huge break for him, it showed the

world something that was always true. Whitlock was a in The Wire was a huge break for him, it showed the world something that was

always true. Whitlock was a compelling presence on screen. He could be charming or menacing or funny,

sometimes all at once. He also starred in Spike Lee's Defive Bloods with Delroy Lindo, Clark

Peters, and Chadwick Bozeman. When I talked with Whitlock in 2021, he was promoting the show Your Honor.

The legal thriller starred him and Brian Cranston and aired on Showtime for two seasons.

Your Honor revolves around the cover-up of a hit and run involving the son of a New Orleans judge, played by Cranston.

Isaiah played Charlie, his best friend, and this scene, Cranston's character meets Charlie at a diner.

He's just asked him for a pretty huge favor to help him dispose of his son's car.

It's got to be painful for you.

Seeing it there every day, in the street, outside your home, if you were never to see it again it

would be harder for a day or so the absence and then drop the key behind the

...