Leave it to Netflix to turn the textbook facts you had to memorize in your U.S. history class into a mini-series you simply can't stop watching, because its latest show, Death By Lightning, is exactly that.
It follows President James Garfield's rise and very tragic end, and sure, we may know exactly how this story is going to go, but all four episodes will have you hooked regardless. At the end of the penultimate episode, we see Charles Guiteau buying a "museum-worthy" gun, setting the stage for the presidential assassination that we all know about today. So what ultimately drove Guiteau to do it, and what happens in the aftermath? Let's get into it.
Why did Guiteau shoot Garfield?
The series started with Guiteau wanting nothing more than to get into Garfield's inner circle, breaking into his inauguration ball and trying to get meetings with the president (which he does manage to do, but totally blows it). The final episode sees Guiteau slip from delusion into murderous compulsion, saying he's been tasked with killing Garfield by god himself. He's convinced that Garfield will take the country into another civil war and that by killing one man, he will save thousands.
He starts stalking Garfield, even sitting directly behind him in church while clutching the gun. But it's famously at a train station where he finally shoots Garfield in the back. Guiteau is caught on site and immediately starts celebrating that VP Chester Arthur will be president now.
Could Garfield have survived the shooting?
The twist that makes the finale all the more tragic is that the bullet didn't kill Garfield—medicine did. Or rather, the lack of it.
Immediately after the shooting, Dr. Charles Puvis, a Black doctor from a nearby hospital, rushes up to help Garfield until the president's official doctor, Willard Bliss, shows up and basically tries to shoo Puvis away. Bliss starts aggressively digging around the wound, trying to find the bullet, and when Puvis warns him about how unsanitary he's being, not using sterilized equipment and all, he dismisses this "new" idea of sanitization as not real science. Bliss then proceeds to wipe his bare, blood-covered hands on his apron that's been god knows where, wipe off his instrument with an old handkerchief from his pocket, and ask if Puvis was happy now. Well, Puvis may not have been, but the germs and bacteria were having a grand old time.
Garfield manages to stay alive for a few months after the shooting, but is bedridden with a clearly infected wound. After he dies, an autopsy finds that the bullet had missed every major organ and that infection (and the doctor's arrogance) is what killed him. Had they just left him alone and not tried to get the bullet out, everything would have been fine.
How does Arthur handle the assassination?
After the shooting, Arthur's guilt is instant and overwhelming – he'd been working against Garfield and talking smack about him in the press, after all. Hearing that Guiteau shot Garfield in his name is just about enough to mentally break him. He makes his way back to Washington (on his own after refusing a ride from Conkling) and is in a full-on panic, saying he doesn't want to become president. It's Lucretia, Garfield's wife, who snaps him out of it with a slap and tells him to get it together. He agrees to change his ways and steps up to the plate.
After Garfield's death, Arthur is sworn in and goes on to serve out the rest of the term, passing major reforms. He then retires and dies the following year.
Does Guiteau get the fame he wanted?
Guiteau's delusions never let up, even telling the cop who transported him to the prison that he could have Arthur name him chief of police. (Arthur has no idea who Guiteau is, BTW.) But once in jail, he seems to hyper-fixate on his own notoriety, doing photoshoots, selling pictures to the press, giving interviews, and planning to meet with publishers about turning his diary into a book. He's even bragging about all the letters he's gotten from supporters.
But it's Lucretia who once again has to come and set a man straight. She meets with Guiteau and makes it incredibly clear to him that she'll make sure he's lost to history, that his book is never published, and that he will be completely and utterly forgotten.
Things are already trending in that direction by the time he's sentenced to be hanged for the murder. On the day of the hanging, Guiteau looks out from the podium at the meager crowd and, in the split second before he's hanged, seems to register that they're not there to support him – they're there because they're angry and want to make sure he dies.
Guiteau's brain is sent for an autopsy, which proves inconclusive, and it's then tucked away in storage, to be forgotten, just like Lucretia wanted.
