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Jesse Armstrong’s “Succession” is a hilarious, cringe-inducing black comedy about some of the worst people on Earth repeatedly stabbing each other in the back as they scheme to become heir apparent to a massive media empire. The fact that they’re all family only makes their deviousness even more pathetic. The running joke of the series is that none of these people possess the steely cunning of the company’s aging big boss, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), and no one knows this better than Logan himself.
Among the potential successors, there was no more unfortunate figure than the dark horse, Tom Wambsgans, not really in the running. Matthew Macfadyen won two Primetime Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Shiv’s bumbling, hateful husband Roy (Sarah Snook), whose standing in the family improves when he becomes the acerbic mentor to Nicholas Braun’s Greg Hirsch (whose own deep-seated incompetence makes Tom seem like a business expert). Nonetheless, Tom is an empty suit, trapped in a loveless marriage that seems forever on the verge of ending. When he was named head of the company’s amusement parks and cruise division, everything indicated that his rise, such as it had been, was over. That doesn’t stop Tom from clumsily working angles and busting a spectacular ass, but, ultimately, his brand loyalty and complete lack of shame earns him the keys to Roy’s kingdom.
Macfadyen is a versatile actor, but the man plays losers like Itzhak Perlman plays a Stradivarius. And, judging by the just-released trailer, he might be about to star in his masterpiece in Netflix’s upcoming miniseries, “Death by Lightning,” as Charles Giteau, a lifelong joke of a man whose desire for some kind of notoriety drove him to shoot President James A. Garfield in 1881.
Death by Lightning promises even more humiliation for Matthew Macfadyen
Based on the nonfiction book “Destiny of the Republic” by Candice Millard, “Death by Lightning” is a four-part miniseries that will delve into the lives of Garfield (Michael Shannon) and Giteau (Mcfadyen) as their lives bizarrely coincide with a moment of violence that ultimately led to Garfield’s death (which many believe historians, would have been easily preventable through medical and health care). Like Tom, Giteau was obsessed with being important to powerful people, but his life was derailed when he failed to get accepted into the University of Michigan, where he hoped to earn a law degree.
Giteau’s father vigorously encouraged him to join the Oneida community of New York, a religious sect that, among its many absurd tenets, promoted group marriage and male sexual continence (i.e., sex without ejaculation). Desperate for approval, Giteau adored Oneida founder John Humphrey Noyes, but the majority of the community found him boring (nicknaming him Charles Gitout). When he turned against Noyes, his own father lost faith in him.
Giteau then moved to Chicago, where he practiced law poorly. After withholding his clients’ funds, he fled to New York and became active in the Republican political scene. It was at this time that he developed a messianic complex; he believed he was following a divine path and inflated his contributions at pivotal moments in the United States. When Garfield was elected, he saw himself as essential to the dark horse candidate’s victory and sought a consulate in Paris.
As you can see from the trailer, there are plenty of political players involved in this drama, including theater master Nick Offerman as Vice President Chester A. Arthur, a man of weak character who ascended to the Oval Office after Garfield’s death. “Death by Lightning” promises plenty of fireworks, but Macfadyen playing the Wambsgams doesn’t sound particularly enticing.
“Death by Lightning” begins streaming on November 6, 2025 on Netflix.
