{"id":41067,"date":"2026-01-31T09:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=41067"},"modified":"2026-01-31T09:11:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:11:16","slug":"death-by-lightning-2025-written-by-mike-makowski-directed-by-matt-ross-starring-michael-shannon-matthew-macfadyen-nick-offerman-and-betty-gilpin-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=41067","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Death by Lightning&#8221;\u00a0(2025) written by Mike Makowski, directed by Matt Ross, starring Michael Shannon, Matthew Macfadyen, Nick Offerman and Betty Gilpin \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2026\/z013126zview_dbl.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"741\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Death by Lightning<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(2025)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Created by: <strong>Mike Makowsky; <\/strong>based on <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4qKWCcs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE AND THE MURDER OF A PRESIDENT<\/a> by <strong>Candice Millard<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Director:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Matt Ross<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>(Eps. 1-4)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Teleplay:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Mike Makowsky<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>(Eps. 1-4)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Stars: <strong>Matthew Macfadyen, Michael Shannon, Betty Gilpin<\/strong><strong>, Shea Whigham, Bradley Whitford, Nick Offerman, Laura Marcus, David Nykl, Alfie Tempest, Paula Malcomson, Barry Shabaka Henley <\/strong>and <strong>Vondie Curtis-Hall.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Tagline: None.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Plot&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Congressman James Garfield went to the 1880 Republican National Convention to give a nomination speech.\u00a0 Garfield&#8217;s oratory was so powerful that through an unlikely series of events he became the party&#8217;s nominee.\u00a0 Although an underdog, Garfield won the election and became the 20th President of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Guiteau, an ex-con, chronic liar and thief has dreams of glory and fame.\u00a0 Guiteau admires Garfield and feels their destiny&#8217;s are intwined.\u00a0 But they are not.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So Guiteau decides to kill the man he admires.\u00a0 Guiteau shoots Garfield in the back.\u00a0 Garfield is bedridden and in pain for months.\u00a0 Eighty days after being shot he dies.\u00a0 James Garfield was President just 200 days.\u00a0 But his Presidency had a positive impact to this day that few realize.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Charles Guiteau dreamed of fame.\u00a0 He was executed for his crime and is largely forgotten except to historians.<\/p>\n<p>This is their story.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong style=\"font-size: inherit; color: var(--text-color); font-family: var(--text-font);\">Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Death by Lightning<\/em> is an amazing, but true story.\u00a0 Although a dramatization, it sticks very close to the actual events.\u00a0 Kudos to Mike Makowsky,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>who wrote the teleplay for all four episodes, and to Candice Millard who wrote the book which inspired the project.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The cast is amazing.\u00a0 Matthew Macfadyen, Michael Shannon, Betty Gilpin, Shea Whigham, Bradley Whitford and Nick Offerman give performances that deserve awards.\u00a0 They are amazing.\u00a0 It was also nice to see Barry Shabaka Henley and Vondie Curtis-Hall appear.<\/p>\n<p><em>Death by Lightning\u00a0<\/em>gets my highest recommendation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit; color: var(--text-color); font-family: var(--text-font);\"><em><strong>Death by Lightning<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(2025) rates 5 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/logo\/zview_a.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"100\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2026\/z013126zview_dbl2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"280\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Death by Lightning\u00a0(2025) Created by: Mike Makowsky; based on DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE AND THE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61,52,17,51,72,50,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-celebs","category-crime","category-history","category-tv","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41068,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41067\/revisions\/41068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}