'Death by Lightning:' Cast, Plot, and More Details About Netflix's Limited Series on Forgotten US President

A president betrayed, a nation in turmoil, and a death that stunned history — Netflix's Death by Lightning has viewers hooked since its 6 November release.

The four-episode saga brings to life the dramatic rise and brutal end of James Garfield, America's 20th president, in a tale of ambition, madness and political murder.

Plot and Inspiration

The show is about the ascension of James Garfield from poverty to the pinnacle of American government and how his life ended at the hands of a failed lawyer.

Show creator Mike Makowsky was inspired by Candice Millard's book that chronicled Garfield's presidency titled Destiny of the Republic. He told Netflix's companion site Tudum that the book would make for compelling television.

'It was moving and tragic and poignant, but also kind of absurdly funny at times that I wasn't really expecting,' Makowsky shared.

The Cast

Makowsky and series director Matt Ross turned to Michael Shannon and Matthew Macfayden to play the central pair of Garfield and his assailant Charles Guiteau.

Shannon told Tudum that while he didn't find history interesting back in school, he was enticed by the 'momentous' role offered to him.

'It's not every day someone asks you to play an actual US president,' he said.

'When I was going to school, I didn't find things like this so interesting, but when you're acting out a historical story, you're getting to experience it in so much detail, and you're actually trying to inhabit it and understand what it was like in a very sensory way. I wish, honestly, that's how history was taught,' he added.

As for Macfayden, he gravitated towards the series' story and having Ross and Makowsky on board.

'It's just a great story, a great part. It's something I knew nothing about,' he said. 'I really loved meeting Matt Ross, our director, and I admire his film Captain Fantastic, which I thought was brilliant. So that was a big draw, and I knew Mike (Makowsky) was going to be involved, which was thrilling.'

Alongside them are three-time Emmy nominee Betty Gilpin, who played Garfield's wife Lucretia, Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) as Vice President Chester Alan Arthur, Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) as Senator James Blaine, Laura Marcus (Andor) as Mollie Garfield, Dylan Hughes (Maternal), as Jim Garfield Jr., and Paula Malcomson (Mayor of Kingstown) as Guiteau's sister Franny Scoville.

The Political Figures

James Garfield is a Republican who served as the 20th President of the United States for 120 days, the second shortest tenure in the nation's history.

Before that, he was a nine-term congressman for Ohio and a former Civil War general.

Meanwhile, Charles Guiteau is a mentally ill office seeker and lawyer who killed Garfield in 1881. He shot him twice out of anger when the president refused to grant him a foreign consulship.

In a letter dated November 1880, Garfield wrote: 'Assassination can be no more guarded against than death by lightning and it is not best to worry about either,' hence the title of the series.