When Candice Millard penned "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President," she approached the story of James Garfield from an unconventional angle, given his relative obscurity among American presidents. Millard recalls reading a biography of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who dedicated a significant portion of his time and energy to developing an innovative metal detector called an "induction balance" to locate the bullet lodged in Garfield's body. While it took her three years to complete the book, Millard writes that "it only took a few days of research to realize what Bell must have known—that President Garfield was not only a tragic figure but one of the most extraordinary men ever elected President of the United States." This realization became the driving purpose behind the book.
Millard devotes a considerable amount of space in her book to Bell, ending with his heart-wrenching failure to use the induction balance on Garfield as intended. She also delves into the stifling arrogance and backward thinking that led Garfield to his death at the hands of Dr. Willard Bliss, whose rejection of basic anti-septic principles was far more culpable in Garfield's fate than Charles Guiteau's bullets. The tragedy in "Destiny of the Republic" is that the assassination occurred just before advances in medicine and technology—to say nothing of tighter security—would surely have saved the president. Millard had the space to include all this information in the book because, well, it's a book.
Like any adaptation, even one that unfolds over four hours, "Death by Lightning" has to make some difficult choices. Creator Mike Makowsky, whose credits include the terrifically entertaining HBO true-crime comedy "Bad Education," relegates Bell and Bliss to the sidelines. Still, given that Garfield spent 80 of his 200 days in office suffering from his wounds, it's incredibly surprising that he doesn't even get shot until 25 minutes into the 66-minute final episode (including credits). But it's also a sign of Makowsky & Co.'s priorities for the show, which focuses more closely on Garfield and Guiteau's historical collision than on the fascinating subplots that spin out from it. By and large, their instincts are sound.
An important takeaway from the series, and this finale especially, is that assassinations cannot be detached from the political climates that make them possible. So while our villainous Roscoe Conkling isn't in league with Guiteau, he stokes the internal battle within the Republican Party that consumes Garfield's time in office. Although the show wisely avoids making Guiteau's motives and actions 100% clear—there is room here for insanity, and Macfadyen makes a five-course meal out of Guiteau's delusions of grandeur—he is aware enough of Garfield's floundering first few months in office to tell which way the wind is blowing. If Conkling prevails in stifling Garfield's agenda by wiping out his appointees, then his man in the White House, Chester Arthur, will have helped orchestrate it. In Guiteau's mind, he and Arthur are buddies and killing Garfield would benefit them both.
As the lead-up to the assassination unfolds, the episode delves into the clash between Garfield and Conkling, painting a vivid picture of the fate of the Republican Party and democracy as a whole. Indeed, one would not want a system so divorced from the people's will that only the wealthiest among them could access it. [With a loud and dramatic ahem-ahem-ahem.] Conkling's approach is to wield his power, threatening political ruin to those who do not play ball, while Garfield appeals to the better angels of congressmen's nature. Despite all odds, Garfield emerges victorious in the end, drawing Arthur away from the bully who shaped his career. In this, Garfield's surprising faith in Arthur's dormant patriotism and decency pays off, and it continues to pay off later when he steps into a role that everyone, including himself, believes he is woefully unprepared for.
The hilarious scene in which Arthur attempts to submit his resignation to Garfield is a prime example of what Death by Lightning does so well: giving history a seriocomic zing. By speaking openly to the press about Garfield's ineptitude and refusing to hide his identity, Arthur resembles George Costanza in the Seinfeld episode where he drags a World Series trophy around the parking lot in an effort to get canned from the Yankees. "I feel it my duty to explain to you that you really ought to fire me," says Arthur. "I'm a truly bad vice-president." Yet the worst opprobrium he receives from Garfield is a gentle request to come to him first before airing his concerns to the public.
The sequence at the train station, where Guiteau shoots Garfield with two bullets from his pearl-handled pistol, is beautifully staged and chaotic, with no one remembering to take the murder weapon until Guiteau casually offers it up himself. The show handles the aftermath of Guiteau's capture exquisitely. If this man truly believed he was committing a war-averting act on behalf of the American people, it follows that he would expect to be treated like a hero with just a brief stop in a cell with a view before earning a proper post in the new Arthur administration. However, bit by bit, Guiteau's illusions are diminished by events like an angry mob gathering outside the prison, a disappointing reaction from his sister, and a confrontation with Lucretia after Garfield's death. But they don't fully disappear until he's on the gallows and realizes that the stone-faced gentlemen below him are unmoved by anything he has to say. Macfadyen plays him as a tragic fool to the end.
It has been intriguing to see a wild card like Michael Shannon portray the noble Garfield, though he summons a thunderous energy when Garfield rallies his party to stand up to Conkling in Washington. For the last part of the finale, he's reduced mostly to moaning in response to Dr. Bliss's invasive care—“Loss of consciousness is to be expected,” says Bliss as he needlessly probes around Garfield's spine—and muttering kindnesses to the loved one who will carry on without him. It's a shame the episode doesn't have enough time to detail Bliss's shocking affronts to modern medicine, but a shot of him holding a bloody scalpel in his teeth while digging into an open wound with his bare fingers might be all that's needed to convey the message. At every turn, Garfield gave more than he received.
The encounter between Guiteau and Lucretia at the prison reaches a boiling point, a scene that hammers home the show's message but provides an opportunity for the understated Betty Gilpin to deliver it with all the force of a lightning strike. As Lucretia confesses to Guiteau that her deathbed assurances to her husband that history would "remember him grandly" were nothing but lies, we're treated to a chilling revelation. "In reality," she tells him, "history won't remember him at all. A minor footnote at best. An idle piece of trivia. Do you recall poor old what's-his-name, who was shot three months into his presidency?" Lucretia's only consolation is to deny Guiteau his exalted place in history, most tangibly by ensuring his book is never published. Those who asked, "Who the fuck is Charles Guiteau?" in the opening scene of the series in 1969 will at least know Garfield was president, even if they don't know another fact about him.
One might counter that Millard's book and now this series have given Guiteau's views an audience, but that would suggest those views are coherent. Death by Lightning continues the book's work in exalting Garfield's character and wondering what might have been, something he shares with other major figures shot down before their time. But the series is also a commentary on a corrosive tradition in American politics where progress is undone by incitement and destructive violence. Charles Guiteau may not be remembered, but it's wise to remember that there are countless Charles Guiteaus lurking in the shadows, ready to strike at any moment.
