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Nov 06, 2025 By Kyle Mullin Photography by Netflix Web Exclusive

Who’d have thought the cold blooded murderer of a beloved president could be so slap-stick hilarious? That quickly becomes apparent on Netflix’s excellent new limited series, Death By Lightning.

It’s based on the true story of Charles J. Guiteau, played by a bumbling Matthew Macfadyen (Succession) whose descent into madness clashes with the unlikely rise of Andrew Garfield (Michael Shannon, Boardwalk Empire). Shannon plays Garfield as a proper, to the point of sainthood politician whose righteousness strikes enough correct chords to secure him the presidency for an odd and volatile six months in 1881. This astoundingly moving yet hilarious–at times in the same scene–series depicts the how and why of an American political tragedy.

While Shannon endearingly and engrossingly portrays Garfield’s stern uprightness as if his spine were affixed to a broomstick, some of Macfadyen’s opening scenes as Guiteau task him with getting caught committing grift after grift. He tries to escape off a balcony from pursuers he swindled, but they rap his knuckles as he’s clinging to the rail, causing him to come tumbling down like all Three Stooges bundled into one foolish antagonist. He’s thrown out from one premises after the next, his briefcase tossed after him for Guiteau to fumble over like the comedic prop the resourcefully comedic Macfadyen makes it into.

Early in this four hour series’ first quarter, Guiteau’s sister Franny (Paula Malcomson, famously feisty on Deadwood and Sons of Anarchy) defends her deadbeat brother to her husband when he moves in after yet another failed scheme. When her husband points out Guiteau once joined a sex cult, she retorts: “It was purely anthropological!”

That’s one of the expertly honed side splitting lines penned by Mike Makowsky (who also wrote the acclaimed HBO miniseries Bad Education). Bradley Whitford (a legend on The West Wing) is brutally funny as James Blaine, a once presidential hopeful who supports Garfield and becomes a believer in his idealistic ideology. Blaine doesn’t buy into Guiteau’s bill of goods, wince-inducingly cutting the continuous outsider down to size when he persists once too often in pitching the President and his team on how he can be a valuable party member.

That conversation proves pivotal, but there’s much in the meantime occupying Garfield’s agenda. He stumped and won on fairness and rooting out corruption. But much of his party was bought and paid for by Roscoe Conkling. He’s played by not just a scene stealing but down right robbing Shea Whigham (also of Boardwalk Empire), who positively oozes underhandness, twisting arms (sometimes literally) among fellow law makers and pulling strings at the New York docks where he rakes in fortunes. Like many of the actors on this immersively realistic looking series, Whigham sports a robust beard and curly hair, along with richly colored double breasted suits and coats with coat tails. His hair and beard almost look triangular, like the tip of the devil’s pitchfork. His demeanor is equally hellish as he connives vindictively to wrestle power back from Garfield, slapping cards on a table menacingly in one scene while playing solitaire as he plays politics.

And while Whigham chews up such scenes hungrily, Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) makes an absolute meal of them. He plays Chester A. Arthur, Conkling’s enforcer and debt collector. When he’s not cracking heads on New York’s docks, thumbing through stacks of cash and chomping on a cigar, Arthur briefs Conkling on the latest goings on and shares in his corrupt senator boss’ dismay. When discussing one foe, for instance, Arthur sneeringly calls him a “do gooder,” before following that up with “twat!”

Better still: when Arthur tries to face Garfield down, expecting fiery conflict, only to be thrown off by his foe’s unflappable civility. Arthur storms out of Garfield’s office before long, and Offerman gives one of the most hilarious and creative TV line readings of the year, shouting “Fuck!” and flinching, as if sneezing as much as swearing. Not since Deadwood has a series featured profanity with such humorous flair. While Offerman doesn’t quite reach Ian McShane’s unimpeachable heights in that regard, he’s the only actor since that turn of the millennium Western to come close.

Offerman has a mustache and side burns that billow out like the figurative steam streaming from his temperamental character’s ears. He and Whigham indeed have excellent facial hair on the series, as does Shannon, whose beard fulsomely covers half his face. But the best among these impressive whiskers belongs to Macfadyen’s Guiteau. His beard is long enough to accentuate his quivering chin as he stifles back rage and tears during one indignity after the next, all self imposed.

It’s difficult to tell which whiskers are real and which were applied in the actor’s trailers, making the makeup department surefire Emmy contenders. The sets, props, score and costumes also convincingly convey this long bygone era. The dresses and hairstyles indeed underscore Betty Gilpin’s powerful performance as Lucretia Garfield. This First Lady is conflicted about the demands placed on her husband, along with his willingness to sacrifice for the country at the expense of their family. But she is movingly supportive and surprisingly fiery in defense of her husband and what he has built as the series unfolds. This is especially true in a back half confrontation with Offerman where Gilpin holds her own among this murderer’s row of scene stealers.

Matt Ross (an actor turned director of Silicon Valley episodes and the acclaimed indie movie Captain Fantastic) captures these powerhouse performances with aplomb. That’s no small feat, given the quickly veering tonal shifts.

Now that Ross and Makowsky have caught lighting in a bottle with Death By Lightning, viewers and industry insiders are sure to eagerly await the next projects by these newly broken through TV auteurs.

Author rating: 9/10