TL;DR: Netflix’s Death by Lightning turns a forgotten presidential assassination into a tragicomic masterclass in delusion, with Matthew Macfadyen giving the performance of his career as history’s most pathetic egomaniac. It’s sharp, stylish, and hauntingly relevant — a miniseries that proves nobody fails quite like a man who thinks he’s destined to win.
Death by Lightning
There’s a very particular kind of man Matthew Macfadyen plays better than anyone alive — the self-absorbed loser who’s convinced he’s the main character in a story no one else is watching. From the clammy desperation of Succession’s Tom Wambsgans to the tragic grandeur of Ripper Street’s Inspector Reid, Macfadyen has built an entire acting dynasty out of socially awkward delusion. In Death by Lightning, Netflix’s blistering four-part historical miniseries, he perfects that archetype — and then shoots the president with it.
This is the story of Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated U.S. President James Garfield in 1881, and somehow managed to make even that look like an embarrassing career move. If you’re drawing a blank on who Garfield even was, you’re not alone — he was only in office for four months before Guiteau decided to immortalize them both in infamy. And yet, despite the dusty footnote of history, Death by Lightning manages to make their twisted connection feel urgent, hilarious, and unbearably sad all at once.
The first thing you notice about Guiteau — Macfadyen’s Guiteau — is the sheer smell of failure wafting through the screen. He’s the kind of man who would sell his soul for a chance to network, but can’t find anyone interested in buying. With his bird’s-nest beard, haunted eyes, and ragged frock coat that looks like it’s been dry-cleaned in whiskey, Guiteau drifts from one bad idea to another: founding a newspaper he can’t pay for, begging loans he’ll never get, or pestering every sentient being around him with his “divine inspiration.”
In another era, Guiteau would have been a YouTuber with 17 subscribers ranting about destiny in his parents’ basement. Instead, he’s a 19th-century American parasite, convinced that if he just shouts loud enough, history will give him a speaking role.
And Macfadyen — oh, Macfadyen. The man doesn’t play Guiteau; he embodies the feverish awkwardness of someone who can’t tell the difference between confidence and delusion. His facial expressions are a tragicomedy unto themselves: one part giddy hope, one part existential nausea. There’s a moment where he finally gets a meeting with President Garfield after months of begging, and he pours his heart out — only to reveal there’s nothing actually in his heart to pour. It’s agonizing, funny, and pure Macfadyen brilliance.
Death by Lightning isn’t just a character study; it’s a stylish, slightly punk retelling of one of America’s strangest political assassinations. Think The Favourite meets The Assassination of Jesse James, but with more sideburns and less patience for solemnity.
Michael Shannon plays President Garfield, a genuinely progressive statesman who somehow stumbled into the presidency by giving a killer speech at the 1880 Republican convention. He wasn’t even supposed to be on the ballot, but the crowd went full 19th-century viral, and suddenly — boom — he’s the leader of the free world. Shannon’s Garfield is stoic, kind, and maybe a little too good for his own survival. He’s surrounded by wolves in waistcoats, and every time he talks about reform, you can practically hear the knives sharpening off-camera.
But make no mistake — the show belongs to the losers. Shea Whigham is deliciously grotesque as Roscoe Conkling, a political bully so corrupt he makes modern lobbyists look like charity volunteers. And then there’s Nick Offerman as Chester A. Arthur, the drunken, vomiting vice president whose life philosophy can best be summed up as “music, fighting, sausages.” Offerman somehow turns this caricature into a full tragic arc: a man who sold out his morals so many times, he can’t remember where he left them.
What makes Death by Lightning sing — beyond the wigs and whiskey fumes — is how it weaponizes failure as a theme. Guiteau is desperate to matter in a world that keeps spitting him out. Garfield is trying to do good in a system designed to devour idealists. Arthur, somewhere in between, is proof that compromise is just corruption with better PR. The whole miniseries hums with the bitter realization that American politics was always this broken — it just had better hats.
There’s an almost Coen Brothers–like rhythm to the storytelling: absurd situations that curdle into tragedy, characters who can’t tell when they’ve already lost. Director Mike Makowsky (of Bad Education fame) keeps the pacing tight, the dialogue sharp, and the tone precariously balanced between satire and sorrow. The cinematography gives everything a grimy, gold-tinted look — like history itself is rusting before your eyes.
Still, for all its brilliance, the show isn’t perfect. At under four hours total, Death by Lightning occasionally rushes through crucial beats, especially on Garfield’s side of the story. Shannon’s scenes often feel like beautifully crafted footnotes between Guiteau’s misadventures. And the female characters — particularly Paula Malcomson as Guiteau’s long-suffering sister — barely get a word in edgewise. But then again, this is a story about men so obsessed with hearing themselves talk that silence becomes its own rebellion.
It all leads, inevitably, to the gallows. Guiteau’s final moment is his last chance at greatness — a public speech before his execution, delivered to a crowd that mostly came for the schadenfreude. He wants to be remembered as a prophet. Instead, he’s remembered as a punchline. It’s Shakespearean, but only if Shakespeare had written about a man too stupid to realize he’s not in a tragedy — he’s in a farce.
As he stands there, sweating, rambling, trying to immortalize himself with words no one will recall, Macfadyen gives him one last flicker of pathetic dignity. It’s not that Guiteau dies well — it’s that he dies exactly as he lived: delusional, uncomprehending, and absolutely convinced he’s the hero of the story.
And somehow, that’s what makes Death by Lightning brilliant. It doesn’t redeem its monster; it just gives him enough humanity for us to see how we might have created him. In a culture that rewards self-promotion over substance, Guiteau feels disturbingly modern — the original poster boy for main-character syndrome.
Death by Lightning is a darkly funny, surprisingly emotional study of failure, fame, and the desperate need to matter. Macfadyen delivers one of his best performances to date, and the show’s scathing look at 19th-century politics lands with eerie modern resonance. It’s not flawless — but neither were the men it portrays. And that’s kind of the point.
