‘Dickinson’ Is an Offbeat Literary Origin Story, Written in Fire
In the eerie, gleefully absurdist second season, the young poet ponders whether it’s better to be Nobody.
In 2019 the new streaming service Apple TV+ released a trailer for “Dickinson,” which framed the story of the enigmatic 19th-century American poet as a contemporary young-adult melodrama, complete with power ballad soundtrack and conspicuous employment of the honorific “Dude.” The series looked ridiculous. Naturally, I had to watch it.
In the first season, Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) hitches a coach ride with Death (played by the rapper Wiz Khalifa), curses out a pompous Henry David Thoreau (John Mulaney) and dances with a hallucination of a giant bee (Jason Mantzoukas) while high on opium. Yep, I realized, this is ridiculous. Ridiculously brilliant.