Michael Shannon, Nick Offerman and Bradley Whitford in 'Death by Lightning.' Larry Horricks/Netflix Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [Warning: For Stephen Sondheim fans, prolonged exposure to Death by Lightning may result in uncontrollable singing of the entirety of Assassins. Do not watch if you are allergic to Assassins. Possible side effects may include Sweeney Todd or Company.] Honestly, not to give Netflix too much credit for artistic integrity, but I'm a little amazed that Death by Lightning is airing at all. Based on the recent gutless precedent set by the more innocuous The Savant, we can assume that Apple would have either buried Death by Lightning entirely or at least shunted it off into a corner of the viewing platform populated by 150 other shows featuring award-winning stars and zero promotion. Related Stories TV Netflix's 'Death by Lightning' Trailer Teases a 19th Century Presidential Thriller Movies Dear Tilly Norwood: Some Blunt Advice, Actress to "Actress," From Betty Gilpin Death by Lightning The Bottom Line Strong, minus the hasty conclusion. Airdate: Thursday, November 6 (Netflix)Cast: Michael Shannon, Matthew Macfadyen, Betty Gilpin, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford, Shea WhighamCreator: Mike Makowsky Like Sondheim's Assassins and last year's Manhunt, the four-episode Death by Lightning is an exploration of political violence that attempts to situate assassination attempts, and their unwell perpetrators, as rot adjacent to the nobler aspirations of the American Dream, an uncomfortable exposé of a unique form of celebrity. It's a provocative minefield of a topic, one that creator Mike Makowsky, working from Candice Millard's very fine Destiny of the Republic, navigates with relative confidence. I say "relative" because, after nearly three episodes spent effectively introducing Matthew Macfadyen's Charles J. Guiteau and elevating James Garfield (Michael Shannon) from the scrapheap of cartoon cat-based ephemera, Death by Lightning rushes through Garfield's actual death, which is in many ways the most bizarre aspect of the story. It leaves Death by Lightning feeling abruptly and somewhat conclusively unsatisfying - but probably makes it a safer sell in the current moment, when a more thorough take on political violence would yield controversy and corporate discomfort. Plus, even delivering the story in truncated form in no way detracts from the strong and occasionally deliriously fun performances from Macfadyen, Shannon and the supporting likes of Nick Offerman, Betty Gilpin, Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham. After a framing device best summarized as "They Saved Guiteau's Brain," Makowsky (Bad Education) leaps into action with the parallel stories of Garfield and Guiteau circa 1880. As we meet Garfield, he's leaving his Ohio farm, much to plucky wife Lucretia's (Gilpin) chagrin, to make a nominating speech for John Sherman's (Alistair Petrie) presidential candidacy at the Republican Convention in Chicago. Sherman is not going to win the nomination, but Garfield is a man of principles and he's determined to stand up for the party's integrity. It seems inevitable that the nomination is going to go to Ulysses Grant, notoriously corrupt and the preferred candidate of the New York political machine, which is controlled by Senator Roscoe Conkling (Whigham) and right-hand man Chester Arthur (Offerman), the Collector of the Port of New York, presented here as one of the shadiest and most powerful positions in the land. The thing you don't know about James Garfield, if you only know him in terms of jokes about Odie and Nermal, is that he was, to use anachronistic parlance, a reasonably good dude. He wasn't perfect. This was 1880. Nobody was. But he was a family man, an intellectual and a progressive with a lower-case "p," a figure whose murder led fairly directly to the collapse of Reconstruction, causing damage that one could argue still hasn't been fully repaired. Garfield's ascension to the presidency is both fascinating and wildly entertaining, and Makowsky and series director Matt Ross capture that rise exceptionally in the early, fully realized episodes of the series. Guiteau is interesting, too, a clearly troubled man who became mobilized in ways the series links unavoidably, for me at least, to current online message boards and other radical corners of the web. Before there were incels, there was Charles Guiteau, who spent five years as a near-literal eunuch at the orgy that was the Oneida Community. Guiteau had childhood traumas and delusions of grandeur, but his desire to find purpose through public service is presented as at least partially earnest. At a moment when people off the street could fairly easily encounter powerful politicians in hotel lobbies and, in the case of Arthur, rowdy beer halls, Gu