Regrets
Manhunt Season 1 Episode 2, “Post Mortem,” begins with a slow-motion, hyper-stylized re-enactment of the assassination that diverges from the real event when Stanton (Tobias Menzies) intervenes and stops Booth (Anthony Boyle) from shooting Lincoln (Hamish Linklater). He throws Booth to the ground and begins punching him, but Booth laughs and calls him a failure, then screams, “FIE!” in his face.
Stanton awakens from dozing in his chair. It is the day after the assassination. He walks into the main office and asks Eckhert (Damian O’Hare) for any updates from Maryland. Despite questioning everyone they can think of, they have no leads as to where Booth is hiding.
Stanton’s son, Eddie (Brandon Flynn), comes in with the name of the man who rented Booth’s horse to him. Eddie suggests they give Stanton a guard. Stanton says he’ll take care of himself.
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At the U.S. War Department, New York City Branch, Detective Lafayette Baker (Patton Oswalt) informs his office that the orders are to apprehend the president’s murderers immediately. Any and all information on Booth is to be gathered. Lafayette speaks privately to his cousin, Luther Baker (Kevin Patrick Murphy) a lieutenant, about the bounty on Booth.
Gaming the System
Lafayette figures they can collect if they work together. Lafayette is in charge of hiring the investigators hunting Booth. He expects Luther to keep him informed of the goings on in the 16th Cavalry. Lafayette will hire Luther. Luther will collect the reward and split it with Lafayette. Luther agrees to the arrangement.
The horse stable owner informs Stanton and Eddie that Booth was with David Herold (Will Harrison). He’d rented horses to David before. Eckhert alerts Stanton that Johnson (Glenn Morshower) is needed at the Kirkwood immediately to be sworn in. As Stanton is leaving, Eddie reminds him that he is supposed to meet Ellen (Anne Dudek), his wife, at the cemetery.
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Eckhert warns Stanton that Johnson has not been responding. Stanton prepares to leave to fetch Johnson but is stopped by an officer, Louis Weichman (C.J. Hoff), who tells him his landlady might’ve been conspiring with Booth.
Take Down
At Surratt’s D.C. Boardinghouse, Mrs. Mary Surratt (Carrie Lazar) insists she only lent Booth some cooking utensils. Her statement is interrupted by banging on the door. Lewis Powell (Spencer Treat Clark) stumbles in, dirty and bloody, saying he doesn’t know where else to go. Mrs. Surratt tries to pretend she doesn’t know him.
Powell attempts to escape, but Eckhert wrestles him to the ground. Weichman holds Mrs. Surratt at gunpoint.
Housekeeping
Ellen sits at her son’s grave, apologizing that his father couldn’t come this year.
Kirkwood Hotel, Vice President Johnson’s regular suite—Johnson lies half-dressed on his couch, snoring. Stanton knocks on the door several times before walking in. He wakes Johnson up. Johnson hands Stanton the calling card Booth left for him at the hotel’s front desk. He’d never called on Johnson before.
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Stanton tells Johnson that an assassin was waiting for him, but the assassin couldn’t go through with it and turned himself in. Johnson wonders why he was spared, but Stanton doesn’t know.
Stanton asks him what his plans are as president. Johnson’s response is that the economy is his priority, not ensuring the rights of blacks. Johnson advises Stanton to leave the hunt for Booth to the local authorities. Stanton reminds him that the local authorities in the South, where Booth is hiding, are Confederates. Johnson is silent.
Dressed for the swearing-in, Johnson points out that Stanton could be the first man to call him Mr. President. Stanton responds, “Touch a Bible first, Andy.”
On the Mend
Herold is helping Booth around Dr. Mudd’s (Matt Walsh) farm. He tells Booth it’ll take a few days to get to Richmond. Herold advises Booth to shave his mustache. Booth is outraged, but Herold points out it makes him stand out and recognizable.
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Booth tells Herold to go get him some whiskey and horse feed so they can get on the road. Herold discovers that the sale of horse feed has been outlawed when he goes to the nearest store.
One Year Before the Assassination
Herold is working as a pharmacist when John Surratt Jr. (Joshua Mikel) comes looking for him on hearing that he knows his way around Maryland’s woods and is generous with providing pain relief to the Confederacy.
Surratt tells him he’d like to introduce him to a friend. Coincidentally, Herold has a poster for Julius Caesar on his wall, featuring John Wilkes Booth as Marc Antony.
Andrew Johnson is sworn in as President. Stanton enters the room and stands next to Ellen. Quietly, he thanks her for coming and assures her that he didn’t forget.
She acknowledges that and advises that he fix his face and give Johnson a chance.
Dr. Mudd calls for Mary (Lovie Simone). She goes upstairs to Dr. Mudd. He instructs her to shave Booth. Booth doesn’t trust her. Dr. Mudd assures him she’s been with him since she was a small child.
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As she begins to shave him, she accidentally cuts him, and he reacts violently, wresting the blade from her hand and holding it on her neck threateningly. He asks her if she knows who he is. She gets away from him, saying she wouldn’t know if he was well-known since she’s only been away from the farm once in her life.
Stolen Child
She runs into the next room, thinking back to when she was a child in Pennsylvania, playing cards with her Uncle Henry (Jeronimo Spinx). A neighbor comes to the door to warn them Mr. Gorsuch (Tom McCafferty). and the marshalls are coming and have been snatching people.
The adults all grab weapons and tell Mary to keep the lamps low and to stay inside. She’s scared she’s going to be taken back to Maryland and Dr. Mudd. Henry tells her to hide.
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Outside, Henry confronts Gorsuch. Local men come to warn Gorsuch. off. He tells them there’s a bounty on Mary and if Henry gets in the way, they’ll grab him too. Listening and watching from under the porch, Mary cries silently.
“You were his War Wife.”
Stanton comes to the Lincoln house where the household is in mourning and Abraham Lincoln lies in state. Stanton asks Elizabeth Keckley (Betty Gabriel) how Mary Todd Lincoln (Lili Taylor) is. Elizabeth says she won’t decide on any arrangements.
Mary’s sitting in the corner and comments that Elizabeth has 20 seamstresses working for her now; her gowns are so sought after. Elizabeth assures her that Mary’s orders will always come first.
Mary says she doesn’t have time to have a new funeral gown made. She asks Elizabeth to mend the one she wore to her son Willie’s funeral a few years prior.
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Stanton asks Mary to decide where to bury Lincoln. He suggests Arlington, but she says it’s not right to bury him in a military cemetery. She tells Stanton he was her husband’s war wife and should handle the arrangements.
At Mudd’s farm, the doctor is giving Herold and Booth instructions on how to get safely to Richmond. He tears a page out of a book that Mary reads that has a map of the land around Washington. He draws a path they can take to Richmond.
In Stanton’s office, Baker reports that Booth had met with Wall Street men, asking them to invest with him. Baker questions how someone as famous as Booth hasn’t been spotted yet. He figures Booth is being protected, but the question is whether his assassination was orchestrated by the Confederacy, Wall Street, or possibly Vice President Johnson.
Surratt Has a History
Eddie brings Stanton a file on Surratt. He’d applied for a clerk’s position in the War Department. He’d been a postmaster delivering mail from Richmond. He could’ve served as a Confederate courier or agent under that cover. His post office was in Surrattsville where his mother owned a tavern. The tavern had been searched but had turned up nothing.
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Stanton thinks that over and considers that his father hid slaves in their home that were never found by marshall raids. He orders a bounty for half as much as Booth put on Surratt. He calls up Weichman to go to Surrattsville.
At the Surratt’s Maryland Boardinghouse, Stanton and Eckhert and their men execute a surprise raid and search. Stanton discovers a hidden office space behind a wall in one of the rooms. The desk contains cash, encoded telegram messages, and other documents. They call Weichman up to question him about how much he knows about the Surratts.
Weichman remembers Mrs. Surratt passing packages to John Jr. and Booth. She said they were cooking utensils, but he believes they were guns.
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Playing Hardball
Stanton and Eckhert visit Mrs. Surratt in prison. When she won’t tell them where Booth or her son have gone, Stanton orders her food cut until she does. Stanton then goes to question Powell.
Back at the War Department offices, Eckhert can’t crack the code they found in Surratt’s desk.
Peanuts (Daniel Croix) comes to visit Stanton at his office. Peanuts tells him that Booth was injured when he left the theater after shooting Lincoln. His leg might’ve been broken.
Luther Baker visits Dr. Mudd who admits to treating Booth’s broken leg but claims to be ignorant of his identity or his crime.
Luther tries to ask Milo (Xavier Mills) and Mary about Booth, but Mary answers for them both, claiming they knew nothing about the patient.
Leaving the room in shock at finding out who Booth is and what he did, Mary remembers when the bounty hunters ambushed her and brought her back to Dr. Mudd.
Booth and Herold ride for Rich Hill but may be lost.
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Booth in the Picture
Eddie brings Stanton a photograph from Lincoln’s second inauguration. Booth is in the crowd that attended.
Stanton flashes back to six weeks before the assassination when Lincoln was preparing a speech for his second inauguration.
Stanton urges him to speak the brutal and honest truth about slavery because, at that moment, he has never been so loved by the nation.
In the present, Eddie reminds Stanton that it’s not his fault Booth killed Lincoln.
The New President
At the White House, Johnson is circulating the room, accepting congratulations. Eddie finds Stanton and informs him about Mudd.
Stanton steps out of the room to consider the situation. Elizabeth passes him, and he asks where Mary Lincoln plans to go with what remains of her family. Elizabeth tells him Chicago and shares that Mary’s spending has put the family in financial straits. She suggests that Congress pass a widow’s fund to help her.
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Stanton promises to see what he can do and shares that they’re closing in on Booth.
At Stanton’s home, soldiers are on guard but a man has crept up onto a rooftop, crouched outside a window.
The Most To Gain
At the White House, Johnson makes a speech toasting the United States and declares that the coward should be forgotten so that the country may heal. Stanton calls him on this. Johnson says the country needs to move on. Stanton says, “I think if we don’t draw the line at murdering a president, then, well, let’s just admit that there is no line.”
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He then toasts President Johnson, and under cover of the cheers, he quietly warns Johnson that if he challenges the hunt for Booth, people will ask who had the most to gain from Lincoln’s death.
At the office, Eckhert is still stymied by the code. Eddie comes to tell Stanton that Ellen’s had a fright. The guards have found the intruder’s footprints. Stanton asks Eddie if Surratt had provided his postmaster documents when he applied to work at the War Department. Those documents would have his shoe size.
Spy Master
Baker calls Conover into his office with the promise of a story. He sends the reporter up to Montreal to find out what the Confederate community there knows about the assassination. He warns Conover that if he’s caught sniffing around, he is to say he is nothing more than a reporter.
Outside his house, Stanton compares a man’s shoe with the footprint. It’s a match.
Dr. Mudd’s Hospitality
Surratt knocks on Dr. Mudd’s door. Mary opens it, and he comments on how pretty she is. Mudd comes out to greet him and tells Mary to make up the room upstairs. Mudd and Surratt discuss Booth without naming him explicitly.
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While making the bed, Mary finds Booth’s boot under the mattress. It is monogrammed J.W.B.
At William Seward’s (Larry Pine) home, Stanton sits by his bedside, admitting he was caught off-guard. Seward warns that they’ll come for Stanton again. Stanton accepts that. “Let ‘em come,” he says.
A Whistle-Stop Tour
The next morning, Eddie suggests that instead of a state funeral, they take Lincoln’s body by train for a whistle-stop tour by train. Stanton is impressed with the idea. They decide that Lincoln should go home for his final resting place, to Springfield, Illinois.
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When Eddie says he’ll get started on arrangements, Stanton insists that he’ll see to it himself. Eddie shakes his head in frustration.
Walking to the market from Dr. Mudd’s, Mary sees a wanted poster for Booth.
Herold and Booth ride up to a farmhouse. The black landowner, Oswell Swann (Roger Payano) comes out with a gun at the ready. They ask for directions and resent having to negotiate with him to guide them to Rich Hill.
Headed Home
It’s raining hard the day they load Lincoln’s casket onto the train. Stanton escorts Elizabeth to the presidential car and gives her an envelope containing a travel stipend. Elizabeth begs him to keep the country from going backward. It took her 29 years to buy her freedom, and she can’t imagine being a slave again. Stanton promises that won’t happen.
Mary Lincoln boards the train, Stanton giving her a hand up. She tells him to find Lincoln’s killer. Eddie boards the train with Mary and Robert Lincoln (Maxwell Korn). Stanton tells him to come home safe.
Stanton returns to the platform to watch the train depart.
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Booth and Herold follow Swann to the edge of a town. Everyone is still in church, but they’re about to emerge. Swann insists the men hand over their guns before he guides them the last part of the way to Rich Hill. After a short stalemate, Booth hands his gun over. Herold does the same, and Swann leads them through the town at a gallop.
Manhunt drops new episodes every Friday on Apple TV+.
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