Watch ‘Death by Lightning’ and Have Something to Talk About With Your Parents This Thanksgiving

Once in a generation, a television series comes along that can serve a greater good. All in the Family raised social consciousness through comedy. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition gave down-on-their-luck Americans a big, beautiful new home (and yes, higher property taxes and huge utility bills). And Netflix’s Death by Lightning just might get you through Thanksgiving with your family.

The limited series about the sudden rise and death of James P. Garfield (not James A. Garfield, Jim Davis’ grandfather for whom he named his animated orange cat) to United States president is highly consumable for two reasons: 1. It is very good. 2. It is all of four episodes long.

Give Death by Lightning a shot — it’ll be a hell of a lot healthier to discuss late 19th-century politics next Thursday than debate the current atmosphere.

Death by Lightning is as appropriately short as was Garfield’s presidency, which lasted just 200 days before he was capped in the back. (Our shortest-tenured POTUS was actually William Henry Harrison, who made it all of 32 days before succumbing to pneumonia.) Garfield (played in the miniseries by Michael Shannon), our second shortest-tenured president, was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), an opportunistic supporter-turned-zealot whose delusional dreams of office — and of a personal friendship with the president — failed to materialize.

The political drama’s bite-size series order makes it both easily bingeable and/or comfortably viewed one episode at a time. And there’s still time! The runtimes rundown: 1. “The Man from Ohio” (52 minutes), 2. “Party Faithful” (47 minutes), 3. “Casus Belli” (47 minutes) and 4. “Destiny of the Republic” (66 minutes).

For some viewers, the limited series may be a bit too limited.

“My ideal version of the show — probably six to eight episodes, lest you think I only complain that TV shows are too long — gets a little more into Garfield’s Civil War experience and the more complicated aspects of his ideology that might have sullied the lower-case ‘p’ progressive identity the series wants to project,” The Hollywood Reporter’s lead TV critic Daniel Fienberg wrote in his review.

Well Dan, Death by Lightning was originally written as six episodes, series creator Mike Makowsky tells THR — but he believes it was only greenlit because it was submitted as four. (Those who can’t get enough olde-timey American-politics TV can flip to PBS for Ken Burns’ 12-hour-long The American Revolution, which premiered this week.)

Even for Fienberg, Death by Lightning was long enough for its talented cast to shine.

“Delivering the story in truncated form in no way detracts from the strong and occasionally deliriously fun performances from Macfadyen, Shannon and the supporting likes of Nick Offerman, Betty Gilpin, Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham,” Fienberg wrote.

Finally, something we can agree on, all of us: Death by Lightning is 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes among both critics and its general audience.

Viewership has been steady — like, as steady as can be. Like, James Garfield-steady.

Death by Lightning premiered as Netflix’s fifth most-watched show for the week beginning Nov. 3, 2025, racking up 3.2 million views over just four days of availability. The following week, in its first full week of availability, it…again ranked fifth, and…again had 3.2 million views.

It’s a good (if not great) start, especially for a biographical series about the 20th president of the United States. The natural demo for a non-contemporary American political drama is not exactly the type to suffer from FOMO — they get to a show when they get to it. Word of mouth is Death by Lightning’s friend.

If your extended family has not yet gotten to it, use my words from your mouth. Or don’t, and suffer your uncle’s views on ICE over apple pie à la mode.

The timing of Death by Lightning’s release was “a happy accident,” Makowsky says. There’s the Thanksgiving-whatever thing, I guess, Makowsky (basically) said about my theory. But to premiere a series ostensibly about political violence in an atmosphere of, well, political violence — and two days after an Election Day — was as fortuitous as it is a sad reality. The climate was not quite the same when, in 2018, Makowsky discovered Death by Lightning’s source material, a book by Candice Millard titled Destiny of the Republic. (Before then, he “had barely heard of James Garfield.” Same, bro.)

Look, Makowsky and Netflix will take all of the promotion they can get for what is sort of a middling hit at this moment. So, sure, recommend Death by Lightning to grandpa, Makowsky says, even if he believes the reason the series works is because it’s specifically not for gramps.

“It was important to me when I was writing the script that it not feel like your grandfather’s period piece,” he told THR. “Once you get past the beards, I truly believe that there is nothing dusty or antiquated about the tragedy of James Garfield.”