
I’d like to think Tim Cook is better at his job than I am at mine, but sometimes I’m not sure.
Sure, he’s the head of one of the biggest companies in the world while I’m a tour guide, but if the reviews are any indication I, along with my colleagues, really know how to make history come alive. “Manhunt,” the new AppleTV+ series about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and subsequent search for John Wilkes Booth, reaffirms that we at Unscripted still have one thing over Cook.
“Manhunt” isn’t a bad show, but it reveals how hard it is to make a compelling narrative about history — to make it come off the screen and into one’s life.
There’s no doubt you’ll learn something from watching “Manhunt,” but I often found myself left more confused than educated — and as a D.C. tour guide, I like to think I have a decently high baseline knowledge of Civil War history. As an example, take the film’s opening scene, which follows the ultimately failed assassination attempt on Secretary of State William Henry Seward.
I’ll confess that until watching the show, I had no clue that the Lincoln assassination was a part of a series of plots to also kill Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Nor did I know that Seward and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, played by a charming and perpetually anxious Tobias Menzies, were close friends. But after Stanton tells his wife he simply must go visit the bedridden Seward, I learned that, too.
This opening scene full of education is also expertly crafted — the camera lingers outside Seward’s

house as we follow his would-be assassin through each room, with no visuals except the assassin’s silhouette in the window as screams ring from inside the house. The whole sequence is a classic filmmaking trick, the idea that what we don’t see is scarier than anything we could be shown, heightening the anxiety during the tense opening.
But there’s some irony in not seeing much of the actual action in the scene because for much of “Manhunt,” it feels like you can’t really see or know what’s happening without a deep knowledge of the Lincoln assassination. William Henry Seward isn’t a household name, and even Edwin Stanon, the show’s main character, doesn’t have the same level of fame as the stars of other recent TV historical drama hits like “The Crown.”
That’s why “Manhunt” struggles to bring history to life — it has a hard time explaining the history that’s going on. Obviously, the show can’t frequently pause to explain why Stanton is so upset about the attack on Seward, or the exact political machinations of the time. A series of voiceovers and title plaques would solve the confusion problem but would also be the ultimate example of “tell, don’t show” storytelling, wrecking any momentum the show might have. Regardless, though, the fact stands that “Manhunt” doesn’t do enough to guide its viewers through the show’s myriad set-pieces.
The other reason “Manhunt” has a hard time making history come alive is that it’s hard to take the show seriously at times. It’s trying really hard to be this serious drama, but the whole enterprise is so self-serious that it flips all the way around and becomes somewhat ironically funny. I’m sorry, but it’s hard to not break a slight chuckle when Menzies stares somewhat seriously, somewhat nervously into the camera every few minutes. It’s not his fault self-seriousness only gets you so far.
The biggest crime in terms of the show’s goofiness is the greatest assassination attempted on the image of Abraham Lincoln, since, well, you know. Hamish Linklater plays Lincoln as an elderly man with a creaky voice who’s a little too into little girls eating raisins. Obviously, he’s a small part of the show, but the scenes where he is included show him brushing off updates about war to finish his bad stand-up comedy. Accurate? Maybe. Ridiculous and hard to not laugh at? Certainly. But thankfully, if “Manhunt” didn’t quite satisfy your Lincoln assassination appetite there’s a way yet you can see the tale of the most infamous crime in American history come alive. Our Lincoln Assassination Unscripted tour takes you inside Ford’s Theatre and the Petersen Boarding House so you can see for yourself the most important locations in the Lincoln assassination, rather than watching recreations of them. Plus, our guides will take you all around the surrounding area so you can hear all about what living in D.C. in the 1860s was like. And I promise, we explain the history enough so that everyone can follow the tale.
Lincoln was killed in a theater. But while not everyone reading this might be a stage performer, it’s far better to stand in that theater and feel the history come alive around you than to watch a rendition of it in a home theater.
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