As the episode opens, Stanton dreams of Ford’s Theatre, because how couldn’t he? It begins as a dream of a second chance. Instead of allowing Booth to pull the trigger on his single-shot .44-caliber Derringer pistol, Stanton blocks him, knocks him to the ground, and begins beating him. Then the fantasy takes a turn as Booth mocks him as a failure. The two never met in real life, but dreams are another matter.
In the waking world, the investigation continues slowly and with few solid leads. Working with Eckert and Eddie Jr., Stanton interviews the man who rented Booth his distinctive horse. Then he gets a wealth of information from an unexpected source, a Union officer named Louis Weichmann (C.J. Hoff). We glimpsed Weichmann briefly in the first episode of Manhunt, hanging out in Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse, and he tells Stanton moments after meeting him he thinks his landlady might be in on the job. And when Eckert follows Weichmann back to Surratt’s place, it doesn’t take long for her story to start to fray. If the claim of lending cooking utensils to Booth already seems a little odd, it’s further undermined by the arrival of a bedraggled Lewis Powell, Seward’s would-be assassin, who clearly knows Mary despite her calling her attempts to treat him as a strange “vagrant.†Whoops! Soon they’re both under arrest. Now that’s a lead.
If that weren’t enough, Stanton has other problems, too. He can’t join his wife, Ellen, for their regularly scheduled visit to their son’s grave because Andrew Johnson (Glenn Morshower), soon to become president of the United States, is sleeping one off and needs to be roused so he can, oh, you know, begin leading the country, healing the wounds of the war, and that kind of thing. Johnson knows Stanton doesn’t like him, but he’d very much like Stanton to know he has no idea why John Wilkes Booth left a calling card at his hotel on the day of the assassination. When Stanton informs Johnson that he, too, was marked for death but spared, Johnson wonders aloud why he escaped. “I don’t know,†Stanton replies. “You tell me.†Everyone, it seems, is a suspect until proven otherwise.
Manhunt doesn’t seem to like Johnson very much either and lets the character himself illustrate why. A compromise choice from Tennessee brought aboard to help balance the ticket for the 1864 election, Johnson’s priorities were not Lincoln’s or Stanton’s, as he makes clear when he says that the economy, not “Negro rights,†will be his priority. (Never mind that the proper approach might not have seen those as separate issues.) Stanton doesn’t see Johnson as presidential but tells him, “At least you look the part.†Sick burn, but it doesn’t change a thing. Later, Johnson will even suggest that letting Booth get away wouldn’t be the worst thing. Stanton can threaten him in return, but he can’t get rid of him (though, as later history will reveal, he can try).
Meanwhile, back at the Mudd farm, Booth and Herold remain in a pickle. The horses need feed (being city horses, they’re not used to grazing, but feed has been banned), and Booth’s injury won’t make their journey any easier. So why does Herold stick around? That’s one of history’s unanswered questions. Later, he’d claim feeble-mindedness, but a college degree in pharmacy, which allowed him to work as a pharmacist’s assistant, suggests otherwise. Manhunt doesn’t seem to have a single answer. Herold seems to admire Booth greatly and sympathize with his beliefs, but he’s not an idiot (at least not a complete idiot) and he does push back and express doubts. A flashback in which he meets John Surratt Jr. (Joshua Mikel), Mary’s son, depicts him as being a bit starstruck at the thought of joining a conspiracy tied to Booth. It’s a first step on a journey that will take him way over his head.
At Mudd’s, another Mary, Mary Simms, has to deal with the injured Booth, giving up her broom for a crutch and shaving him in his bed, then fighting off his insults, blows, and threats after she nicks him. This leads to another flashback, this one to Mary’s childhood, when she escaped slavery only to be abducted back into it and returned to Mudd. Mudd shows her no respect despite their long acquaintance. Could this have repercussions? Later, when agents question Mudd, he tells them he set a bone, but he doesn’t know whose bone he set. That’s not helpful, but maybe Mary and Milo can be. Or maybe not. Clearly terrified, Mary doesn’t tell all she knows. Later, Surratt arrives at Mudd’s, where he talks openly about their mutual friend, Booth, who is within earshot of Mary. This might not be the end of her story.
At the White House, Stanton walks in to the sad sight of Lincoln’s body stretched on the bed. A line has formed for mourners, many of them Black, to say farewell. By the bedside, he finds a third Mary, Mary Lincoln, who seems a little out of it. Lili Taylor’s performance does not summon up the madwoman Mary is sometimes depicted as being, and the series depicts Elizabeth Keckley (Get Out’s Betty Gabriel), Mary’s friend — a renowned seamstress and, later, author — as a kind of tempering influence. Or at least as tempering as anyone can be in such a situation.
It’s Stanton who pushes her to bury Lincoln in Arlington, a military cemetery on land that once belonged to Robert E. Lee. She can’t make up her mind, so, unlike Edwin, she delegates, telling him, “You were his war wife. You handle it.†Yet, ultimately, Arlington won’t be Lincoln’s final resting place thanks to Mary’s veto. At Eddie Jr.’s suggestion, his body will tour the country before returning to Springfield, Illinois. It’s a fitting resting place for Lincoln. It’s also a savvy bit of politicking, reminding the nation of Lincoln’s plan for the country, not Johnson’s idea of Reconstruction.
Booth is making his way south, but the case also involves some action in the north. Enter Captain Lafayette Baker (Patton Oswalt), a spymaster who speaks directly even as he arranges for undercover schemes. He is, from all appearances, good at his job but not above assigning his cousin Luther Baker (Kevin Patrick Murphy) to the investigation in the hopes of keeping the considerable reward money for catching Lincoln’s killer (or killers) in the family. Later, speaking to Stanton, he suggests that the Confederate Secret Service might be helping Booth. And, if so, who in particular might be directing? Remnants of the Confederacy, Wall Street … Andrew Johnson? Stanton essentially waves off this last suggestion but can’t deny that Johnson did benefit from Lincoln’s death. Stanton doesn’t validate the suggestion but, as Baker notes, “Everybody’s thinking it.†But Baker isn’t content with theories alone. To get to the bottom of things, he sends Sanford Conover, the reporter who harassed Stanton in the previous episode, to Montreal to see what he can find. Spy … journalist … He’s happy to do both jobs, sometimes at once. Baker’s hope: He’ll come back with some “damning shit†about Surratt and Booth, or maybe the men themselves.
Eddie Jr. supplies some information on John Surratt, a former postmaster who apparently tried to get close to Stanton by applying for a job under him. Surratt is, in contemporary parlance, highly suss, but it’s hard to pin anything on him. Stanton’s happy to get this information but can’t hide his annoyance that he didn’t get it before. Nonetheless, it’s another lead, particularly once Eddie reveals that Mary also owns a tavern in a little Maryland town bearing her family’s name, Surrattsville. Looks like it’s time to put a bounty on John Surratt’s head and take a trip to Surrattsville. There, Stanton, Eckert, and Weichmann find a coded telegram from no less than Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Could Weichmann be part of it? Stanton needs to know and questions him harshly. But Weichmann insists on his innocence and doesn’t back down. Stanton may not be convinced, but he doesn’t see any cracks, either.
Mary Surratt’s another story, however. Stanton and Eckert are far harsher with her when they question her in her cell. She sobs about wanting to go home. Stanton responds by cutting her food rations. This is no time for fooling around, as Stanton’s subsequent interrogation of Powell confirms. But it doesn’t get him Booth, and Eckert is stumped by Jefferson Davis’s code. Then Peanuts arrives with a bit of info he hadn’t shared before: Booth is injured. This might help. Are there any doctors he might have turned to?
For all his hard-charging obsessiveness, Stanton has a softer side. He seems genuinely remorseful that he could not be by Ellen’s side, and a photo of Lincoln’s second inauguration sends him back to the composition of the landmark speech that accompanied it. Speaking to Elizabeth, he shows real concern for what will become of the Lincoln family and doesn’t like what he hears. Mary’s extravagance has put them in dire financial straits.
On the road again, Herold and a now clean-shaven Booth find an unlikely guide in Oswell Swann (Roger Payano), a man of mixed ancestry who’s apparently willing to help anyone for the right price. They need to get to a place called Rich Hill. Only he can get them there, and they’re desperate enough to give their new acquaintance their guns. They made the choice to conspire to kill the president. But now their choices have started to dry up.
Clues and Codes
• Manhunt is heavy on plot, but this episode counters that with some deeply emotional moments. Stanton’s memory of Lincoln composing his inaugural address is the only flashback in “Post-mortem,†but it’s a powerful one. So is the rainy farewell to Lincoln’s coffin, where Stanton sends the president’s surviving family off shortly after entrusting Keckley with a “travel stipend†for her to oversee instead of Mary. Still, it’s Mary who entrusts Stanton with keeping Lincoln’s memory alive. It’s Betty Gabriel who has the episode’s most affecting moment when she tells Stanton she cannot see Lincoln’s work undone or the changes she’s fought for all her life turn backward. Manhunt has thus far effectively conveyed how easily that might have happened.
• Surrattsville, Maryland, is no longer Surrattsville. It first became Robeystown, then, in 1879, Clinton. (Curiously, its high school is still called Surrattsville High School.) The Surratt House is now a museum. Booth retrieved a stash of weapons from the location before the assassination. The hidden room and coded telegram appear to be narrative inventions but evoke a theory that Booth somehow served as Davis’s catspaw, which Manhunt takes seriously. Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse still stands in Washington, D.C. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and currently serves as the home of a restaurant named Wok and Roll.
• Both Oswalt and Walsh are better known for their comedic roles, but they’re doing good dramatic work here. It’s especially a departure for Walsh and a far cry from his put-upon Veep character.
• Like the pilot, this episode is directed by Carl Franklin. Looking for more to watch? Try One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress (and then get mad at all the Devil sequels we could have gotten but didn’t).