The original post: /r/television by /u/ContinuumGuy on 2025-11-26 17:00:40+00:00.
So, I watched Death by Lightning this week, and before watching the show I took a look at its stacked cast. I saw that Kyle Soller (who so impressed as Syril in Andor) was set to play Robert Todd Lincoln.
Now, I’m a sucker for American history, and knew that Robert Todd Lincoln famously was present during or in the immediate aftermath of three presidential assassinations: his father Abe Lincoln, Garfield’s assassination, and McKinley’s assassination (after that, he reportedly turned down all requests to appear with or meet presidents). I also know that he apparently got hit pretty hard by Garfield’s assassination, not only because he was a member of his cabinet (being his Secretary of War) but also because obviously it brought up memories of his own father’s death.
So, between the actor coming off a breakout role and the important and unusually-connected-to-assassinations historical figure he was playing, I was figuring he’d be a heavily featured character, at least during the episode dealing with the assassination itself. And yet… he isn’t.
Like, at all. He gets mentioned very quickly as he walks into the train station with Garfield, he helps move the wounded Garfield, but doesn’t get really anything else. I don’t think he even gets a real line of dialogue, and I think he only is called Robert, never “Secretary Lincoln” or anything like that. Many people watching probably don’t even realize he’s Abe Lincoln’s son.
I kind of get why he doesn’t - he wasn’t involved in the earlier episodes and it wouldn’t have made much sense to introduce him thoroughly that late in the game - but it still was somewhat surprising it didn’t get at least some attention, especially since the show doesn’t really shy away from some of the other WTF aspects of the real-world events that actually happened, like Alexander Graham Bell showing up or Guiteau living at a free-love commune.
So… here’s a question for all of you: what other television characters did you think going in were going to be prominent due to either the actor playing them or the role they were playing… only to basically be nothingburgers?