Why 'Manhunt,' a Show About Lincoln's Assassination, Feels So Relevant in 2024

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."

Most American schoolchildren learn that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in a theater. But that's where many people's understanding of Lincoln's assassination ends. I'm going to be brutally honest here: It's where mine ended.

I went to a great New York public school, I even studied (modern) history in college, and yet, as I watched Manhunt, Apple TV+'s newest thriller that follows the 12-day search for Booth after he kills Lincoln, I realized how little I knew about this monumental part of this country's past.

For example, I didn't realize that Booth shot Lincoln just five days—five days!—after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, ending the Civil War. I knew Booth was an actor, but I did not know that he was motivated by white supremacist ideology. I had no clue about Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, or his friendship with Lincoln, or his hunt for Booth and his conspirators. I could keep going, but you get the idea.

Manhunt succeeds as a limited series not only because it's an adept retelling of history, but also, more significantly, because the story creator Monica Beletsky tells feels like a hopeful lesson for our present day.

There's an oft misattributed quote to Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Whomever the true origin of that saying lies with, it's feels prescient: Our current political climate isn't the history of Lincoln's assassination repeating. But it doesn't feel like the America of today is too far off from the chaos of that moment. Manhunt's thesis, if you will, is the fact that the United States came so close to collapse, but it didn't.

"The story is relevant on so many levels, and in some ways, I wish it were less relevant," Beletsky tells Town & Country about writing Manhunt, which she adapted from James L. Swanson's book of the same name. "I started it several years ago and every year I've worked on it, it remains relevant."

For star Tobias Menzies, who plays Stanton, Manhunt "felt like quite an important story to be retelling at this juncture." He continues, "It's obviously a moment in U.S. history of a great vulnerability for this fledgling state, this embryonic democracy, and federation of states. At a time when there's a quite consequential election in November, a story that speaks to the sort of fragility of these institutions and how they must be maintained and defended—all of that felt [relevant]."

A key part of Manhunt is how Lincoln's assassination put the breaks on Reconstruction, a plan that would address the rights and freedoms of formerly enslaved people, the reintegration of the Confederacy into the Union, and more. "Reconstruction is an ongoing project, you can't take your foot off the gas pedal of Reconstruction," Hamish Linklater, who portrays Lincoln, tells T&C. "The work on keeping the Union together can't stop. And those guys knew it; they knew what a terrible wound was at the heart of the country, and the work that would be required to to heal it."

Before working on Manhunt, Patton Oswalt, who plays Lafayette Baker, hadn't thought much about the Reconstruction era. "It was never taught to me in a way that made it come alive, and shown me how crucial Reconstruction was—and also what a massive missed opportunity Reconstruction ended up being," he tells T&C.

The failures of Reconstruction, Oswalt adds, "led to even more insidious forms of racism that had to be then not corrected, but amended and improved upon in the '60s and still need to be improved. We're seeing a lot of attitudes that date from the late 1800s happening right now. It's gonna be really startling for people to watch [Manhunt] and go, 'oh, it's people writing with quills and wearing heavy clothing.' But then you realize, oh, no, they're dealing with the exact same things that we're dealing with now. That's gonna be really shocking."

For Lovie Simone, who plays Mary Simms, a formerly enslaved woman who ends up testifying against her enslaver Dr. Samuel Mudd (played by Matt Walsh) at the trial of Lincoln's conspirators, Reconstruction is a deeply misunderstood part of American history. Reconstruction, she says, "was so big that we failed to really look at it, and to see the effects of it. [People] wanted to pretend that slavery didn't happen after all of this." But the focus on that Reconstruction period after Lincoln—"what life was looking like for Black people and what it could have looked like"—is key in understanding the U.S. today.

"Overall it's very soothing to watch history and realize, 'oh, we were always on the brink,'" Oswalt says. "We're living in a scary moment, but we're not living in a unique moment. We have teetered over the abyss, sometimes way farther than we're teetering right now." In 1865, he adds, "the fate of the Union was hanging in the balance of a lot of shady people with their own agendas. And we came out of it! That's reassuring to me!"

I won't spoil Manhunt, but can you spoil history? Booth gets caught, the Union is saved, and America's nascent democracy chugs along. The show, ultimately, ends on a hopeful note: That things can get better, there are people working to dismantle white supremacy, and that the work Lincoln had hoped to do during Reconstruction can continue. This story, Oswalt says, "absolutely gives me hope. It does not chase away the doom. It just helps me put the doom in perspective: Better and lesser people than me have both faced the abyss and come out the other side. So take that as a comfort."

Manhunt premieres Friday, March 15 on Apple TV+. Watch here

You Might Also Like

• 12 Weekend Getaway Spas For Every Type of Occasion

• 13 Beauty Tools to Up Your At-Home Facial Game