The Stranger-Than-Fiction True Story Behind Netflix’s New Star-Studded Historical Miniseries
Netflix's Death by Lightning dramatizes the shocking real-life assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. Long before the term “parasocial relationship” entered common use, there was Charles Guiteau — a failed lawyer, aspiring preacher, and self-declared political influencer who believed he was responsible for Garfield’s election.
After the White House ignored his handwritten letters demanding an ambassadorship to Paris, Guiteau’s obsession escalated to a terrifying climax. In the summer of 1881, he confronted Garfield at a Washington, D.C. train station and shot him in the back, convinced he was saving the Republican Party and perhaps the nation itself.
This bizarre episode, reminiscent of a gripping prestige miniseries about obsession and ego, is brought to life in Netflix’s Death by Lightning. The series offers a darkly humorous character study of delusion and a democracy unraveling.
“Charles Guiteau took his fandom to its logical, horrifying extreme.”
“Netflix’s Death by Lightning resurrects this real-life fever dream of delusion and democracy gone off the rails.”
Executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, known for Game of Thrones, join forces with Mike Makowsky (Bad Education) to examine how one man’s desperate need for recognition and a government position clashed with a political system already decaying from within.
Author’s summary: The miniseries vividly explores James Garfield’s assassination through the warped mind of Charles Guiteau, revealing the dark intersections of obsession, politics, and delusion.