What De Niro is to squinting disbelief, or Jack Nicholson to a lascivious grin behind shades, Michael Shannon is to teetering on the edge of self-destruction. Whether playing a maniacally pious prohibition agent in Boardwalk Empire or a husband slowly cracking under apocalyptic visions in Take Shelter, Shannon is a doyen of coiled intensity, those unblinking eyes dilating with a kind of messianic fervour. They’re put to good use in Death by Lightning, Netflix’s handsome new four-part historical drama about two men the world forgot.
Shannon plays James A Garfield, the preacher, lawyer and civil war general who in 1881 reluctantly became the 20th US president. Opposite him, Matthew Macfadyen is Charles Guiteau, the misfit who shot him. Executive produced by Game of Thrones supremos David Benioff and DB Weiss, the series is confident in its skin, a slow-burner with the promise of a fierce flame. Too confident, perhaps. While it’s garnished throughout with nice visual touches, Death by Lightning is not without longueurs: the first episode, in particular, feels a little like sitting through a fusty lecture on the politics of the Gilded Age.
