History is replete with examples of chaos caused by politicians' desire for power. It's no surprise that voters cling to the fantasy of a humble candidate demonstrating his worth in the job without actually wanting it. The funny and entertaining new miniseries Death by Lightning argues that America's closest thing to such a leader is James Garfield (played by Michael Shannon), a little-known congressman from Ohio who nominates someone. more for President at the 1880 Republican National Convention with a speech so moving that he himself ended up on the ticket. By then, the Republican Party had dominated since the end of the Civil War fifteen years earlier and had descended into machine politics. Garfield, an idealistic moralist, accidentally caught his colleagues at a moment when even powerful people were tired of corruption. “We are the party of Lincoln,” says one. “We have to live up to it this time.”
Death by Lightning, a four-part limited series currently streaming on Netflix, bills itself as “the true story of two men the world has forgotten”: Garfield, who would become the twentieth president of the United States, and Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), his would-be assassin. Series creator and writer Mike Makowsky sets the action firmly in the post-Reconstruction era: The Civil War casts a long shadow, and Garfield's main electoral obstacle is not his Democratic opponent, but a cynical figure within his own party whose influence stems from the spoils system. However, Makovsky's retelling, permeated with irony and anachronism, makes the story modern. The characters swear freely (“to hell”), and Guiteau's first scene – a parole hearing in which he is called a “liar and a cheat” – hints at his time in a “free love colony” in Oneida, New York. Guiteau's son-in-law, disgusted, later calls it what it is: a “sex cult.”
Both Garfield and Guiteau crave fame, although Garfield is better at hiding it. At the congress, he pretends to dissuade his supporters; after that, he campaigns from the porch of his farmhouse. Guiteau, on the contrary, declares his desire for fame. If he had been born a century later, he might have tried to get into television or started a YouTube channel. Instead, sent to eighteen hundred, he tells anyone who will listen about his grandiose plans to create a newspaper. In an attempt to gain the public's trust, he turns to senators he knows by sight, such as New York power broker Roscoe Conkling (Shea Whigham), who pulled the strings of Garfield's predecessor Ulysses S. Grant, and Maine State Representative James Blaine (Bradley Whitford), who hates everything Conkling represents. But Blaine is a pragmatic operator himself, which is why he chooses Garfield's running mate: the charming but dim-witted Conkling fighter, Chester A. Arthur (Nick Offerman).
Perhaps befitting a show about a bunch of forgotten names, Death by Lightning is a delightful showcase of underrated character actors. Makovsky skillfully dramatizes the plans and counter-schemes of legislators aimed at wresting control of the party and thereby determining the future of the country. The most interesting historical dramas evoke a bygone era even as they speak to the current moment, and Death by Lightning is no exception, recalling another era when devastated political parties could be co-opted, for good or ill, by canny outsiders. Government of the people, by the people and for the people, is a noble enterprise, but as Garfield himself states, “no great wisdom is without a touch of madness.”
Since the story itself—or Wikipedia for viewers who like to Google while watching—is a spoiler for the series' conclusion, the tension is whether Garfield is the dreamy naive Conkling and Arthur believe him to be, or whether he has the potential to make real change. In the early days of his administration, his potential appointments are stalled by political rivals and his days are filled with unproductive meetings with members of the public. Guiteau eventually infiltrates the audience, ostensibly seeking an ambassadorial position for his dubious contributions to the campaign, but in reality asking for a path to greatness. The President achieved this from similarly humble beginnings; why can't he? The long-awaited meeting is disappointing: Garfield objects, declaring that only God is great. The humility that brought him to the Oval Office threatens to drive him out.
