"However, Death by Lightning (a reference to a glib assessment of a president's chances of being assassinated) aims to pull Garfield (Michael Shannon) out of the historical shadows by recounting the events leading to and around his assassination in 1881 through the prism of a parallel biography of his killer, Charles Guiteau (rather like the 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)."
"In his portrayal of Guiteau's early days as a small-time chiseler and con man, Matthew Macfadyen makes him a more down-at-heel Tom Wambsgans, with the same combination of squirrely scheming and obsequiousness, before shading into a poignant portrait of a man bewildered by the increasing disconnect between his expectations and reality, as Guiteau descends further into mental illness."
"What the series makes clear is that the divisions and repercussions of the Civil War persisted in the country like a low background hum for decades after the war itself was over, with almost everyone Garfield encounters either a veteran like himself or someone who has lost a family member in the war. And the issues the Civil War raised were still far from settled by the time Garfield took office 15 years later (indeed, some would argue are still far from settled)."
James Garfield receives a focused dramatization that recounts events around his 1881 assassination while paralleling the biography of his killer, Charles Guiteau. Michael Shannon portrays Garfield, and Matthew Macfadyen portrays Guiteau as a small-time con man whose scheming and obsequiousness give way to bewilderment and mental illness. The series frames the assassination within lingering Civil War divisions, portraying veterans and bereaved families throughout Garfield's world. The narrative emphasizes unresolved postwar issues and situates the political context of the Gilded Age alongside intimate character studies of both president and assassin.
Read at Slate Magazine
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