This historical drama takes its time to mull over the details, and in many ways is all the better for it.
We have already seen so many depictions of Abraham Lincoln in film and TV – he is, after all, one of the most famous US presidents, and perhaps even one of the most well-known figures, from throughout history.
Everyone already knows his story, and everyone knows how he died.
Lincoln’s assassination was a turning point in history, one which has been assessed and re-assessed time and again for the impact it had on the direction of the US, and indeed the world.
However, despite everything there is to say seemingly having already been said, the assassination is exactly where the creators of Manhunt have found nuggets of lesser-known history, and mine them in the new seven part series for Apple TV+.
In telling Lincoln’s story after it ended, this is really the story of the characters surrounding him, figures who are either lesser known for simply less ubiquitous in the public consciousness – from assassin John Wilkes Booth himself and his co-conspirators to secretary of war Edwin Stanton and his team working to hunt down the criminals.
Indeed, Manhunt starts with Booth planning and carrying out Lincoln’s assassination, and tracks his journey to escape the clutches of the authorities from there.
It was a 12-day search, headed up here by Stanton, seen as not just Lincoln’s secretary of war but a trusted confidante and friend. The series then deals with the fallout following the president’s death and Stanton’s attempts to get justice.
The cast is headed up by The Crown and Game of Thrones star Tobias Menzies, while Booth is played by Masters of the Air standout Anthony Boyle.
Meanwhile, Hamish Linklater takes on the unenviable task of embodying Lincoln, and Lovie Simone, Matt Walsh and Patton Oswalt all play key supporting roles.
In many ways, this is a straight historical series, and one which won’t be accessible or engaging for all viewers. For all the marketing from Apple TV+ calling this a cat-and-mouse thriller, it is largely a more methodical examination of both the manhunt itself and the time period. Viewers shouldn’t expect high-octane thrills or gripping dramatic twists.
However, if you do have an interest in the history, then this show does what all great dramas do, and helps to breathe life into it.
The series is not sentimental in itself, but it helps the history to feel real and current by making its characters empathetic, emotional and complex.
This is, of course, largely borne out through the tragedy of Lincoln’s killing, with Lili Taylor doing great work as his grieving widow Mary, and Menzies’s Stanton acting as the de facto leader trying to keep it together, remain practical and be a shoulder for others’ sorrow, even while dealing with his own.
However, it’s not the only source of emotional resonance. Flashbacks to Lincoln’s life reveal traumas of his own, with Linklater adeptly humanising the figure who is all too often depicted as mythic, while a key subplot involving a former slave, Mary Simms, is sometimes tough to watch, often heartbreaking.
Even Booth, as unforgivable as his actions and motives are, is given a rich interior life, driven by his own bruised ego and pitiful desire for glory – exposition is subtle, yet these are fully fleshed out characters, with motivations which are often complex, yet always well-drawn.
This approach only works if you have a cast of highly accomplished actors to bring the roles and their own internal struggles to life, and the series has assembled some of the very best character actors around.
Menzies has been impressive for years now in so many supporting roles, so its’ great to see him bring his own unflashy, tempered, yet powerful style of performance to a lead role here.
Meanwhile, Boyle continues to prove himself to be one of the most exciting up-and-coming actors working today. Booth could not be further from his Masters of the Air character Crosby, yet both performances are equally well-realised, with a soulful underpinning to both.
We know Booth was an actor, and it seems he was desperate for recognition. Therefore, it’s important that he is both charismatic on some level, but also that we don’t root and that he isn’t lionised. Boyle pitches it perfectly on both counts.
One might wonder how Manhunt fill out seven episodes’ worth of time with this fairly simple story – Booth killed Lincoln, tried to get away to safety in a Confederate zone and failed, and he was killed on the way.
In truth, there is something to that. The series does at times feel overlong and padded out, with the episodes bleeding into one another and often little progress being made by either camp. One wonders what this would have looked like as a film, or a shorter mini-series of three or four episodes.
However, what this would have surely done is meant less time spent with the show’s supporting characters, each of whom are explored thoroughly here.
The series doesn’t throw in random plotlines and characters from nowhere, simply to explore a certain theme or aspect of the time period. Instead, it introduces characters organically, each of whom has a key impact on the central narrative, but also have their own stories to tell.
Mary Simms is a key example – her link to the central narrative is there, as she was a witness who testified against one of the conspirators in the trial following Booth’s death.
However, Manhunt also delves into Mary’s own life and her own story, and this is crucial. It would be fairly indefensible to make a drama about the cause of and aftermath of Lincoln’s death without properly addressing the time in which it took place and the context of it, in which the abolition of slavery and the fall of the Confederacy played a crucial part.
Focusing on the lives of the freed slaves is critical in fully exploring this.
This isn’t a political series in a big P sense – we see some of Lincoln and Stanton’s work together before the assassination, but this is not the focus.
However, it does take its time to explore the period, in terms both political and non-political, and explore key themes surrounding American division and our treatment of one another as humans, in a subtle way making it feel incredibly timely.
It’s important that viewers don’t go into this series expecting huge surprises, or for it to change their understanding of what happened in any fundamental way. There are a few major details I personally was unaware of, but for the most part and in broad terms this is the history we know.
What does prove surprising are a whole host of smaller details from the work of spymasters to the trials of Booth’s co-conspirators. The show seeps you in the history, and in doing so makes its own narrative and world feel richer.
It’s in many ways a subtle drama, but is also highly emotionally charged. What it lacks in pace, and there are times at which this drags the show down, it does thankfully make up for in powerful character drama.
Apple TV+ has been on a roll recently, and Manhunt continues this streak. By betting big on the small details surrounding a monumental story, the streamer has once again proven that it is fast becoming the home of some of the best TV storytelling around.
Manhunt will premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday 15th March 2024 with the first two episodes, then episodes will be released weekly. Sign up to Apple TV+ now.
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