Death by Lightning

If it wasn’t for the generational brilliance of Band of Brothers this would easily be my new favorite mini-series of all time, I’m almost at a loss for words to describe what I’m feeling right now. As someone who loves history I obviously knew this story and a lot about America during this time, both Garfield and Guiteau are some of the most interesting figures in political history to me yet this still opened my eyes to so many new things about both of those individuals and others too, especially Chester Arthur who was played brilliantly by Nick Offerman. And yes, there are some small dramatizations to the story but every choice in that department was perfect. The best example of that perfection to me is the scene of Lucretia meeting Guiteau in the final episode, it still perfectly captures every theme utilized while not taking anything away from the truthfulness of the story, there are so many examples of this throughout the series and with how tedious dramatizations can be in historical biopics it’s really beautiful to watch it executed with this sincerity and to this level. Mike Makowsky’s adapted screenplay of Candice Millard’s source material was another massive highlight for me, shockingly tender in the emotional moments and every dialogue between characters felt so powerful, really impressive stuff that brought this whole experience together to make it truly great. This also features what I’d easily call some of the best acting of 2025, Matthew Macfadyen gives quite possibly the year’s best performance as Charles Guiteau with Michael Shannon delivering an incredibly powerful lead resurrecting James Garfield in every scene and the same can be said for Offerman’s Arthur, that wasn’t a part of this I was expecting too much out of but my lord was it brilliant. Those three weren’t the only ones dominating the screen, Betty Gilpin was phenomenal as Lucretia Garfield and you get two more amazing performances from Shea Whigham and Bradley Whitford, there are definitely more names which I’m forgetting too, this whole ensemble was on point for all 200+ minutes of this runtime. I really need to reiterate how good Macfadyen was, with an action as small as a face twitch you feel the darkness of Guiteau while also being unable to deny the empathy you feel for such a tortured person, like I said earlier Guiteau was such an intriguing person to me going in and now my interest has multiplied. The biggest takeaway from this project is relatively simple but I feel the need to discuss it, and that’s how much this political climate tortured with corruption reflects our current society, and how we so badly need Garfield-esque figures in the world right now. Although I don’t think the true hope here comes from Garfield here, but from Chester Arthur. The hope that a person can completely revert on not only what they’ve fought for but what made them who they are in the face of necessity is not a hope I often have as someone with a generally cynical view on the current state of politics, that doesn’t mean I can’t see how beautiful and emotional that hope and message is and how reflective it is on our society today. I haven’t talked about the technical aspects here because the story was so powerful to me but those are equally brilliant and deserving of my five stars, truly gorgeous set creation, costumes, and camera work, not something I typically anticipate from a Netflix mini-series but it was obviously greatly appreciated. What I’ve noticed about my taste as I keep going in my cinematic journey is that I absolutely adore not just period pieces like this but any and every story that brings me back in time, that doesn’t simply come with telling a story of the past but it’s the collection of brilliance across the board that truly transports me. And there’s no better example of that transportive feeling than what I just experienced, there’s truly nothing like sitting down to watch something and forgetting you even exist as a person. My new favorite project of 2025, I can’t believe there aren’t more people talking about this because in my eye it’s absolute perfection. “In reality, I know history won’t remember him at all. Be no reason to. A footnote at best. An idle piece of trivia.”