The trailer reintroduces us to (not yet acclaimed) poet Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) as she’s eager to hear the thoughts about her poems from best friend and lover Sue Gilbert (Ella Hunt). Sue, in turn, urges Emily to expand beyond soliciting one person’s opinion. What follows is Emily meeting up with Sam Bowles, the man who could be the one to bring Emily worldwide prestige. Meanwhile, Sue herself is on track to become the Victorian equivalent of an influencer, Wiz Khalifa drops in as Death, and then some witchcraft and dancing ensues. Created by Alena Smith, “Dickinson” stars Hailee Steinfeld as a teenage version of the poet and offers a stylish, humorous, and contemporary portrait of her life in mid-19th century Amherst, Massachusetts.
Much like Season 1, it’s evident that “Dickinson” will blend the historical with the anachronistic, the true with the fun and whimsical. “I think that the external facts of Emily Dickinson’s life weren’t even necessarily that interesting. But what was going on inside her was just this whole universe. So we jump off of the images suggested by the poems and the words are always there to guide us,” Smith told IndieWire back in 2019. “What’s so wonderful about Dickinson’s poems is they’re defined by their rhyme and meter. That’s one thing that we get to do in this show is hear her poems aloud.” With Dickinson questing for recognition and the creation of a legacy this season it’s interesting to realize that the real-life woman never lived to see her work published. “One of the things that’s so interesting about Emily Dickinson is that since almost none of her poems were published while she lived, she never saw her poems in print. She only saw them in her own handwriting. A number of her poems, she’ll have two different words as options and not settle on one of them. So her poems are these living artifacts on the page,” Smith said.
“Dickinson” Season 2 arrives on Apple TV+ January 8. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
