![]() And without the warmth of his approval, I can’t grow.” “I gave my poem to him and now it’s like he holds my life in his hands. Smarmy and swaggering as a tech bro, he drips sweet honey into Emily’s ears and soon he (and his promises) become the “sun” to her. Feeling burdened as Emily’s only confidante and reader, Sue convinces Emily to widen her circle of critics and introduces her to Samuel Bowles (Finn Jones, Game of Thrones), the slick owner and editor-in-chief of the Springfield Republican newspaper. Austin Dickinson assumes the mask of an improvident socialite. ![]() If the first season showcased Emily questioning middle-class domesticity, the second depicts her embracing giftedness as an identity.Įmily’s relationship with Sue (Ella Hunt), her former lover and current sister-in-law, continues to anchor the pathos, but their romance only simmers as the new Mrs. The show makes up for it by surrounding her with a coterie of buoyant flibbertigibbets, among them her burgeoning aesthete sister, Lavinia (Anna Baryshnikov), and my favorite characters, a quadrant of bitchy townies played by Gus Birney, Sophie Zucker, Kevin Yee and Allegra Heart. Dickinson, too, is sweet and sour, presenting Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) as a teen fulminating with esthetic brio and social uncertainty.ĭickinson, at least, recognizes its protagonist’s penchant for self-seriousness. Given the recent popularity of Netflix’s Regency romance Bridgerton and Hulu’s royal comedy The Great, teen-centric feminist revisionism seems to satisfy many viewers’ desire to watch creamy costume confections beautify modern political acidity. No longer solely relying on dizzying tonal juxtapositions, the series flourishes in ten-episode Season 2 thanks to this revamped balance between 21st-century absurdity and 19th-century poignancy. (By far, the funniest lines are the historical footnotes written into the dialogue, which allow various characters to fleetingly explain the mores of the Victorian era.)īy the end of season 1, creator Alena Smith had developed stronger command of her storytelling, and the show’s tone settled into something a little less brassy and a little more tender than its opening episodes conveyed. ![]() I still don’t always grasp the show’s irony-dense comic rhythms, which are more likely to elicit knowing smirks than throaty laughs, but I do now better understand its sapiosexual allure. Can genius flower in the dark?Īdmittedly, I came away from the first few episodes of the series with mixed feelings. They can only do so much: Emily may not always feel in control of the words that pulse through her, but it is ultimately within her power to select her audiences. Throughout the first and second seasons, she encounters a number of eminent artists, such as Louisa May Alcott (Zosia Mamet) and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (Timothy Simons), who briefly mentor her, sharing trade wisdom or warning her of the dysphoria of fame. ![]() The magical realist antebellum dramedy speckles its story with Dickinson’s writing, of course - artful chyrons here, lyrical recitations there - but Dickinson is more interested in grappling with young Emily’s process than her output. Not necessarily the individual genius of its protagonist, virtuosa poet Emily Dickinson, but the cultural constructs of genius and all the jubilation and despair associated with possessing that kind of talent. ![]()
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