Like It Or Lump It: "Death By Lightning"

 

 

Welcome to another "Like It Or Lump It," where I review series from one of the several thousand streaming services and advise you if it is good or bad.

This "Like It Or Lump It" topic is the Netflix series, "Death By Lightning".

"Death By Lightning" is about the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881.

It concerns that period of time after the Civil War, which your high school history class skips over because, let's face it, it is not the most interesting time in American History and it is tough enough keeping the Zoomers awake for anything other than a TikTok video. 

As you know, I majored in history in college, and I can tell you my knowledge of the assassination of President Garfield in one sentence.  Garfield was killed by a "disappointed office seeker". 

There's more to it than that. Garfield was killed by a man named Charles Guiteau (pronounced "Get Toe").  Actually, Garfield was killed by his physicians, who poked around his body to remove the bullet but forgot to wash their hands and sterilize their equipment. Other than that, they did a bang-up job. 

Charles Guiteau was as crazy as a Betsy Bug. He was a guy with no talent, no common sense, no money, but a tremendous amount of narcissism.  If he had just the insight to be born 100 years later, he would have made a great social media influencer. He was a man way ahead of his time.

James Garfield was an Ohio congressman who happened to know how to read Greek and Latin (Footnote: Garfield was a member of The Independent Disciples Of Church of Christ Christian Church, the faith tradition I'm from, and he is a BIG DEAL to them.)

Garfield arrives at the 1880 Republican Convention and gives a speech. People loved it. Somehow, after 14,000 ballots, he is nominated as a compromise candidate for President with Pawnee, Indiana's parks and recreation supervisor, Ron Swanson, who conveniently changed his name to Chester Alan Arthur, man of massive sideburns, as his running mate. (Footnote:  There is some historical controversy as to how Swanson Arthur pronounced "Alan".  Some historians say he pronounced it as "A-Lon" instead of "Al-an". Those historians are turds.)

It just so happens that Guiteau was at the same convention and spent a good deal of time trying to convince Garfield to hire him. The only problem is that Guiteau is such a massive dink that he could not get hired into politics.

We then see a flashback to ten years earlier, where Guiteau was a member of a proto-hippie group called The Oneida Free Love Boogie Bunch, which said you could live with them on their farm land and have sex with whoever would consent to have sex with you. Today, we call this "college". 

Warning: you are shown women's bosoms as if it were a 1970s movie. Despite all of this nakedness, Guiteau could not get lucky.

Garfield wins the White House by defeating somebody else. Back then, you could walk up to the President and ask for a job. Guiteau meets with Garfield, but the First Lady comes down with malaria, and the job interview is cut short. 

Garfield goes to the train station without guards but with Robert Lincoln, the President's son.(Footnote: Robert Lincoln was at President McKinley's assassination, too. Really.) Guiteau shoots Garfield, and Garfield lingers until he finally dies, making Swanson  Arthur President who immediately hires Lesley Knope to be his annoying subordinate. Guiteau is hanged after he recites an awful poem.

The acting in "Death By Lightning" is good. Michael Shannon sort of looks like Garfield. The actor who plays Guiteau is awesome and probably should win an Emmy unless they nominate something dreary like "The Bear" to run against it.

Several things.

One: A couple of indoor restrooms are shown. I was under the impression that indoor facilities were not common in 1880, but then again, we didn't talk much about toilets in history class.

Two: There are a bunch of f-bombs dropped in the show along with some M-fers. Again, in history class, we didn't talk a lot about F-bombs and if the senator from Maine casually used M-fers.  There was one scene in which First Lady Garfield drops an F-bomb on Vice President Swanson Arthur. Even given the high historical tension of the scene, I just don't think First Ladies dropped the F-bomb until Betty Ford.

Three: Garfield sure says "Hmm" a lot.

Four:  A smart pants teenage girl comes in to lecture everybody about something, which she had no idea about. Something for the kids.

Five:   I never thought any movie about James Garfield would have naked bosoms. A Netflix series about Bill Clinton will be crazy.

Verdict:  Like it. Sure, it has its problems, but it is well done, and you feel like you've learned something. Especially about indoor toilets in the 1880s.