Death by Lightning tells the tragic story of President James Garfield and his assassin, Charles Guiteau, in a way that feels far more personal and unsettling than most historical dramas. Instead of focusing on grand politics, the series zooms in on the psychological crash course toward inevitable violence. Garfield is portrayed as a deeply decent but overwhelmed man, while Guiteau is shown as unstable, narcissistic, and terrifyingly confident in his own delusions.
What really makes the series disturbing is how clearly it shows the systemic failures that help create the disaster. Guiteau is ignored, dismissed, laughed off, and repeatedly allowed to spiral without intervention, while a chaotic patronage-based government creates the exact kind of entitlement that fuels his obsession. When the assassination finally happens, it doesn’t feel shocking so much as tragically unavoidable.
I liked Death by Lightning because it refuses to romanticize either power or madness—it just lays them bare. The show is quiet, tense, and uncomfortable, but in a way that feels intellectually honest rather than sensational. It’s one of those rare historical dramas that leaves you unsettled not by violence itself, but by how easily everything slid into it.
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