DEATH BY LIGHTNING

PREMIERES THURSDAY, NOV. 6

- Kate Hahn

Shannon and Gilpin; inset: Whigham's dishonest Conkling

"I wish there were more people like James Garfield nowadays," says Michael Shannon, who plays the corruption-fighting 20th United States president in this moving four-part limited series. "The more I learned about him, the more I fell in love with him." Based on Candice Millard’s 2011 bestseller Destiny of the Republic, the show follows the parallel paths of the chief executive and his deranged assassin, Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), who shot Garfield in 1881, four months into his term.