‘Death By Lightning’ Season 1 Review – Oversimplified, Condensed, And Lacking Depth

I may consider myself a bit of a history buff—so much so that when I finished the Pulitzer Prize-winning Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, I bragged about it for months. (And if you’re reading this, I just bragged about it again—under the cover of television criticism.) When I heard about the Netflix series Death by Lightning, I was excited. Why? Because when it comes to 19th-century historical dramas, they usually revolve around Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation era, Teddy Roosevelt in the Gilded Age, or the kind of frontier westerns Kevin Costner gets off on every decade or so like clockwork.

When it comes to the 20th President of the United States, James A. Garfield, the only sitting member of Congress ever elected to the nation’s highest office, he has been largely overlooked. So, when the streaming giant with seemingly unlimited funds and endless room for raw data decided to option Candice Millard’s Edgar Award–winning account of his assassination, it felt like a window into something fresh and new in American history.

Garfield was ahead of his time—an intellectual, a brilliant orator, and a reluctant political figure. You could even say James A. Garfield was the original cliché: proof that a politician could also be a good man. Yet the adaptation feels like a CliffsNotes version of history. It also resembles Millard’s fresh perspective. The series takes a compelling subject and dilutes it. It becomes an oversimplified portrayal of an era. Moreover, it trades substance for an abundance of comic relief, which is uneven due to a lack of depth and nuance.

Death by Lightning primarily follows two figures: President James Garfield (Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon) and Charles J. Guiteau (Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen). Not to spoil the story—but this is history, so blame your high school teachers. Guiteau assassinated Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station on September 19, 1881. Shannon portrays Garfield as stoic and unassuming, a far cry from the commanding orator he was in real life. In fact, the stirring speech that first thrust him into the national spotlight at the Republican convention barely registers here with the gravitas it holds in history.

At the same time, Macfadyen’s Guiteau is portrayed almost as a comedic figure. His perpetually on edge con artist struggles to maintain a public façade of optimism while juggling a series of confidence schemes for years. I’ll admit, his portrayal carries a childlike innocence that Erikson would find fascinating. Only briefly addressed in the series, his father abused Guiteau for the slightest infractions following his mother’s death. He was, in essence, a traumatized child in a man’s body. He was someone who may have learned that punishment brings attention. Attention can lead to power, whether positive or negative.

Of course, unless you have an advanced degree in psychology or you’re an academic or a history buff, you’d never know the complexities of an era that looked down upon the downtrodden, people living with mental illness, and the unhoused. There could have been a fascinating connection for series creator Mike Makowsky (Bad Education) and director Matt Ross (Silicon Valley) to explore. Themes of education, equality, and social progress. Ideals Garfield championed. How? By showing how Guiteau was precisely the kind of citizen he might have wanted to help. Instead, the story is treated as a somewhat workplace comedy of moral numbness.

Please don’t get me wrong, the comic relief is welcome, but use it sparingly. The series feels too thin, wrapping up with Garfield’s stumble into the Republican presidential nomination and his eventual election. This subject could fill an entire season, yet it is condensed into less than an hour. Then there’s Nick Offerman, admittedly funny, but essentially doing his familiar brand of dry absurdism and hyper-masculine Americana shtick, often portraying Vice President Chester A. Arthur as a drunk and, at times, a fool.

And then there’s Bradley Whitford, so good in The West Wing and the new season of The Diplomat, playing political figure James Blaine with his trademark style: the rapid-fire wit, ego-fueled charm, and self-deprecating swagger we’ve seen in nearly all his roles. It’s as if Makowsky wrote in the script: “Arthur: Ron Swanson type. Blaine: Josh Lyman type.” To be blunt, the same criticism I have of the series applies to the source material. Millard’s creative nonfiction is a light-weight psychological and political analysis. It covers not only the figure but also the time period.

If you like your history light, the kind so shallow you can barely dip a toe into it, Death by Lightning is the series for you. But for those who expect more from their entertainment, not just their history, this Netflix production barely skims the surface of history.

You can stream the first season of Netflix’s Death by Lightning on November 6th!