April 14, 1865, The Day of the Assassination
Manhunt Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot,” begins with crowds cheering a Union Army parade, celebrating the end of the Civil War.
Above the parade, a man with JWB tattooed on his left hand shuts his hotel room window. He puts on his boots, packs his diary, tucks a hunting knife into the back of his waistband, and picks up a derringer pistol.
Outside, he pays a man for two horses. He and a companion take the horses’ leads. He mounts his horse and tells him to round up everybody. “It’s a go,” he says as he rides off.
Will Harrison and Anthony Boyle in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
The companion mounts his horse and rides in the other direction. He arrives at a boarding house. A man in a yellow waistcoat gets up and the boarding house matron helps him into a long coat. He checks the pocket of the long coat and inspects the handgun he finds there.
The men leave together. As the door closes, a red-haired man in a Union uniform comes down the stairs and watches the men leave.
RELATED: Apple TV+ To Tell the Story of Highwayman Dick Turpin (Kind Of)
In a busy hotel lobby, a man walks around with a hand-chalked wooden sign advertising carriage repairs by G. Atzerodt, Mechanic. Walking behind a man at the front desk, Atzerodt (Tommy Turvey) whispers, “I hear it’s a go tonight.”
The man removes a revolver from his waistcoat pocket and slides it into Atzerodt’s pocket, instructing him to wait until Johnson (Glenn Morshower) returns to his room and then “get him.”
Atzerodt moves on and the man writes something on a calling card and leaves it for the Vice-President. It is the first man from the hotel room.
30 Minutes Before the Assassination
The two men from the boarding house ride together on one horse up to a large house. The man in the yellow waistcoat says he has the gun but that it’s been jamming, addressing the former as David (Will Harrison).
RELATED: 8 TV Shows You Should Watch if You Love Still Up
David hands him a knife, reminding him he’ll need it back for hunting. The killer points out that he prefers shooting. David hands him a pharmacist’s package. David tells him the target is the Secretary of State.
A man servant opens the door when the killer knocks and accepts the medicine package, turning to ask if the doctor had mentioned a delivery. The killer hits him from behind with the hilt of the knife, knocks down another man who approaches him, then turns the gun on the doorman, but it jams, and he throws the gun at him instead. The doorman tries to fight him but gets stabbed and falls to the ground.
The killer moves to the upper floor. The killer and a woman break a window in their struggle. The woman shouts for help. David mounts the horse and rides off.
RELATED: David Dastmalchian Joins Apple TV+ Murderbot Adaptation
The killer hurries out the front door, stopping to pick up the gun he threw. Covered in blood, he realizes David’s left with the only horse.
Outside Ford’s Theatre, Lincoln (Hamish Linklater) and Mary Todd Lincoln (Lili Taylor) disembark their carriage and enter the theater. The man from the first hotel room is securing his horse nearby, watching intently.
Secretary of War
Knocking brings a man to his door. A messenger informs him there’s been a break-in at Seward’s (Larry Pine). The man tells the messenger to tell Eckhert (Damian O’Hare) to meet him there.
Tobias Menzies and Brandon Flynn star in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
Inside the room, the man’s wife helps him finish getting dressed. The man feels for Bill Seward, who just suffered injuries from a carriage accident and is now the victim of a break-in. His wife wonders why he needs to be the one to check on a break-in. He insists that if it were him, Bill would check on him.
She asks, “Have you ever met a problem you could delegate?”
He doesn’t answer.
In an alley, the hotel room man hands his horse off to a theater employee who is to stay ready with the horse as agreed. When the theater worker points out he has to do a scene shift, the man reminds him that he won’t have many chances to be somebody, to do something important. He says he’ll be in a nearby saloon until the time comes. The theater employee assures him the horse will be ready.
RELATED: Apple TV+’s The Crowded Room and Content Warnings
At Seward’s house, his friend disembarks a carriage and Eckhert meets him with information on the attack. He enters the bedroom where Seward’s daughter addresses him as Edwin (Tobias Menzies) and tells him if her father hadn’t been wearing a neck brace, the attacker would’ve hit an artery.
Five Days Before the Assassination
Lincoln awaits news from Appomattox. He says, “We’re down to raisins,” and explains the origins of that saying. Edwin, in a nearby office, is just as eager for news. A physician approaches him, addressing him as Secretary Stanton, and reminds him it’s time for his exam but Stanton puts him off. The doctor reminds him that avoiding him does not cure asthma.
Eckhert receives a telegraph from Grant and hands the transcription to Stanton, who hands it to Lincoln. Lincoln reads it over and announces to the room that Lee has surrendered and fully accepts the Union’s terms.
Damian O’Hare and Tobias Menzies in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
There is great celebration by everyone in the room. Stanton has an asthmatic attack in the midst of the hubbub and quietly sits down to wait it out. Once it passes, he tells Eckhert to spread the news to the cabinet and Congress and to send a statement to the press. Lincoln comes by, sees his physical distress, and tells him to see his doctor.
RELATED: Invasion Renewed for Season 3 on Apple TV+
Stanton visits Seward who is wearing a neck brace due to his carriage accident. Stanton delivers the news of the end of the war with some details like the terms of defeat were delivered by an officer of the Seneca tribe and the Confederate Army didn’t have a white flag so they signaled their surrender with a dishcloth.
Seward appreciates that they’ve won but refuses to celebrate until the bloodshed stops.
10 Minutes Before the Assassination
The hotel room man leans on the bar in a saloon. A man standing next to him asks if he knows him from somewhere. The hotel room man introduces himself as John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle). The man remembers he’s seen Booth in shows and says he looks shorter in person. The man observes that everyone’s drinking and in a good mood. Booth retorts that they’ll all regret Lincoln’s decision and makes a racist comment.
The man is quiet for a moment and comments that the President is a fan of Booth’s work. Booth laughs, saying he’s read that too. The man tells him that Lincoln’s told him that directly. He’s a presidential bodyguard, requested by Lincoln himself for events like the evening at the theater.
Booth asks why he isn’t with the President and he says there’s no need for him once everyone is seated.
RELATED: The Top 10 Oscar Nomination Snubs of All Time
10 Hours Before the Assassination
Booth walks into the lobby of Ford’s Theatre. He greets an employee as Jessie (Davin Allen Grindstaff) and asks him why his picture isn’t up on the lobby wall. Jessie says it’s because his show closed. Booth points out his father and brother’s pictures are always up. Jessie points out that they are legends.
An American flag bunting is carried by and Booth asks about it. Jessie informs him Lincoln will be attending the current show, Our American Cousin, that evening.
Lili Taylor and Hamish Linklater in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
Booth walks into the theater and looks at the boxes where the President and his entourage will be sitting. He mutters to himself Hamlet’s lines, “If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.”
Back in the saloon, Booth looks at the President’s guard and buys him a drink. The guard tells him he thinks he’d be more famous than his brother and father if he’d play a hero on stage. Booth tells him that tomorrow, he’ll be the most famous person in his family, the most famous man in the world.
Downing the rest of his drink, he declares, “God Bless America,” and leaves.
The Assassination
In the theater, Booth peeks out the curtain to the box where Lincoln and his wife are seated, watching the show.
RELATED: 6 Great Historical Fiction Novels Focused on Real Women From History
In the alley, the theater employee tells another employee named Peanuts (Daniel Croix) to watch the horse while he’s doing the scene shift. When Peanuts says he has other duties and asks whose horse it is, the man calls him a racist name and demands he do what he says.
With his gun ready, Booth mouths the lines of the play, waiting for the biggest laugh before stepping out and shooting Lincoln in the head. He screams, “Freedom for the South!” over the applause, fights off a man who attempts to grab him, and then leaps from the box to the stage. He struggles to his feet and shouts, “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” and runs out backstage.
Anthony Boyle stars in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
In the alley, the conspirator holds the door for Booth and then tries to block his pursuers. Booth limps to the horse Peanuts is holding. Booth hits Peanuts on the head, knocking him to the ground, as the pursuers emerge from the theater shouting that he shot the President. Peanuts tries to give chase but Booth gets away as fireworks are set off.
It’s a Conspiracy
In Seward’s house, Stanton asks the doorman for a description of the assailant. Stanton asks Eckhert if the President is still at the play and who is guarding him. Eckhert tells him the guard is Parker. He directs Eckhert to organize a search party. Stanton heads to the theater.
RELATED: Check out Timeless’s Take on Lincoln’s Assassination
Booth approaches a bridge and is informed by the guards it closed at nine. Once he’s recognized as the actor, John Wilkes Booth, he’s allowed to pass.
When Stanton arrives at the theater, Parker informs him the President’s been shot and that witnesses say that it was John Wilkes Booth.
Stanton is met inside by Lincoln’s son, Robert (Maxwell Korn), who accuses Stanton of endangering the President by letting him go to the play so soon after the war has ended.
Mary Todd Lincoln is crying to be let in to sit by her husband’s side. Stanton insists Robert take Mrs. Lincoln home. He is let into the room where the doctor and others stand around Lincoln lying comatose, blood soaking the bedding under his head.
Tobias Menzies and Lili Taylor star in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
Stanton steps outside and begins to have an asthma attack. An agent comes to tell him there’s a German immigrant carriage mechanic who claims to have been directed by Booth to kill the Vice-President but he chickened out.
Booth rides into the woods and meets up with David. He tells him he literally broke a leg but it’s done.
RELATED: Our Flag Means Death Is Officially Canceled
The President Is Dead
Lincoln’s death is recorded at 7:22 am. Stanton dictates a press release for Eckhert, stating the President has been assassinated.
Stanton flashes back to when Lincoln came to tell him the morning of the day he’d attend the play that they had the votes for Reconstruction and that they’d be able to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. He invited Stanton and his wife, Ellen, to join them because Grant had decided to go home to his family.
Stanton declines, and Lincoln leaves, muttering he has to spend the evening with Mary’s friends, and Stanton owes him. Stanton tells Eckhert, who just dropped a pile of death threats against the President on his desk, to send someone with the President to the theater.
A casket is hurriedly made up for Lincoln. He is carried out by Union soldiers. Crowds of people gather in the streets, reaching to touch the passing casket and crying.
Investigating
Stanton visits Ford’s Theatre for a recent picture of Booth. While waiting, Sanford Conover (Josh Stewart) of the New York Tribune approaches him about how he let the President get killed on his watch.
Stanton tells him if he wants a story, he needs to get his photographer in to document every inch of the theater and then meet him at Petersen House, across the street, where Lincoln died.
RELATED: GGA’s 10 Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2024
Stanton walks through Booth’s crime in the theater, questioning how he escaped after murdering the President in front of a full house of audience members. He and Eckhert realize he had to have accomplices among the theater’s staff. They talk with Peanuts who describes the horse, tells them it’ll need feeding soon, and lets them know what direction Booth rode off in. Realizing he crossed the navy bridge to Maryland, Stanton tells Eckhert to release the horse’s description and ban the sale of horse feed in Maryland.
Tobias Menzies stars in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
Peanuts also gives them the name of Booth’s accomplice, Ned Spangler (Walker Babington). Stanton has Spangler arrested.
In the Petersen House, Conover asks Stanton if Booth has weakened the democracy of the U.S. Stanton states, “This is America. We replace our presidents with elections, not with coups.”
Booth in Hiding
In Charles County, Maryland, near Bryantown, about 30 miles from D.C., Booth and David ride up to Dr. Mudd’s (Matt Walsh) house. He diagnoses a broken tibia.
The President’s murder is front-page news. Booth insists on reading it, saying he reads all his reviews. He is ecstatic to be called a symbol for the movement.
Anthony Boyle stars in “Manhunt.” Photo credit: Apple TV+.
Mudd’s slave, Mary (Lovie Simone), brings the coffee up. Booth is rude to her. Dr. Mudd returns and tells Mary to have her brother make a splint, clearly expecting the slaves to do as they’re told. Mudd sets the leg, causing Booth great pain.
RELATED: Read our Dickinson recaps here!
Outside Ford’s Theatre, a man sells Lincoln memorabilia. Stanton comes by and overturns the table, dispersing the crowd. Looking at one of the plaster masks, he flashes back to a happy moment with Ellen after the war ended when fireworks were set off with a chorus of singers celebrating the peace.
In Booth’s hotel room, he finds a cipher in the fireplace and passes it to Eckhert. Eckhert finds a bank book for the Montreal bank which is controlled by the Confederates. They realize that if the Confederacy is behind the assassination, they would have to start another war.
Manhunt streams on Fridays on Apple TV+.
