Thrilling Historical Drama Manhunt Rejects the White Savior Narrative

It’s easy to think about history as a series of sentences that end with periods, as discrete eras that were inevitable as one succeeded another, never prone to reversion to what came before. Manhunt — an adaptation of James L. Swanson’s book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase to Capture Lincoln’s Killer — arrives with a two-episode series premiere on Apple TV+ as a full-throated rebuke to the tautology of “what happened is what happened” conception of history.

Instead, Manhunt argues, history happens because people make decisions; what we consider obvious premises and imperfections of American sociology in 2024 exist because in 1865, people like Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies) and John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle) pursued certain actions over others. Stanton, Secretary of War and the architect of post-Civil War Reconstruction, declined President Lincoln’s (Hamish Linklater) invitation to attend a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. We all know how Booth chose to spend his evening.

Stanton is a perfectionist who, as his wife Ellen (Anne Dudek) drily remarks, has never met a task he could delegate. He blames himself for the tragedy, with a barely banked fire of haunting anguish and rage. In a dream sequence, we glimpse Stanton overpowering Booth and preventing the assassination, but when he wakes, it’s to the inescapable knowledge that the Civil War may be over, but Booth has robbed him of his wise, funny, rueful friend, and the nation of its leader. Stanton and Booth’s shared awareness that the newly saved Republic was fragile enough to be in genuine peril drives both men to relentlessness, sparking a game of cat-and-mouse with sky-high stakes.

Manhunt could have been another serviceable entry in the perennially popular Great White Quasi-Savior Guy genre. Series creator, showrunner, and co-writer Monica Beletsky (Friday Night Lights, The Leftovers) and her storytelling team — including novelist Mat Johnson and veteran director Carl Franklin — deliberately avoid that outcome. Brisk pacing, finely calibrated performances, and repeated reminders that history rhymes because we make it so, all set Manhunt apart from the expected as a prestige-level procedural that can claim both The Wire and The Crown as part of its lineage.

Like The Wire, Manhunt is a twisty procedural where no one is perfect, the crimes involve a confounding code, the bad guy is often a step or two ahead of the law, and conspiratorial political forces stand in the way of actual, complete justice. Like The Crown, it incorporates some of the pleasures and challenges of TV about real historical figures, particularly when some are very well-known and some much less so. It’s often more successful than The Crown in its steadfast refusal to fall into the trap of over-exacting verisimilitude. No, Tobias Menzies (familiar with conjuring historical figures rather than imitating them, thanks to his work as Prince Philip in The Crown’s third and fourth seasons) does not sport the massive beard worn by the historical Edwin Stanton; it’s just as well, because it would have detracted from Menzies’ performance.

The first two episodes root Stanton and Booth in their shared knowledge that they’re writing capital-H History, and as the story unfolds, each of the men — who never meet on-screen — responds to the choices and actions of the other, locking themselves into a long-distance pas de deux. They’re similar in the scope and intensity of their ambitions; in their desire to capture the public imagination and drive coverage of the story; in their dogged pursuits of capture and escape. Stanton needs to untangle the Lincoln assassination conspiracy so he can turn his attention more fully to prevent now-President Johnson from undoing all the good of Reconstruction’s reforms. Booth is hellbent on leveraging the assassination to attain the fame and notoriety he believes is his due as a resuscitator of the Confederacy. Early on, he breezily assures his co-conspirator David Herold (Will Harrison) that once they arrive in Richmond, his diary will surely be published to great acclaim and popularity, making him the hero the South deserves.

Manhunt further refuses to become a Great White Quasi-Savior Guy narrative by highlighting the varied roles both free and emancipated Black people were already playing in American life prior to the Union’s victory. Most significant is freed woman Mary Simms (a watchful and strategic Lovie Simone), a witness in the co-conspirators’ trial. Her testimony against Samuel Mudd (Matt Walsh), the doctor who set Booth’s leg (and who had been Simms’ enslaver), was crucial in establishing Mudd’s role in the conspiracy involving the Confederate Secret Service. The series also includes moments such as Frederick Douglass (Elvis Nolasco) advising Stanton and Lincoln; two Black pastors (Victor Love and Tony J. Scott) urging General Sherman (Alex Collins) to provide land grants for recently freed people so they can sustain themselves and build wealth; the free-since-birth, take-no-sh*t tracker and guide Swann (Roger Payano), who correctly calls Herold out as Booth’s lackey; and freedwoman dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley (Betty Gabriel) using her book launch event as a fundraiser for the Freedmen’s Bureau.

Menzies and Boyle’s lead performances are indelible. Menzies uses countless minute shifts in his facial expressions to convey Stanton’s emotions, cool strategizing, and physical pain as they wash over and through him, creating that rarity, a quietly heroic bureaucrat. His laser-like focus on serving the nation and making sure the job is done well by doing it himself makes him an exemplary civil servant and a deeply vexing husband, father, and medical patient. With every burden he insists on shouldering, Stanton’s asthma worsens, forcing him to rest even as the search for Booth comes to its inexorable conclusion.

Boyle deploys his Paul McCartney-meets-Joe Strummer looks to capture Booth’s quicksilver, performative temperament. Booth fancies himself a hero — a symbol, as he dreamily puts it — but his purported political ambitions are just part of his greatest role and performance: himself. Seething and resentful of his more talented and famous father and brother, Booth uses every color in his emotional palette to get others to bend to his will, even as he starts to unravel from the pain and likely infection brewing in his broken leg. Boyle presents a Booth who is pure surface, always seeking and delivering whatever will get him what he wants, one moment braggadocious, swaggering, or seductive and the next, domineering, cruel, or delusional.

Manhunt’s ending is a bit rushed and relies on a treacly voiceover epilogue that concludes with the reassuring reminder that Lincoln’s three amendments to the Constitution were ratified, abolishing slavery, enshrining the right of Black people to vote, and the status of full U.S. citizenship. It’s a strange moment of punch-pulling in a series that otherwise assiduously reminds us of William Faulkner’s aphorism that the past is not only never dead, but not even past, especially for Black people.

Manhunt isn’t particularly subtle, but does it need to be? What purpose would subtlety serve in a series about an extremely unsubtle time? Why should Manhunt’s many pointed resonances with more recent events, including the murder of Trayvon Martin and the attempted insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, strive for an artificially light touch? Manhunt’s invitation to know and understand the past as we all make our present is purposeful, issued with care and skill. It’s as appealing as it is urgent.

Manhunt premieres March 15 on Apple TV+ with two episodes. New episodes drop Fridays. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Sophie Brookover is a culturally omnivorous writer covering TV (everything from sci-fi to sitcoms to prestige drama to sports docuseries), costume design, music, books, and podcasts. Her bylines are at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Town & Country, Fashionista, and Hey Alma, among others.