Just found it and watched the first segment tonight. Really liked it so far and found it interesting and informative for someone like me who didn't know much about him.

ETA: Even then NY was a nut house.

P.H. Dexippus said:

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Politics related because a series about 19th century backroom politics. Anyone else catch this? My limited presidential knowledge about Chester Garfield before watching, I am ashamed to say, was that he was post-civil war, assassinated and shared the name of a fat cartoon cat. I did not realize that him ending up on the ticket was a fluke, that his running mate in Chester A. Arthur was nothing more than a politically-connected customs official, and that his assassin was Oneida Colony nutjob. It's well cast, including Michael Shannon and Nick Offerman, and worth a watch.

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1880's are a crazy time. In addition to many of the land events people know like the winding down of the wars with the Amerindians , over in the Pacific we nearly get into a war over Samoa with the German and British fleets, only to have a typhoon wreck all but the British ship whose skilled sailors had recognized the signs that this would not blow over well, and went to sea. So the foreign policy in that time is rather complex, far reaching and much more involved than people might think. Much of it had to do with the need to have coal depots for fleets at certain locations. If it sounds like a preview of oil and pipeline politics, it was. And for the big event minded, Krakatoa is August 1883. Lesser known is Tararwere in New Zealand in 1886, but if you want to see Yellowstone eruption, that was it. It is same type of volcano.

Good book if you want to know more about this

P.H. Dexippus said:

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Politics related because a series about 19th century backroom politics. Anyone else catch this? My limited presidential knowledge about Chester Garfield before watching, I am ashamed to say, was that he was post-civil war, assassinated and shared the name of a fat cartoon cat. I did not realize that him ending up on the ticket was a fluke, that his running mate in Chester A. Arthur was nothing more than a politically-connected customs official, and that his assassin was Oneida Colony nutjob. It's well cast, including Michael Shannon and Nick Offerman, and worth a watch.

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I was worried by this bolded description a bit. So I asked Grok to compare Kamala Harris to Chester A. Arthur as they were both VPs.

Grok gave Harris high marks for DEI achievements (first woman, first black...)
Gave Arthur high marks for reforming the Federal Civil Service (professionalism, ethics, eliminating graft) as well as for modernizing the US Navy.

Maybe the bolded part above is totally accurate, but Arthur was still better than Cackles.

Yes, maybe not the fairest comparison, but so what? :-)

It is fabulous and the perfect length.

How is it on contemporary settings, design, costumes, that kind of thing? At putting you in the era.

titan said:

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How is it on contemporary settings, design, costumes, that kind of thing? At putting you in the era.

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I'd give it an 7-8/10. The dialogue seems too contemporary, and the sometimes coarse words in public settings by senators, etc. strain credulity but otherwise it seems credible.

How's the ending?

Jock 07 said:

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How's the ending?

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Deep...

I already read the book. I'll have to check out the series.

Guiteau finally getting the recognition he wanted. Thanks netflix for making a assasin entertaining and funny.

Does the filmmaker somehow spin it to where there's some dark influence from conservatives?

Ag with kids said:

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Jock 07 said:

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How's the ending?

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Deep...

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Ends with a bang and is deathly morbid.

BkYdPitmaster said:

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Just found it and watched the first segment tonight. Really liked it so far and found it interesting and informative for someone like me who didn't know much about him.

ETA: Even then NY was a nut house.

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Tammany Hall founded in 1789.

MAROON said:

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Good book if you want to know more about this

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That is the book the Netflix series is based on.

Watched it this week. I thought it was excellent. I'd consider myself a history buff but that is a time period in which I'm not well versed in.

I'd recommend it. Entertaining and informative

Damn, titan, you are a history Tyrannosaurus. Spent 20 minutes of my life chasing down the Apia Cyclone and sequelae. And don't regret a second. Well done, my friend.

I've watched the first episode. If this show is accurate, he was quite a guy.

Kentucky Jeff said:

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Watched it this week. I thought it was excellent. I'd consider myself a history buff but that is a time period in which I'm not well versed in.

I'd recommend it. Entertaining and informative

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Same here. Briefly checked online and it's reasonable factual. The portrayal of Guiteau was painful to watch, and by that I mean excellent. The ongoing delusions and insanity was just so accurate. People that delude themselves thoroughly are just sad.

Watching the last episode tonight. In the brief online reading I've done, the discussion of the gunshot would is fascinating. Most believe it was the doctors unsanitary examinations that actually killed him. Even in his trial Guiteau said "I just shot him, it was the doctors that killed him".

The GOT producers added a bit of graphic sex here and there that was unneeded, but be aware that your older teens wouldn't want to watch it with you.

I think Chester Arthur was better than they made him out to be.

But Nick Offerman was great in that role.

I expected this to be about Ford.

Just finished watching this and really enjoyed it. Makes you wonder what Garfield could have done had he not been assassinated. Also makes me hate the majority of the medical profession even more.

Bulldog73 said:

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Damn, titan, you are a history Tyrannosaurus. Spent 20 minutes of my life chasing down the Apia Cyclone and sequelae. And don't regret a second. Well done, my friend.

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Glad it proved fruitful.

One more thing, another book of interest is Susan Wels' "An Assassin in Utopia." Which covers the sex cult he was a part of in NY that is only briefly mentioned or referred to in the movie. A wild story about the Oneida Community that says cults are not just a thing since the 20th Century.

Really enjoyed it.

Enjoyed the series but wished it was longer. The book is much better. To me the most interesting parts of the story of the doctors and Bell's development of the metal detector just for the purpose of finding the bullet.

What a strange choice for a Netflix series, and I minored in history and have read quite a bit on my own.

Urban machine politics have never interested me, so I didn't really know much about the political context of Garfield's presidency or its aftermath.

I found the series to be generally plodding, even tedious at times.

I wound up knowing much more about the assassin than about the victim. Garfield was announced to be a great guy, but for me the series did not do a very convincing job of dramatizing that.

The insane Guiteau, by contrast, was to me a fully realized character.

I was put off by the anachronistic dialogue--all the F words and the use of "Right?" as we use it today as well as other expressions.

The last half of the last episode was moving. Knowing that Garfield's wife most certainly never visited Guiteau in prison to deliver that speech to him was definitely off-putting for me.

Given the reviews here and elsewhere, I came away mildly disappointed.

Fair enough. Then again netflix didn't make Garfield black an Guiteau trans.

I liked it but I agree some of the modern phrases were odd. I laughed when they mentioned the cherry blossoms in DC when they didn't get sent from Japan until the 1900s.

All valid criticisms aside, it probably will be the best and most accurate movie ever made about the Garfield Assassination.

Sure there were some artistic liberties taken, but I think they added to the point of the story, and didn't change the telling of what happened.

I noticed the 'modern' dialogue as well. But I thought it was an interesting way to communicate the story to today's audience. It certainly didnt take away from anything. I think it likely served to make it more appealing to a broader audience (Netflix).

Not the greatest thing I've ever seen, but I enjoyed it.