“Fame is a bee.” When Emily Dickinson wrote this, she couldn’t have imagined Instagram and Tik Tok, let alone television. All of these mediums knocked down the gates that previously excluded the common scum from the celebrity kingdom. Some would say it makes the notion of stardom less special. But each of these social media platforms is defined by the temporary appeal of a performance. Works that take off are short and the viral hits that generate buzz disappear soon afterwards in obscurity.
Even in the 19th century, when newspapers were the main arbiter of who or what was worth knowing, Dickinson understood the impermanence of fame and the risks and wages involved in pursuing it.
Fame is a bee.
There’s a song –
There’s a sting –
Ah, it also has a wing.
“Dickinson” is growing in the growth of his own music in a confident second season, continuing the anachronistic charms established in his first and vibrating even more vibrantly with brilliant intelligence. The poet of Hailee Steinfeld may have emerged from mourning for a love that was not supposed to happen, but is still obsessed with death as always; she thinks of the end as a friend and advisor.
Series creator Alena Smith investigates this aspect of Dickinson’s reputation by making Death a recurring character (played by an elegantly dressed Wiz Khalifa), and now that they are well acquainted with each other, he enigmatically encourages her to discover the difference between fame and immortality, and deciding what she really wants.
In addition to her poetry, Emily Dickinson’s real defining quirk was her introversion; she rarely left her room in the final years of her life, preferring to assess the human condition through verse. She would be a model for self-imposed isolation and a useful figure for these times if a person never experienced Emily de Steinfeld, a lively, though aggressively private, young woman whose ambition clashes with the oppressive patriarchal norms of her time.
Emily’s first encounter with fame comes not through the publication of a poem, but through a confectionery contest at the annual cattle fair. And his approach to the challenge is devoid of the gentle ethereality of his writing.
“I’m going to give this town a kick in the damp, sticky and generously spicy ass!” she screams after her black cake passes her family’s taste test. . . and true to her word, she does. This victory is part of Dickinson’s story; otherwise, there is no point in including it in the plot. Either way, writer Rachel Axler prepares her own generously spiced version of the circumstances surrounding her victory in the episode “Fame Is a Fickle Food”, showing how Emily handles celebrities overnight to a limited degree.
Suddenly, city gossipers are eager to claim it, all because their recipe will be published in the local newspaper. Last year’s winner is rubbish! Best cake ever! But none of this matters to Emily because cakes, like fame, are temporary delights that are soon devoured, digested and forgotten. Great ideas can live in the world forever. . . but is she willing to give up the paper that contains them?
A lot about this new season of “Dickinson” seems more lively and humorous than the excellent first, while maintaining the tension that makes his heroine real for us. With Emily and her father Edward (Toby Huss) having achieved some version of relaxation with regard to their vocation, Huss seems more relaxed in his role, emphasizing the affection that father and daughter share, rather than the ways they may have come in. in conflict.
Along with Jane Krakowski’s comedically graceful performance as the mother of poet Emily Norcross Dickinson, the duo adds a wonderful layer of realistic realism to the fantasy of 19th century America marked by slang and an abundance of needle drops. (LunchMoney Lewis’s “Make that Cake” is a memorable choice to highlight Emily’s triumph as the best of the series, for example.)
The modern sewing of “Dickinson” in his scripts is one of his great strengths, and as the poet gropes her way into the minefield that is fame and discovers what it means to be famous, the show beckons to the most frivolous debates that float in our day to illustrate your conflict. When someone in their social orbit suggests they open a book club and believes Ralph Waldo Emerson as a possibility, another scoffs: “Emerson is canceled.” This is good for laughing and also warns Emily about how quickly fans become haters.
Persistent romantic feelings for her best friend Sue (Ella Hunt) deepen this season, despite Sue’s marriage to Emily’s brother Austin (Adrian Enscoe), and her extravagant spending to show her marital happiness lead to her secondary plot and career Emily’s in a new direction: the newlyweds transform their home into a social center, hosting salons and presentations.
One is the entry point for editor Sam Bowles, which Finn Jones (“Game of Thrones”) performs with an appropriate mix of fascination and intelligence. Mr. Bowles finds Emily’s poetry fascinating, and Emily herself even more so, and needless to say, he’s probably a bad idea to fall in love with. But then, heartbreak is food for the best poetry. (On that note, one of the literary figures who appears this season is Edgar Allen Poe, played by Nick Kroll, who has quite an acting following after John Mulaney’s interpretation of Henry David Thoreau as a spoiled son.)
Where Emily Dickinson’s true work has reached literary eternity by evoking vast and powerful images through an economy of words, “Dickinson” flourishes with its sumptuous scenery, costumes and scenery. There are aspects of this new arc that probably only work because Steinfeld is skilled enough to sell them, as a recurring manifestation of a scary figure that only she can see (Will Pullen), a ghostly representation of his poem “I am nobody! Who is that you?”
It is a visual representation of the choice she faces when she leaves her shelter and puts her word before the world, subjecting her to consumption, praise and judgment, but there are times when the appearance of that spirit borders on overuse.
“Dickinson” also strives to recognize the growing abolitionist movement going on in the family, partly because of the blurring of racial boundaries among his elites. Giving comedian Ayo Edebiri plenty of screen time helps to mitigate some of the subplot’s situational difficulties; furthermore, this subplot adds some perspective to Emily’s personal puzzle. Fame is a privilege that black writers forced to work anonymously would love to enjoy, but are denied at the time, otherwise their lives would be at risk.
That is the problem, and “Dickinson” does not pretend that it is not part of the story. But the rest is a sweet wonder that emphasizes sincerity along with fun, inviting us to delicately and reverently tie ourselves to a Nobody who has described themselves, and to love the way this heightened version of their story makes solitude and anonymity look fabulous. .
The first three episodes of Season 2 of “Dickinson” are currently streaming on Apple TV +, with new episodes premiering on Fridays.