I haven’t finished the series yet, but Netflix’s Death by Lightning is great fun. The historical drama, with tragicomic elements, is based on Candice Millard’s book Destiny of the Republic. It tells the story of the improbable political rise of James Garfield (played brilliantly by Michael Shannon) to the presidency, along with the equally improbable story of his assassin, Charles Geiteau (even more brilliantly played by Michael Macfadyen).

It’s an amped-up version of Gilded Age history, but it does very well in portraying the political divides of the era’s Republican Party, between the Grantists (centered in New York, behind Ulysses S. Grant) and the Half-Breeds, sometimes led by Maine’s James G. Blaine. The former are portrayed as arrogant defenders of patronage politics who continue to demagogue the Civil War, the latter as opponents of cronyism and advocates of merit-based reform of the federal government. The deadlocked convention that selected Garfield, “the man from Ohio,” as a compromise candidate is handled in a too-vivid way. The main candidates and players are inaccurately portrayed as being on the convention floor, but there’s a serious-not-literal quality to the portrayal of their personalities and their conflicts.