“Manhunt” makes its global debut on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, March 15, 2024, and new episodes will debut on Fridays, culminating in the finale on April 19, 2024.
Based on the best-selling non-fiction book, “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer”
Episode 1-Pilot
President Lincoln is assassinated five days after the Civil War ends. Edwin Stanton, his right-hand man, finds himself at the aftermath’s forefront.
Carl Franklin, a great talent behind the camera, has directed this series's first two episodes. I first heard of him when his film, One False Move was released, getting such acclaim from many people & critics alike, I saw it, and was my favorite film of 1992. He has directed quite several movies & TV shows since then, but when I heard that he was a part of this series I asked the people at AppleTV if I could review it. Here we are, my thoughts on the first two episodes, with the rest of the series to be posted each Friday, until April 19.
The first episode is us getting to know a little bit about what happened before the events that changed history, which would be President Lincoln's assassination.
I was a bit thrown off at first as it was jumping from different parts of time, I was expecting a straight line from the start, but as the episode moved along, it started to work for me.
Anthony Boyle(above) stars as John Wilkes Booth, which is who the series is really focused on, as the killing happens here in the first episode. There is a tension that builds quite well, up to and after the shooting, with the investigation starting off almost immediately after, as well as can be expected for that time in history.
The feeling I got from the first episode was almost like when I first saw "Deadwood" back when it first aired, it has an edge to it, not like the swearing and the like, but it has the same sort of mood overall. Be warned there is a lot of blood in one scene in Lincoln's bedroom after he is shot. But the scenes that unfold in this and the second part are almost like a short film, everything works here.
Episode 2-Post-mortem
Facing a nation without a president, Stanton grapples with funeral arrangements, suspects, and piecing together a larger conspiracy.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Lili Taylor has a small role in the series as Mary Lincoln, solid as ever I remember first seeing her in Say Anything and have been a fan since. The rest of the cast is equally as good Tobias Menzies as Edward Stanton, head of the war department has a tough exterior and seems to be reluctant to show any kind of emotion to anyone, including his son.
The search continues for John Wilkes Booth and he gets across the bridge that is supposed to remain closed at night, but because of his popularity as an actor, it allows him to cross the bridge and closer to what he feels is his permanent hiding place.
Shaving his mustache Booth arrives at a doctor's house, with his friend David Edgar Harold(Will Harrison) to have his leg looked after his jump from the balcony after shooting the president, it's certainly broken.
I look forward to seeing how the rest of the series is and my next reviews will be on the date of airing the episodes.
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