November 14, 2025 • 27 mins
We’re covering Death by Lightning, Netflix’s four-episode retelling of President James Garfield’s assassination. Michael Shannon and Matthew Macfadyen tackle Garfield and the man hanged for killing him, Charles Guiteau. The series mixes political drama, medical tragedy, and historical recreation. Having read Destiny of the Republic, we hold the show to account: what it gets right, what it condenses, and what it flat-out invents. We break down the highlights (the 36-ballot convention, sharp lines lifted from the book, strong supporting turns from Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham, and a well-staged shooting), along with the choices that miss the mark (compressed science, softened villains, and history buff head-scratchers). Tune in, and welcome to Today’s Episode!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:15):
Welcome to today's episode, the podcast, where we
discuss the most recentinstallments of a different
series every show.
Today is Friday, November 14th.
Thanksgiving is around thecorner, but today is actually a
pretty important day in history.
It's the day that Charles J.
Gateau was put on trial for theassassination of U.S.
President James Garfield back in1881.
Yeah, he didn't die until thefollowing year, right?
(00:36):
1882.
James Garfield?
James Garfield was dead bySeptember.
I'm talking about Gateau.
Oh, Gateau, he was hanged, yeah,some point the next year.
Uh he pled insanity, and theywere not buying that in the
court system.
However, other people had gottenaway with insanity.
Uh uh it's the fact that I thinkhe represented himself.
And so it's like it's reallyhard to represent yourself and
say, I'm sane now, but a couplemonths back, you know, I just
(00:58):
got a few loose screws.
However, he did have somedoctors that supported that
claim.
His sister tried to approach thewidow uh of James Garfield and
get her to come to his defense.
She did not like that.
Um, and so they didn't reallytalk about that in Death by
Lightning.
We didn't see the trial.
We we kind of glossed through alot of the stuff post-Garfield
getting shot, which I was alittle disappointed by.
SPEAKER_00 (01:20):
Well, he also the brain, right?
They tried to like look at hisbrain to see if he was insane uh
years later.
SPEAKER_01 (01:26):
Once Gateau was dead, they cut him open and just
like CTE, they were looking forsigns that maybe crazy existed.
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
I know the creator of this TV show actually saw the
brain in real life while he waswriting it.
He spent some hours with it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
Okay.
I I don't know why he would haveneeded to do that, but they do
say it in the book.
So this is all based on thedestiny of the republic, the
full title being A Tale ofMadness, Medicine, and the
Murder of a President.
I read it.
I would highly recommend it.
You not only get the story ofGateau and Garfield, but you
also get Alexander Graham Belland the Science of the Time, the
(02:00):
Gilded Age, you get post-uhreconstruction.
Like it's just a full-out, morefleshed out story, which I think
deserved more than what thisNetflix show gave it.
I'm not saying the Netflix showis bad.
I would still show it to kids ina classroom setting, think it
gets like 65% of the stuffright.
People will walk away with moreknowledge than I knew about uh
(02:21):
Garfield when I took highschool.
Uh, you would have asked meabout Garfield a few weeks ago,
and I would have been like,that's just the cat.
SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
If you remember when we did the Manhunt podcast, I uh
I was trying to list all thepresidents and orders.
I stopped at Rutherford B.
Hayes.
Then you just got stuck there?
Yeah, I got stuck there.
SPEAKER_01 (02:37):
Okay, so from now to from Hayes onward, go ahead and
do it right now.
SPEAKER_00 (02:40):
Okay, well, the next one was James Garfield.
Uh-huh.
Uh Chester Arthur after that,Grover Cleveland, Benjamin
Harrison, Grover Cleveland, andthen I get can I suck here?
McKinley, Roosevelt, and thenTaft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G.
Harding, Calvin Coolidge,Herbert Hoover, uh, and then
after that was FDR.
After FDR was uh Harry S.
(03:01):
Truman, then it went to uhDwight D.
Eisenhower, John F.
Kennedy, Lyndon Baines, Johnson,Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan,
George H.W.
Bush, Clinton, George W.
Bush, Obama, and then Trump,Biden, Trump.
Cool.
Ever since that has happened,I've I've been trying to get it
down, and yeah, I think I thinkI finally got it.
SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
So good job.
Um, so what's your favoritepresident out of the ones you
just said?
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Uh well, I do like Taft because I I know that like
uh his bathtub?
Yeah, the bathtub.
That's the one fact that I knowabout.
SPEAKER_01 (03:35):
I heard that he was a bad president, but that he was
good in the Supreme Court orwherever he went next.
Um yeah, it's funny because that1880s period or like around the
1800s post-Civil War, I knewthat Grant was really corrupt,
but this actually gives you somereason as to why he was corrupt.
The people who surrounded him,Conkling, Roscoe Conkling, he
plays the villain in this show.
We get more backstory with him.
(03:56):
We also learn how he dies.
They kind of say it in the showat the very end.
They say he died in a blizzard,but in the book they give more
understanding.
He was like a fitness guru backthen.
He believed in keeping his bodyin in shape.
He would have a YouTube channelthat was just about getting
gains.
Yeah, that would be him today.
But he got stuck in a snowstormand he decided to just walk it
off.
Like he was just gonna walkright through it and he
(04:17):
survived, and then like a weeklater, he died of like pneumonia
or something.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, because they say in the show it's just a
quick sentence, but it seemslike there was a lot more to his
death.
SPEAKER_01 (04:25):
He's also actually a bigger villain in the show than
he is in the book.
He's about one-fourth of whatthe rest of like the doctors are
the big villains in the book.
Gateau is obviously a villain inthe book.
Conkling would be probably belike one of the offshoots
villains.
Chester Arthur was notrepresented really as a villain
at all.
He does have a 180-degree turnfrom what he was doing with
(04:47):
Conkling, because he was part ofthat whole system, the spoil
system, which was started byAndrew Jackson.
Was that like trying to getmoney into politics?
The idea was that if your partywon, then you reap the spoils of
that.
You are able to basically giveall your friends positions
rather than people of merit.
And so Garfield came in on ananti-corruption policy.
He was that was part of thereason why he was able to sway
(05:08):
the crowd in 1880.
Um, the first episode, I think,does both a good and bad job of
representing Garfield.
I feel like who plays Garfieldin this?
SPEAKER_00 (05:18):
Michael Shannon.
SPEAKER_01 (05:19):
Yes, the man from Ohio, he's at the Republican
convention and they condense hisspeech because he's supposed to
be endorsing Sherman for thenext president.
This is after Hayes, right?
Right.
And the Republican RepublicanParty has had a stranglehold on
the entire presidencies sinceLincoln.
Now he was the first Republican,and uh it's because no one wants
(05:39):
to be associated with the Southand the Democrats, they've been
able to hold power even despiteGrant's uh clear corrupt
surrounding.
So Grant is actually also up tobecome president's the nominee
again.
Um, and it's up to really thespeech that uh Garfield gives,
which turns everybody'sattention toward him rather than
(06:00):
any other candidate.
And it takes 36 votes, but bythe end of that convention, he
is the candidate for president.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
Well, my question is I was wondering if the book
talked about this because uhyeah, Garfield, he gives the
speech, and then it seemed like,at least in the TV show, at the
very, very end, like it's aquick sentence about how he's uh
obviously talking about Sherman,but it seemed like it almost
from the way that they did it inthe show, he was talking about
himself and then kind of decidedat the last minute to be like,
(06:26):
oh yeah, I'm talking aboutSherman.
I was wondering if the book iflike it possibly could have been
the speech that he was given, hewas like trying to put himself
up there.
SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
So a couple things with that is A, I think that the
book is definitely trying toprove the point that Garfield
was a great guy, but not justbecause he was like this
grounded dude, but because hewas super smart.
It goes through his life fromhis dad dying when he was a kid
to him actually questioning hisown mortality.
He was super smart when he wentto college after almost
(06:55):
drowning.
He decided to change his wholelife and he became like a union
general.
But when he was in college, heactually took over the school by
like his fourth year orsomething.
He became the president of thecollege.
Like he was he was a bright guy.
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
So many historians say he would have been an
amazing president, great publicspeaker.
A lot of people liked him.
SPEAKER_01 (07:13):
You look in the past and you look at his opinions,
and you're just like, okay, hewasn't a racist.
That's a huge win for back inthe day.
SPEAKER_00 (07:20):
Because even when you're talking about presidents
that people would probably putin the S tier, even like George
Washington had George Washingtoneven had like slaves, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
Of course, but that was even earlier.
So, but like in the 1880s, hedid run on this progressive
agenda and he was putting theright people in, and Conkling
was coming out trying to stophim.
I just feel that the way thathe's represented in the show is
too much like, oh, he neverwanted to run.
He's so humble, and that we'dnever see sort of his humor.
(07:50):
We never see how cool he is.
SPEAKER_00 (07:52):
That's interesting to me because so many people
talked about how there is comedyin this TV series.
And I feel like, especially forsuch like a dramatic retelling
of it, that they maybe shouldhave cut it out.
But you're saying that it waslike that you didn't get a lot
of that?
SPEAKER_01 (08:07):
I feel like they simplified him and they tried to
give Gateau too much of aleeway.
They gave Matthew McFadden toomuch r room to run with because
they wanted to make hischaracter a lot like Tom from
Succession, where he was justlike, What about me?
You know, like that sort ofthing.
SPEAKER_00 (08:21):
One word when I think about Tom, which is smar
me.
Smart me, but like weirdlylikable.
And I agree with you.
Whenever I saw Matthew McFadden,it just was too closely aligned
with his other character.
SPEAKER_01 (08:30):
In the book, he was not likable at all.
Gateau was like, he's a crazydude, and he just was so full of
himself.
And there just wasn't that muchdecency.
But in this, they go out of histheir way to show like multiple
scenes of trying to make peoplesympathize.
SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
He's like hanging out with like Chester Arthur,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (08:48):
He makes best friends with the VP in this.
He he hangs out with in the TVseries.
He hangs out with Lucretia,people that he never met, or if
they met them, it was passing.
It was not like they hung out,like you said, with Chester
Arthur for a full night out.
SPEAKER_00 (09:04):
No historical yeah, no historical records say that
that actually happened.
SPEAKER_01 (09:08):
He did like accost, I guess, the White House staff,
uh, got kicked out of there.
Everybody knew he was crazy,dude.
Um, it's but it was stillobviously a very big surprise
when he decided to buy a gun andthen shoot the president.
He says that he did it becausehe had a dream one day that
things would be better if he didso.
But this is the same guy who gotkicked out of a sex cult because
(09:29):
no one wanted to have sex withhim.
SPEAKER_00 (09:31):
Like it's guys, yeah, it's gonna seem very
weird.
SPEAKER_01 (09:34):
They start that off in the third episode.
I thought that was probably hisbest definitive part of his
performance because it was trueand it didn't feel like we were
just paying it lip service.
Um, I if they had done lessshoehorning of his character and
made it more about this is astory about Garfield, this
little teeny guy whoassassinated or like shot him,
and then we also spread itaround to Alexander Graham Bell,
(09:57):
and we also talked about likeJames Lister.
I think his name is JamesLister, but the the science dude
who was like progressivelytrying to put antiseptic into
the mythology of uh of doctorsat that point.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
And that's always what I feel like is kind of the
problem with with these uhretellings to have like A-list
cast members.
Because sure, you get like BettyGelpin or you get Nick Offerman.
A lot of these people, like Ithink Nick Offerman, uh like
Civil War, a lot of these peoplelike to do the political TV
shows, but then it seems likethe script is almost doing a
disservice to what it's actuallyabout because you're trying to
give these like talented actorslike their big part in the show.
SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
I I completely agree with you.
I would say that Shea Wiggum andBradley Whitford, yeah, A plus
performances.
I enjoyed Conkling, even thoughthey like made him a bigger
deal.
I I really enjoyed BradleyWhitford playing sort of Blaine
the Secretary of State.
I think he embraced thatcharacter rather well.
Nick Offerman and MichaelShannon, solid performances.
They were just written in a waywhere I feel like they could
(10:56):
have Michael Shannon wasn'tgiven enough to do, and Chester
Arthur was given too much.
I only needed one scene reallyat the end to show him so sad
about the president's death orthat he was shot and really
wanting to change his whole lifeup until then had been let me be
a corrupt lawyer dude who worksfor Conkling and endorses a
(11:17):
spoil system, to turning aboutface and saying, I am going to
try to be the best presidentpossible.
It is the most uh courageouslike move that he could have
done.
But because of that, they spentfour episodes trying to pre-show
that.
They tried to like really,really endorse that idea with
Nick Offerman.
They were spoon feeding thatmessage to you and they were
(11:37):
doing doing it with the subtletyof a sledgehammer.
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
Right.
No, I know.
He he sometimes would just saystraight out what his objective
was.
SPEAKER_01 (11:43):
It was fun to watch, though.
So that's why his and then thesame with Gilpin.
I feel like um her portrayal ofuh the relationship of Garfield
and Lucretia, it's true that shegot sick during his time.
Uh, she was very supportive.
They were in love by the timethat he was president, but very
early on in their relationship,I think the time that they had
their first daughter, they werenot on good points.
(12:06):
Like I think he even said it wasa mistake to marry her.
He had an affair.
She stuck with him through it.
So it they gave her some of hisactual lines, like they lifted
lines from the books and had hersaying them.
And the I would say the mostegregious it got was at the end
when she shows up to see Gateauat before he's hanged, which
(12:26):
never happened in real life.
And I was going to go off abouthow much I hated that because
that like completelymanufactured history, almost as
bad as when Chester Arthur triedto resign in this show.
Yeah, right.
I don't think that ever happenedin real life.
Um but then I I forgave it.
I forgave the show for the BettyGilpin because of Betty Gelpin.
She did such a great job, andshe did what I think the book
(12:48):
was trying to do without juststraight out saying it, which
was you guys have learnedhistory, and you've learned
about respecting Lincoln and thefounding fathers.
And this dude deserved so muchrespect, and he's never, ever,
ever going to get it.
And so she kind of broke thefourth wall and just kind of
said that straight out.
(13:08):
And it's your fault, Gateau.
And I I actually usually I hatethose type of lines, but I think
her acting was the thing thatreally brought it over the edge.
And like that deserved to be inthe show.
So that went from being a realbig con to being a pro in the
fact that it wasn't actuallytrue to history.
SPEAKER_00 (13:24):
Is the last episode really the only one that has
plot to it?
Because I'm assuming the firstepisode ends with Michael
Shannon getting or uh No, let'sgo through the episodes real
quick.
SPEAKER_01 (13:33):
So episode one is called The Man from Ohio, and we
focus on the 1880 Republicanconvention.
He comes in there, Garfieldcomes in there, he's supposed to
be endorsing Sherman.
He has a breach of consciousnesswhere he he feels like he has to
give this long speech.
They condense it severely toomuch in the show because for you
to be believable that everybodywould turn around and make you
president, you would think thatit would take more than a minute
(13:55):
with swelling music in thebackground.
But there was a guy who yelledout, We want you.
SPEAKER_00 (14:00):
So that was straight from the book.
Because they they shot thatspeech twice, and that was
supposed to be like a big day.
SPEAKER_01 (14:06):
I think that the creator said that was the
biggest day that I could tellthey wanted it to be a moment,
and Michael Shannon's deliveryof it didn't to me feel like it
was all that good.
Episode two, oh, one last thingabout that is they put Gateau in
at in that scene at the very endwhen um uh Garfield is leaving
to get in the carriage to goback home or whatever, and he's
kind of stunned uh at what'sjust occurred, and he's like,
(14:29):
Congratulations! And it's likethat, you never met Gateau that
early.
I really wish they had almostnot had Gateau in two episodes
and introduced him in episodethree.
I feel like that would have beena better way and really
highlighted the fact thatGarfield like has passed and and
gone into Alexander Graham Bell,um, Joseph Lister, not James
Lister.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (14:48):
I didn't I didn't see the full show, but I did
think that after the speech,when it started to come down to
them counting, I thought thatthat segment of it was was
pretty interesting.
Probably, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:57):
One of my favorite parts of the series uh was the
when they represented the 36 uhvotes that they had to do um the
over and over and over and overagain, and how it started off
with just one person.
SPEAKER_00 (15:08):
And then he ended up switching.
So the second time he likeswitched, right?
And then he went to the city.
SPEAKER_01 (15:12):
Because Garfield asked him not to vote for him,
and then by the end, everybodywas like, We don't care if you
want it, man.
You're getting our nomination.
Uh, the episode two, they showhim actually winning the White
House.
Um, Conkling is super pissedoff, so he tries to do
everything he can to stop uh hispicks for a cabinet.
SPEAKER_00 (15:30):
Is Conkling just wanting to stop uh Garfield
because Garfield is running onthe like anti-corruption side?
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
Yeah, Conkling feels like they do the pretty good
accurate portrayal of him hereas far as he owns the New York
ports.
He wants his continuing fundingwhile also being like super
powerful dude who kind of pullsthe strings everywhere.
He does the stupidest thing,which is announced in the book,
which where he was like, My planis to go into the Senate and
freak everybody else out byquitting.
(15:58):
And as soon as I quit, everybodywill throw their hands in the
air and they won't know what todo and they'll welcome me back.
And the exact opposite happens.
He walks in there, he quits, andeverybody laughs.
That's the way it's said in thebook.
They kind of do that in the TVseries, but they also try to add
some more like crazy stuff withthe affair that he's having with
this other chick.
She's famous, but she's notreally talked about too much in
(16:20):
the book.
And then uh in the second, yeah,so in the second episode, you
watch um him get his cabinet,Garfield get his cabinet
together and Gateau do somestupid stuff.
And then episode three calledCassis Beli, which I had to look
up, but that's like the causefor stuff, like the reason why
Gateau would have killed him.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (16:37):
Yeah, so the uh the there was like this big article.
I think that they like did 10different camera setups and they
were talking a lot about thescene between Gateau and
Garfield.
I'm not sure if it ever actuallyhappened in real life.
There's only one time in theshow where they actually like
sit down and speak to.
Right.
And it's the speech, and I thinkGateau says something like um,
like a teach me or something.
(16:59):
And that was supposed to be likea really big scene.
Like I think the editors weretalking about comparing it to Al
Pacino and Robert De Niro andHeat.
SPEAKER_01 (17:06):
Well, I can understand that that is the
gravitas of those two actorstrying to, in a way, show
Garfield at his best while alsokind of making it so that Gateau
hates him, you know?
And it's very hard to do.
So I can understand why.
And also, I don't think there'smuch written.
I do think that Garfield andGateau had spoken because
(17:28):
Garfield would take theseappointments at his uh at the
White House every single day andspend hours and hours and hours
waiting on the common man to popup and say, Hey, I want a
position here at the WhiteHouse.
SPEAKER_00 (17:39):
It is so insane because I know around that time
they didn't have as muchsecurity.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
So the fact that Garfield, Garfield would just
walk into these rooms.
Right.
That's why it's called Death byLightning.
It's not because he was likegoing around with Benjamin
Franklin's kite, it's because hesays in the show, like, you're
more likely to get struck bylightning than getting shot.
It's just part of the job orbeing famous, like that's why he
just walked around like normal.
It wasn't until like McKinleybefore they started giving
(18:05):
people uh bodyguards and stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
One of my questions was why do you think the name
changed?
So that makes more sense.
Which name?
From of the from the uhbiography or from the book to
the TV series.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (18:16):
So yeah, that third episode is where they meet.
And then by now I'm kind of kindof getting a little uh anxious
because I'm like, when are yougonna shoot him?
Like, when are we going to seethe substantive part of the
book, which I think was how thedoctors treated Garfield, which
was horribly, but also I wasjust waiting for that Dr.
Death uh scenario where we watcha good amount of time where he
(18:38):
the reason the air conditionergot its like kickstart into
becoming a thing was because inWashington it was incredibly
hot.
So when he got shot in thesummer and they needed to keep
his body cooler, they brought inlike naval officers or like
engineers to come in and try to,with these huge blocks of ice,
create a mechanism with fans tolower the temperature.
(19:00):
That would have that would havebeen cool to see.
And then they like cordon cordcordoned him off to like the
small little piece of the WhiteHouse where his doctor, who is
horrible, just said no one'sallowed to speak to him and he's
not allowed to talk at allbecause it'll hurt his diaphragm
(19:20):
or something.
It's it's a crazy story andreally worth the the read.
Um, but they do show aconsolidated like spark notes
form of it where he's being cutinto to like relieve the pus
that was coming out of his bodyand stuff.
But that's all in episode fourafter we see him shot.
I think the actual shooting theydid pretty well.
It came out of nowhere when hewas walking to the train.
SPEAKER_00 (19:41):
Right.
It was it was shocking.
And then like he checks his arm,right?
Because he was shot in the armfirst.
SPEAKER_01 (19:45):
That's all true too, except I think he screams when
he gets shot in the arm.
Like he's like, what the?
SPEAKER_00 (19:49):
And then like Oh, it wasn't just it wasn't just
realizing that bullet hole wasin a suitcase in front of him.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
No, that was giving him a little bit more credit
than him realizing that hehadn't been shot once
beforehand.
Um, I don't think it stayed inhis body, though, like the other
bullet.
SPEAKER_00 (20:01):
Yeah, no, I think it showed in the TV series that
grazed him.
SPEAKER_01 (20:04):
So yeah.
Um, yeah, so then I think Gateaugets arrested in episode four,
almost immediately after heshoots him.
The crowd is trying to hang him.
That's why he has to be sentdirectly to jail.
And then when they take him tojail and they're admitting him,
that's when they find out thatno one had taken the gun from
him.
But in the show, they make acomedy moment where uh he
literally takes the gun out.
(20:25):
And he's just like, you shouldhave this.
SPEAKER_00 (20:26):
That that that broke me in the sense of like my
suspension and disbelief becauseeven though I don't, I didn't
read the book, I knew that thatwas fake.
My question is is that afterGateau shot him, it seemed like
he ran out the building for likea quick second.
And it made me think were thewas the show trying to say that
like at very, very first, he wasjust wanting to like get away
from the car.
SPEAKER_01 (20:45):
Oh, absolutely.
If he could have gotten out ofthere, I'm sure he would have.
But as soon as he saw the crowdforming and he the officers
quarantined him for his ownsafety, um, the crowd was
literally about to lynch thedude.
Like everybody was so concernedabout Garfield and was like, he
killed the president.
Um, but at the same time, it wasweird because Gateau thought he
(21:06):
was telling the police, and wedidn't see this in the show, to
like send messages to othergenerals because he didn't just
say, Oh, Chester Arthur's gonnabe president, my best friend.
He said, like, bring them here,bring the generals here and
they'll free me.
Like he was gonna work.
I I guess so.
He thought that he was gonna bethe hero of the day once people
realized what happened.
(21:26):
Other things we didn't get tosee in the show, which I was
disappointed at, was like hiskids finding out because they in
real life, what they did wasthat his two little youngest
were like on a train.
Yeah, uh, were on a train, andthe whole world, the whole uh
United States, obviously peoplewere running through the
streets.
It was their 9-11 at the time.
(21:48):
It was just like, oh no, again,like Abraham Lincoln, people
were freaking out.
But this train, as it would gostation to station, even though
everybody was aware of it,everyone outside was told, don't
make a fuss.
Don't make it obvious thatanything is wrong.
And they did, didn't.
Um, and so that was something Iwas waiting to see in the show.
We never got to see it.
Also, his wife speeding to go gouh meet her husband.
(22:12):
They do show her traveling, butthey never show the fact that
her um train almost gotderailed.
Like literally, that's how itwas going.
Well, it was an express trainbecause they wanted to get her
there fast and they weren't sureif he was gonna die that day.
One of the books lines that theydid put in the TV series was
like, You have a one out of ahundred shot, uh, and he was
(22:32):
like, Let's make that one shotcount.
Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna takethat chance.
Yeah, no, that was directlylifted from the pages, so I like
that.
But um, when she was comingover, the guy was going too fast
around one of the corners andripped up the whole track.
And the yeah, it was a miraclethat she survived.
Um, so there's just so muchstuff that I wish they'd
included, but the stuff thatthey did for the most part, I
(22:54):
was very okay with.
Um, and and so I I've got like amixed opinion on the show.
SPEAKER_00 (22:58):
From what I understand, it was like when it
came to the broad strokes,really the show was uh by and
large pretty accurate.
But when it got to the details,and I'm not just saying this
from your review, I'm justsaying this from like a kind of
everyone's point of view.
When it got to the details,that's really when the show
wasn't correct.
Is that fair?
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
Well, that is fair.
Also, I can understand why theydidn't include to you didn't
necessarily need to have the uhAlexander Graham Bell thing, and
you did show him in a cameo, butI think the metal detector
storyline would have been reallyinteresting to hone in on.
Uh I think the fan thing thatyou were talking about would
have been interesting to see aswell.
So many hidden facts like thefact that Abe Lincoln's kid was
(23:37):
present during uh hisassassination, then McKingley's
assassination.
SPEAKER_00 (23:41):
The only one three different presidents.
SPEAKER_01 (23:43):
Yeah, the only person who's ever had that uh uh
afforded to them probablyscarred him for life.
He would have needed therapy.
Um but so I overall I think Isaid it's a 65% accuracy.
I would give the show a six outof ten.
SPEAKER_00 (23:59):
Um six out of ten.
So it still passes for the yeah,and it there wasn't like one
episode to you that like reallywas better than any of the
others.
SPEAKER_01 (24:06):
Would you say I think every episode had a moment
that I liked?
Uh again, uh Betty Gilpin'sending in episode four.
I think episode one with the uhwith the count.
Um, I think episode three withthe beginning part where Gateau
was being shamed by everybody.
I think they did a good job withthat.
Episode two, I think even withConkling, when he decided to
(24:29):
turn and help uh Garfield withhis presidency, I thought that
was pretty neat too.
So yeah, there was good scenesand then there were bad scenes.
And altogether, I think the showis is worthy.
It's okay.
SPEAKER_00 (24:40):
I know that David Benioff and D.B.
Wise were actually executiveproducers for this, just like uh
because of the dragon side.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (24:47):
Well, no, but because of the uh the deal that
they signed back in 2019.
But does the name Matt Ross, whodirected all four episodes, mean
anything to you?
Why should it?
Because he's Gavin Belson inSilicon Valley, but he's
actually directed a lot.
He even directed the CaptainFantastic movie back in 2016.
Overall, though the TV serieshas gone good reviews as a 7.8
(25:08):
on IMDB, 91% on Rotten Tomatoes,89% audience score.
Forbes called it Netflix's bestnews show.
And then there was a USA Todaythat said that the show simply
is something that you cannotmiss.
But then you also have placeslike A B Club that gave the
series as a whole C.
SPEAKER_01 (25:27):
Yeah.
Like there were some strange uhthings that they decided to
throw in there, like PTSD shotsof him during the war, um, a
scene with him with hisdaughter, uh Garfield's daughter
stepping in and fighting forChinese immigrants.
Like it was just kind of likerandom stuff that instead of
seeing the background ofGarfield like almost drowning
and deciding to change his wholelife towards politics, things
(25:50):
that you would have thoughtwould like gear this guy more
towards like his future, uh,they decided to just kind of
weed out and include and includeother things.
SPEAKER_00 (25:59):
I know you said it, but it's for to me like when I
saw four episodes and I saw howmuch like it seemed like they
were kind of filling it withfiller, I was just like, why
make it so short?
SPEAKER_01 (26:09):
Yeah, I mean they didn't his private secretary has
a thing going on with hisdaughter, which uh they know
they don't do really too muchbackground with.
His mom is a giant part of hislife, and she's alive at this
point.
And I think she even lives inthe White House, and I don't
think we ever really see hercharacter at all.
Um, and yeah, again, uh ToddLincoln, um, that kid, uh, you
(26:32):
got other doctors.
They consolidated all thedoctors.
Um, there was one, the Bliss guywas the most evil of them all,
but like there was a whole teamthat they had there.
They sped through the autopsy.
Um, I'm highlighting on thethings it didn't do, but it did,
like you said, get the broadstrokes right.
So it's I we could do this allday going back and forth on that
(26:55):
type of stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
Okay, so six out of 10 from you again, 7.8 on IMDB.
That's about all I have.
All right.
Well, thanks for listening.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Hope you enjoyed this one.
Bye.
Bye.
Welcome to today's episode, the podcast, where we
discuss the most recentinstallments of a different
series every show.
Today is Friday, November 14th.
Thanksgiving is around thecorner, but today is actually a
pretty important day in history.
It's the day that Charles J.
Gateau was put on trial for theassassination of U.S.
President James Garfield back in1881.
Yeah, he didn't die until thefollowing year, right?
(00:36):
1882.
James Garfield?
James Garfield was dead bySeptember.
I'm talking about Gateau.
Oh, Gateau, he was hanged, yeah,some point the next year.
Uh he pled insanity, and theywere not buying that in the
court system.
However, other people had gottenaway with insanity.
Uh uh it's the fact that I thinkhe represented himself.
And so it's like it's reallyhard to represent yourself and
say, I'm sane now, but a couplemonths back, you know, I just
(00:58):
got a few loose screws.
However, he did have somedoctors that supported that
claim.
His sister tried to approach thewidow uh of James Garfield and
get her to come to his defense.
She did not like that.
Um, and so they didn't reallytalk about that in Death by
Lightning.
We didn't see the trial.
We we kind of glossed through alot of the stuff post-Garfield
getting shot, which I was alittle disappointed by.
SPEAKER_00 (01:20):
Well, he also the brain, right?
They tried to like look at hisbrain to see if he was insane uh
years later.
SPEAKER_01 (01:26):
Once Gateau was dead, they cut him open and just
like CTE, they were looking forsigns that maybe crazy existed.
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
I know the creator of this TV show actually saw the
brain in real life while he waswriting it.
He spent some hours with it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
Okay.
I I don't know why he would haveneeded to do that, but they do
say it in the book.
So this is all based on thedestiny of the republic, the
full title being A Tale ofMadness, Medicine, and the
Murder of a President.
I read it.
I would highly recommend it.
You not only get the story ofGateau and Garfield, but you
also get Alexander Graham Belland the Science of the Time, the
(02:00):
Gilded Age, you get post-uhreconstruction.
Like it's just a full-out, morefleshed out story, which I think
deserved more than what thisNetflix show gave it.
I'm not saying the Netflix showis bad.
I would still show it to kids ina classroom setting, think it
gets like 65% of the stuffright.
People will walk away with moreknowledge than I knew about uh
(02:21):
Garfield when I took highschool.
Uh, you would have asked meabout Garfield a few weeks ago,
and I would have been like,that's just the cat.
SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
If you remember when we did the Manhunt podcast, I uh
I was trying to list all thepresidents and orders.
I stopped at Rutherford B.
Hayes.
Then you just got stuck there?
Yeah, I got stuck there.
SPEAKER_01 (02:37):
Okay, so from now to from Hayes onward, go ahead and
do it right now.
SPEAKER_00 (02:40):
Okay, well, the next one was James Garfield.
Uh-huh.
Uh Chester Arthur after that,Grover Cleveland, Benjamin
Harrison, Grover Cleveland, andthen I get can I suck here?
McKinley, Roosevelt, and thenTaft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G.
Harding, Calvin Coolidge,Herbert Hoover, uh, and then
after that was FDR.
After FDR was uh Harry S.
(03:01):
Truman, then it went to uhDwight D.
Eisenhower, John F.
Kennedy, Lyndon Baines, Johnson,Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan,
George H.W.
Bush, Clinton, George W.
Bush, Obama, and then Trump,Biden, Trump.
Cool.
Ever since that has happened,I've I've been trying to get it
down, and yeah, I think I thinkI finally got it.
SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
So good job.
Um, so what's your favoritepresident out of the ones you
just said?
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Uh well, I do like Taft because I I know that like
uh his bathtub?
Yeah, the bathtub.
That's the one fact that I knowabout.
SPEAKER_01 (03:35):
I heard that he was a bad president, but that he was
good in the Supreme Court orwherever he went next.
Um yeah, it's funny because that1880s period or like around the
1800s post-Civil War, I knewthat Grant was really corrupt,
but this actually gives you somereason as to why he was corrupt.
The people who surrounded him,Conkling, Roscoe Conkling, he
plays the villain in this show.
We get more backstory with him.
(03:56):
We also learn how he dies.
They kind of say it in the showat the very end.
They say he died in a blizzard,but in the book they give more
understanding.
He was like a fitness guru backthen.
He believed in keeping his bodyin in shape.
He would have a YouTube channelthat was just about getting
gains.
Yeah, that would be him today.
But he got stuck in a snowstormand he decided to just walk it
off.
Like he was just gonna walkright through it and he
(04:17):
survived, and then like a weeklater, he died of like pneumonia
or something.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, because they say in the show it's just a
quick sentence, but it seemslike there was a lot more to his
death.
SPEAKER_01 (04:25):
He's also actually a bigger villain in the show than
he is in the book.
He's about one-fourth of whatthe rest of like the doctors are
the big villains in the book.
Gateau is obviously a villain inthe book.
Conkling would be probably belike one of the offshoots
villains.
Chester Arthur was notrepresented really as a villain
at all.
He does have a 180-degree turnfrom what he was doing with
(04:47):
Conkling, because he was part ofthat whole system, the spoil
system, which was started byAndrew Jackson.
Was that like trying to getmoney into politics?
The idea was that if your partywon, then you reap the spoils of
that.
You are able to basically giveall your friends positions
rather than people of merit.
And so Garfield came in on ananti-corruption policy.
He was that was part of thereason why he was able to sway
(05:08):
the crowd in 1880.
Um, the first episode, I think,does both a good and bad job of
representing Garfield.
I feel like who plays Garfieldin this?
SPEAKER_00 (05:18):
Michael Shannon.
SPEAKER_01 (05:19):
Yes, the man from Ohio, he's at the Republican
convention and they condense hisspeech because he's supposed to
be endorsing Sherman for thenext president.
This is after Hayes, right?
Right.
And the Republican RepublicanParty has had a stranglehold on
the entire presidencies sinceLincoln.
Now he was the first Republican,and uh it's because no one wants
(05:39):
to be associated with the Southand the Democrats, they've been
able to hold power even despiteGrant's uh clear corrupt
surrounding.
So Grant is actually also up tobecome president's the nominee
again.
Um, and it's up to really thespeech that uh Garfield gives,
which turns everybody'sattention toward him rather than
(06:00):
any other candidate.
And it takes 36 votes, but bythe end of that convention, he
is the candidate for president.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
Well, my question is I was wondering if the book
talked about this because uhyeah, Garfield, he gives the
speech, and then it seemed like,at least in the TV show, at the
very, very end, like it's aquick sentence about how he's uh
obviously talking about Sherman,but it seemed like it almost
from the way that they did it inthe show, he was talking about
himself and then kind of decidedat the last minute to be like,
(06:26):
oh yeah, I'm talking aboutSherman.
I was wondering if the book iflike it possibly could have been
the speech that he was given, hewas like trying to put himself
up there.
SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
So a couple things with that is A, I think that the
book is definitely trying toprove the point that Garfield
was a great guy, but not justbecause he was like this
grounded dude, but because hewas super smart.
It goes through his life fromhis dad dying when he was a kid
to him actually questioning hisown mortality.
He was super smart when he wentto college after almost
(06:55):
drowning.
He decided to change his wholelife and he became like a union
general.
But when he was in college, heactually took over the school by
like his fourth year orsomething.
He became the president of thecollege.
Like he was he was a bright guy.
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
So many historians say he would have been an
amazing president, great publicspeaker.
A lot of people liked him.
SPEAKER_01 (07:13):
You look in the past and you look at his opinions,
and you're just like, okay, hewasn't a racist.
That's a huge win for back inthe day.
SPEAKER_00 (07:20):
Because even when you're talking about presidents
that people would probably putin the S tier, even like George
Washington had George Washingtoneven had like slaves, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
Of course, but that was even earlier.
So, but like in the 1880s, hedid run on this progressive
agenda and he was putting theright people in, and Conkling
was coming out trying to stophim.
I just feel that the way thathe's represented in the show is
too much like, oh, he neverwanted to run.
He's so humble, and that we'dnever see sort of his humor.
(07:50):
We never see how cool he is.
SPEAKER_00 (07:52):
That's interesting to me because so many people
talked about how there is comedyin this TV series.
And I feel like, especially forsuch like a dramatic retelling
of it, that they maybe shouldhave cut it out.
But you're saying that it waslike that you didn't get a lot
of that?
SPEAKER_01 (08:07):
I feel like they simplified him and they tried to
give Gateau too much of aleeway.
They gave Matthew McFadden toomuch r room to run with because
they wanted to make hischaracter a lot like Tom from
Succession, where he was justlike, What about me?
You know, like that sort ofthing.
SPEAKER_00 (08:21):
One word when I think about Tom, which is smar
me.
Smart me, but like weirdlylikable.
And I agree with you.
Whenever I saw Matthew McFadden,it just was too closely aligned
with his other character.
SPEAKER_01 (08:30):
In the book, he was not likable at all.
Gateau was like, he's a crazydude, and he just was so full of
himself.
And there just wasn't that muchdecency.
But in this, they go out of histheir way to show like multiple
scenes of trying to make peoplesympathize.
SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
He's like hanging out with like Chester Arthur,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (08:48):
He makes best friends with the VP in this.
He he hangs out with in the TVseries.
He hangs out with Lucretia,people that he never met, or if
they met them, it was passing.
It was not like they hung out,like you said, with Chester
Arthur for a full night out.
SPEAKER_00 (09:04):
No historical yeah, no historical records say that
that actually happened.
SPEAKER_01 (09:08):
He did like accost, I guess, the White House staff,
uh, got kicked out of there.
Everybody knew he was crazy,dude.
Um, it's but it was stillobviously a very big surprise
when he decided to buy a gun andthen shoot the president.
He says that he did it becausehe had a dream one day that
things would be better if he didso.
But this is the same guy who gotkicked out of a sex cult because
(09:29):
no one wanted to have sex withhim.
SPEAKER_00 (09:31):
Like it's guys, yeah, it's gonna seem very
weird.
SPEAKER_01 (09:34):
They start that off in the third episode.
I thought that was probably hisbest definitive part of his
performance because it was trueand it didn't feel like we were
just paying it lip service.
Um, I if they had done lessshoehorning of his character and
made it more about this is astory about Garfield, this
little teeny guy whoassassinated or like shot him,
and then we also spread itaround to Alexander Graham Bell,
(09:57):
and we also talked about likeJames Lister.
I think his name is JamesLister, but the the science dude
who was like progressivelytrying to put antiseptic into
the mythology of uh of doctorsat that point.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
And that's always what I feel like is kind of the
problem with with these uhretellings to have like A-list
cast members.
Because sure, you get like BettyGelpin or you get Nick Offerman.
A lot of these people, like Ithink Nick Offerman, uh like
Civil War, a lot of these peoplelike to do the political TV
shows, but then it seems likethe script is almost doing a
disservice to what it's actuallyabout because you're trying to
give these like talented actorslike their big part in the show.
SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
I I completely agree with you.
I would say that Shea Wiggum andBradley Whitford, yeah, A plus
performances.
I enjoyed Conkling, even thoughthey like made him a bigger
deal.
I I really enjoyed BradleyWhitford playing sort of Blaine
the Secretary of State.
I think he embraced thatcharacter rather well.
Nick Offerman and MichaelShannon, solid performances.
They were just written in a waywhere I feel like they could
(10:56):
have Michael Shannon wasn'tgiven enough to do, and Chester
Arthur was given too much.
I only needed one scene reallyat the end to show him so sad
about the president's death orthat he was shot and really
wanting to change his whole lifeup until then had been let me be
a corrupt lawyer dude who worksfor Conkling and endorses a
(11:17):
spoil system, to turning aboutface and saying, I am going to
try to be the best presidentpossible.
It is the most uh courageouslike move that he could have
done.
But because of that, they spentfour episodes trying to pre-show
that.
They tried to like really,really endorse that idea with
Nick Offerman.
They were spoon feeding thatmessage to you and they were
(11:37):
doing doing it with the subtletyof a sledgehammer.
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
Right.
No, I know.
He he sometimes would just saystraight out what his objective
was.
SPEAKER_01 (11:43):
It was fun to watch, though.
So that's why his and then thesame with Gilpin.
I feel like um her portrayal ofuh the relationship of Garfield
and Lucretia, it's true that shegot sick during his time.
Uh, she was very supportive.
They were in love by the timethat he was president, but very
early on in their relationship,I think the time that they had
their first daughter, they werenot on good points.
(12:06):
Like I think he even said it wasa mistake to marry her.
He had an affair.
She stuck with him through it.
So it they gave her some of hisactual lines, like they lifted
lines from the books and had hersaying them.
And the I would say the mostegregious it got was at the end
when she shows up to see Gateauat before he's hanged, which
(12:26):
never happened in real life.
And I was going to go off abouthow much I hated that because
that like completelymanufactured history, almost as
bad as when Chester Arthur triedto resign in this show.
Yeah, right.
I don't think that ever happenedin real life.
Um but then I I forgave it.
I forgave the show for the BettyGilpin because of Betty Gelpin.
She did such a great job, andshe did what I think the book
(12:48):
was trying to do without juststraight out saying it, which
was you guys have learnedhistory, and you've learned
about respecting Lincoln and thefounding fathers.
And this dude deserved so muchrespect, and he's never, ever,
ever going to get it.
And so she kind of broke thefourth wall and just kind of
said that straight out.
(13:08):
And it's your fault, Gateau.
And I I actually usually I hatethose type of lines, but I think
her acting was the thing thatreally brought it over the edge.
And like that deserved to be inthe show.
So that went from being a realbig con to being a pro in the
fact that it wasn't actuallytrue to history.
SPEAKER_00 (13:24):
Is the last episode really the only one that has
plot to it?
Because I'm assuming the firstepisode ends with Michael
Shannon getting or uh No, let'sgo through the episodes real
quick.
SPEAKER_01 (13:33):
So episode one is called The Man from Ohio, and we
focus on the 1880 Republicanconvention.
He comes in there, Garfieldcomes in there, he's supposed to
be endorsing Sherman.
He has a breach of consciousnesswhere he he feels like he has to
give this long speech.
They condense it severely toomuch in the show because for you
to be believable that everybodywould turn around and make you
president, you would think thatit would take more than a minute
(13:55):
with swelling music in thebackground.
But there was a guy who yelledout, We want you.
SPEAKER_00 (14:00):
So that was straight from the book.
Because they they shot thatspeech twice, and that was
supposed to be like a big day.
SPEAKER_01 (14:06):
I think that the creator said that was the
biggest day that I could tellthey wanted it to be a moment,
and Michael Shannon's deliveryof it didn't to me feel like it
was all that good.
Episode two, oh, one last thingabout that is they put Gateau in
at in that scene at the very endwhen um uh Garfield is leaving
to get in the carriage to goback home or whatever, and he's
kind of stunned uh at what'sjust occurred, and he's like,
(14:29):
Congratulations! And it's likethat, you never met Gateau that
early.
I really wish they had almostnot had Gateau in two episodes
and introduced him in episodethree.
I feel like that would have beena better way and really
highlighted the fact thatGarfield like has passed and and
gone into Alexander Graham Bell,um, Joseph Lister, not James
Lister.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (14:48):
I didn't I didn't see the full show, but I did
think that after the speech,when it started to come down to
them counting, I thought thatthat segment of it was was
pretty interesting.
Probably, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:57):
One of my favorite parts of the series uh was the
when they represented the 36 uhvotes that they had to do um the
over and over and over and overagain, and how it started off
with just one person.
SPEAKER_00 (15:08):
And then he ended up switching.
So the second time he likeswitched, right?
And then he went to the city.
SPEAKER_01 (15:12):
Because Garfield asked him not to vote for him,
and then by the end, everybodywas like, We don't care if you
want it, man.
You're getting our nomination.
Uh, the episode two, they showhim actually winning the White
House.
Um, Conkling is super pissedoff, so he tries to do
everything he can to stop uh hispicks for a cabinet.
SPEAKER_00 (15:30):
Is Conkling just wanting to stop uh Garfield
because Garfield is running onthe like anti-corruption side?
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
Yeah, Conkling feels like they do the pretty good
accurate portrayal of him hereas far as he owns the New York
ports.
He wants his continuing fundingwhile also being like super
powerful dude who kind of pullsthe strings everywhere.
He does the stupidest thing,which is announced in the book,
which where he was like, My planis to go into the Senate and
freak everybody else out byquitting.
(15:58):
And as soon as I quit, everybodywill throw their hands in the
air and they won't know what todo and they'll welcome me back.
And the exact opposite happens.
He walks in there, he quits, andeverybody laughs.
That's the way it's said in thebook.
They kind of do that in the TVseries, but they also try to add
some more like crazy stuff withthe affair that he's having with
this other chick.
She's famous, but she's notreally talked about too much in
(16:20):
the book.
And then uh in the second, yeah,so in the second episode, you
watch um him get his cabinet,Garfield get his cabinet
together and Gateau do somestupid stuff.
And then episode three calledCassis Beli, which I had to look
up, but that's like the causefor stuff, like the reason why
Gateau would have killed him.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (16:37):
Yeah, so the uh the there was like this big article.
I think that they like did 10different camera setups and they
were talking a lot about thescene between Gateau and
Garfield.
I'm not sure if it ever actuallyhappened in real life.
There's only one time in theshow where they actually like
sit down and speak to.
Right.
And it's the speech, and I thinkGateau says something like um,
like a teach me or something.
(16:59):
And that was supposed to be likea really big scene.
Like I think the editors weretalking about comparing it to Al
Pacino and Robert De Niro andHeat.
SPEAKER_01 (17:06):
Well, I can understand that that is the
gravitas of those two actorstrying to, in a way, show
Garfield at his best while alsokind of making it so that Gateau
hates him, you know?
And it's very hard to do.
So I can understand why.
And also, I don't think there'smuch written.
I do think that Garfield andGateau had spoken because
(17:28):
Garfield would take theseappointments at his uh at the
White House every single day andspend hours and hours and hours
waiting on the common man to popup and say, Hey, I want a
position here at the WhiteHouse.
SPEAKER_00 (17:39):
It is so insane because I know around that time
they didn't have as muchsecurity.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
So the fact that Garfield, Garfield would just
walk into these rooms.
Right.
That's why it's called Death byLightning.
It's not because he was likegoing around with Benjamin
Franklin's kite, it's because hesays in the show, like, you're
more likely to get struck bylightning than getting shot.
It's just part of the job orbeing famous, like that's why he
just walked around like normal.
It wasn't until like McKinleybefore they started giving
(18:05):
people uh bodyguards and stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
One of my questions was why do you think the name
changed?
So that makes more sense.
Which name?
From of the from the uhbiography or from the book to
the TV series.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (18:16):
So yeah, that third episode is where they meet.
And then by now I'm kind of kindof getting a little uh anxious
because I'm like, when are yougonna shoot him?
Like, when are we going to seethe substantive part of the
book, which I think was how thedoctors treated Garfield, which
was horribly, but also I wasjust waiting for that Dr.
Death uh scenario where we watcha good amount of time where he
(18:38):
the reason the air conditionergot its like kickstart into
becoming a thing was because inWashington it was incredibly
hot.
So when he got shot in thesummer and they needed to keep
his body cooler, they brought inlike naval officers or like
engineers to come in and try to,with these huge blocks of ice,
create a mechanism with fans tolower the temperature.
(19:00):
That would have that would havebeen cool to see.
And then they like cordon cordcordoned him off to like the
small little piece of the WhiteHouse where his doctor, who is
horrible, just said no one'sallowed to speak to him and he's
not allowed to talk at allbecause it'll hurt his diaphragm
(19:20):
or something.
It's it's a crazy story andreally worth the the read.
Um, but they do show aconsolidated like spark notes
form of it where he's being cutinto to like relieve the pus
that was coming out of his bodyand stuff.
But that's all in episode fourafter we see him shot.
I think the actual shooting theydid pretty well.
It came out of nowhere when hewas walking to the train.
SPEAKER_00 (19:41):
Right.
It was it was shocking.
And then like he checks his arm,right?
Because he was shot in the armfirst.
SPEAKER_01 (19:45):
That's all true too, except I think he screams when
he gets shot in the arm.
Like he's like, what the?
SPEAKER_00 (19:49):
And then like Oh, it wasn't just it wasn't just
realizing that bullet hole wasin a suitcase in front of him.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
No, that was giving him a little bit more credit
than him realizing that hehadn't been shot once
beforehand.
Um, I don't think it stayed inhis body, though, like the other
bullet.
SPEAKER_00 (20:01):
Yeah, no, I think it showed in the TV series that
grazed him.
SPEAKER_01 (20:04):
So yeah.
Um, yeah, so then I think Gateaugets arrested in episode four,
almost immediately after heshoots him.
The crowd is trying to hang him.
That's why he has to be sentdirectly to jail.
And then when they take him tojail and they're admitting him,
that's when they find out thatno one had taken the gun from
him.
But in the show, they make acomedy moment where uh he
literally takes the gun out.
(20:25):
And he's just like, you shouldhave this.
SPEAKER_00 (20:26):
That that that broke me in the sense of like my
suspension and disbelief becauseeven though I don't, I didn't
read the book, I knew that thatwas fake.
My question is is that afterGateau shot him, it seemed like
he ran out the building for likea quick second.
And it made me think were thewas the show trying to say that
like at very, very first, he wasjust wanting to like get away
from the car.
SPEAKER_01 (20:45):
Oh, absolutely.
If he could have gotten out ofthere, I'm sure he would have.
But as soon as he saw the crowdforming and he the officers
quarantined him for his ownsafety, um, the crowd was
literally about to lynch thedude.
Like everybody was so concernedabout Garfield and was like, he
killed the president.
Um, but at the same time, it wasweird because Gateau thought he
(21:06):
was telling the police, and wedidn't see this in the show, to
like send messages to othergenerals because he didn't just
say, Oh, Chester Arthur's gonnabe president, my best friend.
He said, like, bring them here,bring the generals here and
they'll free me.
Like he was gonna work.
I I guess so.
He thought that he was gonna bethe hero of the day once people
realized what happened.
(21:26):
Other things we didn't get tosee in the show, which I was
disappointed at, was like hiskids finding out because they in
real life, what they did wasthat his two little youngest
were like on a train.
Yeah, uh, were on a train, andthe whole world, the whole uh
United States, obviously peoplewere running through the
streets.
It was their 9-11 at the time.
(21:48):
It was just like, oh no, again,like Abraham Lincoln, people
were freaking out.
But this train, as it would gostation to station, even though
everybody was aware of it,everyone outside was told, don't
make a fuss.
Don't make it obvious thatanything is wrong.
And they did, didn't.
Um, and so that was something Iwas waiting to see in the show.
We never got to see it.
Also, his wife speeding to go gouh meet her husband.
(22:12):
They do show her traveling, butthey never show the fact that
her um train almost gotderailed.
Like literally, that's how itwas going.
Well, it was an express trainbecause they wanted to get her
there fast and they weren't sureif he was gonna die that day.
One of the books lines that theydid put in the TV series was
like, You have a one out of ahundred shot, uh, and he was
(22:32):
like, Let's make that one shotcount.
Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna takethat chance.
Yeah, no, that was directlylifted from the pages, so I like
that.
But um, when she was comingover, the guy was going too fast
around one of the corners andripped up the whole track.
And the yeah, it was a miraclethat she survived.
Um, so there's just so muchstuff that I wish they'd
included, but the stuff thatthey did for the most part, I
(22:54):
was very okay with.
Um, and and so I I've got like amixed opinion on the show.
SPEAKER_00 (22:58):
From what I understand, it was like when it
came to the broad strokes,really the show was uh by and
large pretty accurate.
But when it got to the details,and I'm not just saying this
from your review, I'm justsaying this from like a kind of
everyone's point of view.
When it got to the details,that's really when the show
wasn't correct.
Is that fair?
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
Well, that is fair.
Also, I can understand why theydidn't include to you didn't
necessarily need to have the uhAlexander Graham Bell thing, and
you did show him in a cameo, butI think the metal detector
storyline would have been reallyinteresting to hone in on.
Uh I think the fan thing thatyou were talking about would
have been interesting to see aswell.
So many hidden facts like thefact that Abe Lincoln's kid was
(23:37):
present during uh hisassassination, then McKingley's
assassination.
SPEAKER_00 (23:41):
The only one three different presidents.
SPEAKER_01 (23:43):
Yeah, the only person who's ever had that uh uh
afforded to them probablyscarred him for life.
He would have needed therapy.
Um but so I overall I think Isaid it's a 65% accuracy.
I would give the show a six outof ten.
SPEAKER_00 (23:59):
Um six out of ten.
So it still passes for the yeah,and it there wasn't like one
episode to you that like reallywas better than any of the
others.
SPEAKER_01 (24:06):
Would you say I think every episode had a moment
that I liked?
Uh again, uh Betty Gilpin'sending in episode four.
I think episode one with the uhwith the count.
Um, I think episode three withthe beginning part where Gateau
was being shamed by everybody.
I think they did a good job withthat.
Episode two, I think even withConkling, when he decided to
(24:29):
turn and help uh Garfield withhis presidency, I thought that
was pretty neat too.
So yeah, there was good scenesand then there were bad scenes.
And altogether, I think the showis is worthy.
It's okay.
SPEAKER_00 (24:40):
I know that David Benioff and D.B.
Wise were actually executiveproducers for this, just like uh
because of the dragon side.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (24:47):
Well, no, but because of the uh the deal that
they signed back in 2019.
But does the name Matt Ross, whodirected all four episodes, mean
anything to you?
Why should it?
Because he's Gavin Belson inSilicon Valley, but he's
actually directed a lot.
He even directed the CaptainFantastic movie back in 2016.
Overall, though the TV serieshas gone good reviews as a 7.8
(25:08):
on IMDB, 91% on Rotten Tomatoes,89% audience score.
Forbes called it Netflix's bestnews show.
And then there was a USA Todaythat said that the show simply
is something that you cannotmiss.
But then you also have placeslike A B Club that gave the
series as a whole C.
SPEAKER_01 (25:27):
Yeah.
Like there were some strange uhthings that they decided to
throw in there, like PTSD shotsof him during the war, um, a
scene with him with hisdaughter, uh Garfield's daughter
stepping in and fighting forChinese immigrants.
Like it was just kind of likerandom stuff that instead of
seeing the background ofGarfield like almost drowning
and deciding to change his wholelife towards politics, things
(25:50):
that you would have thoughtwould like gear this guy more
towards like his future, uh,they decided to just kind of
weed out and include and includeother things.
SPEAKER_00 (25:59):
I know you said it, but it's for to me like when I
saw four episodes and I saw howmuch like it seemed like they
were kind of filling it withfiller, I was just like, why
make it so short?
SPEAKER_01 (26:09):
Yeah, I mean they didn't his private secretary has
a thing going on with hisdaughter, which uh they know
they don't do really too muchbackground with.
His mom is a giant part of hislife, and she's alive at this
point.
And I think she even lives inthe White House, and I don't
think we ever really see hercharacter at all.
Um, and yeah, again, uh ToddLincoln, um, that kid, uh, you
(26:32):
got other doctors.
They consolidated all thedoctors.
Um, there was one, the Bliss guywas the most evil of them all,
but like there was a whole teamthat they had there.
They sped through the autopsy.
Um, I'm highlighting on thethings it didn't do, but it did,
like you said, get the broadstrokes right.
So it's I we could do this allday going back and forth on that
(26:55):
type of stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
Okay, so six out of 10 from you again, 7.8 on IMDB.
That's about all I have.
All right.
Well, thanks for listening.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Hope you enjoyed this one.
Bye.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com