Apple TV’s new show, Manhunt, about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, has Tobias Menzies and Hamish Linklater cast as the best of friends — for better or worse.
There is a moment that looms large over everything else in the pilot of Apple TV’s post-Civil War drama, Manhunt, a conversation that will haunt Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies) for the rest of his life. He’s hard at work in his office, putting together the plans for Reconstruction, when Abraham Lincoln (Midnight Mass’ Hamish Linklater) comes in tossing a baseball and invites him to the theater tonight (Ulysses S. Grant flaked to hang with his wife). Stanton is intrigued, drawn in by his friend’s easy charm, but ultimately backs out — he also owes his wife a night together. And so Lincoln strolls out, bemoaning that he’ll just be hanging out with Mary’s friends as he sees Our American Cousin.
The rest is history: That night, Lincoln would be assassinated at the theater. Andrew Johnson would take the oath of office the following day. And Stanton — as Manhunt depicts — would spend the next 12 days hunting down Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, and the rest of his life wondering what would’ve happened if he said yes to an evening at the theater.
It’s no surprise that Stanton might forever ponder the road not taken, even though he made sure someone was guarding Lincoln that night.
