Separating the facts from fiction in Netflix's 'Death by Lightning'

The new miniseries probes the ambitions of President Garfield and his assassin.

- BY MICHAEL ORDOÑA

MATTHEW Macfadyen, left, as assassin-in-waiting Charles Guiteau, has a fateful moment with Michael Shannon's James A. Garfield in "Death by Lightning."

(LARRY HORRICKS Netflix)

This article contains some spoilers for the Netflix miniseries “Death by Lightning.”

If politics today make your head spin, wait until you see Netflix’s “Death by Lightning.” The four-part miniseries, premiering Thursday, chronicles one of the more jaw-dropping stretches of post-Civil War American history, when corruption ran rampant, a presidential nominee was drafted at the Ilth hour, only to be assassinated early in his term by one of his biggest fans — becoming perhaps the greatest head of state we never really got to have.

And the show answers the burning expletive-laced question posed by its first line: Who is Charles Guiteau?

“I've been in a James Garfield rabbit hole for seven years of my life at this point,” says showrunner Mike Makowsky, who adapted Candice Millard’s 2011 chronicle of Garfield and Guiteau, “Destiny of the Republic.” Those who paid attention in history class probably remember that Garfield served briefly as our 20th president in 1881 before being shot and killed. Those who remember more than that are few and far between.

“My own agent half the time refersto him as Andrew Garfield,” says Makowsky. “and I have to confess, I knew very little about Garfield, like most Americans, until I picked up Candice Millard’s remarkable book.”

Realizing he knew little about one of the four American presidents to be assassinated, Makowsky thought, “Since I would desperately like to be on ‘Jeopardy!’ someday, I was like, ‘Let me educate myself’ I wound up reading the entire book in one sitting.”