I’ve been enjoying the Netflix series Death by Lightning. It’s about [SPOILER] the assassination of President Garfield [/SPOILER].
I’ve enjoyed it so much that I feel the need to analyze why. Somehow the writers manage to ratchet up the tension even though you know the outcome. I don’t know how they do it.
The committee assembling the James Bond movies should learn from this. No matter what predicament James Bond is in, we know he isn’t going to die. Or have his bits severed by a laser, even. Goldfinger says, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die,” but I don’t expect that at all , and it puts me to sleep.
(I suppose the tension is in how James Bond gets away from the laser. I have utterly forgotten how, and I don’t care.)
Our other James, James Garfield, has no business being president, and I think part of the trick in how they make this suspenseful is that in your concern for this nice man thrown into the presidency you completely forget he’s going to die.
Then they smack you with some Omen of Doom, like his views on assassination … it’s like “death but lightning, too rare to worry about.”
I haven’t finished it, I have one more episode to go, but I am pretty sure he gets shot in episode four. Or, you know, maybe he won’t. They might do a Sopranos thing where they cut right before the bullet is fired. I might like that.