Dickinson on AppleTV+ recap binge guide: Episodes 1-3

Yes, the TV world is saturated with historical dramas, but Apple TV+’s Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld, may be the 19th-century biopic that Gen-Z has been longing for.

Follow along with our binge-watch of this sumptuous series.

Episode 1: “Because I Could Not Stop”

The series begins with Steinfeld’s Dickinson composing poetry in her bedroom when she’s interrupted by her sister, Lavinia (Anna Baryshnikov), who tells her that their mother wants her to fetch a pail of water. When Emily asks why their brother, Austin (Adrian Enscoe), can’t do it, Lavinia reminds her that “he’s a boy.”

“That’s bulls—,” Emily fires back, our first indication that she’s not like other 19th century girls.

Dickinson lives with her well-to-do family in 1800s Amherst, Mass., shackled to an era in which her worth is measured by her efficiency in housework and her agility in securing a prosperous marriage. Mrs. Dickinson (Jane Krakowski) is like an American version of Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice: a nag and determined to turn her daughter into a well-behaved Mrs.

Upon Emily’s entrance into the kitchen, her mother announces that yet another suitor is coming to call on her daughter. The intensity of this conversation is emphasized in the scene’s one-camera shot style. Emily, in her eccentricity, proclaims that she wishes she were a cat. “You’re not a cat,” Mrs. Dickinson replies. To which Emily snaps back, “No, tragically I’m a woman.”

The scene cuts to the family drawing-room, where Mrs. Dickinson is now sitting down with the boyish suitor and discussing the possibility of an engagement. Emily marches into the room and plops herself on the couch in a nonchalant fashion. Determined to appear as unappealing as possible to the opposite sex and irritate her mother, she slouches further into the upholstery.

The budding poet recognizes the suitor in question as George Gould (Samuel Farnsworth), a guy she “hangs out” with in lit club. His eager smile suggests that he wants to be more than pen pals, but Emily puts him in an old-fashioned friend-zone, saying, out of the earshot of her mother, that she can’t marry because of her literary aspirations. A husband, she says, would just stand in her way. Plus, she’s in love with someone else. “Who is he? I’ll kill him!” George promises unconvincingly.

“You can’t kill him,” Emily says with a smirk, “He’s Death,” and he’s “sexy as hell.” Queue a text overlay of Emily’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death.” This does not deter George, who attempts to win Emily’s love by promising to get her poem, byline included, published in the college magazine.

Emily is wary of her father’s reaction, but she boldly decides to go for it. George kisses her, but Emily is clearly not feeling it.

Later, we learn that writing and death are not Emily’s only lovers. She also has a non-platonic friendship with Sue Gilbert (Ella Hunt), who she discovers is engaged to her brother, Austin. Awkward. To confront Sue, Emily sends down a basket on a string to the drawing-room, asking Sue to meet her under the apple orchard. The two girls meet, and neither appear to be ecstatic about the marriage arrangement. Emily asks Sue to promise her two things: “Not to move to Michigan” for her brother’s occupation and “to always love her more than her brother.”

Sue gazes into her friend’s eyes and declares that the first is her fiancé’s decision, but the second Emily does not have to worry about. The two share a passionate kiss under the apple tree while doused by a rain shower.

George is successful in his efforts to get Emily’s poem published. A series of announcements are made at the Dickinson family dinner table: the engagement, Mr. Dickinson’s (Toby Huss) plans to run for Congress, and Emily’s literary debut. The entire family is in flux, especially Mr. Dickinson, who abhors the idea of a woman having “literary ambitions” because it is “scandalous.” Well, if he only knew. As Emily’s punishment, he orders her to clean up dinner and declares that she will be the ruin of their family’s good name cultivated over two centuries in Amherst.

To the soundtrack of Billie Eilish’s “Bury a Friend,” a rouge-dressed Emily pays a visit to Death in the form of Wiz Khalifa, who “kindly stops for her.” Death’s mannerisms are quite seductive, and his actions are tender toward Emily. She asks Death when he will “take her away from this place for good,” and he disappoints her when he says it “won’t be for a long time.” She leans against his shoulder for comfort as he prophesizes that she will be the only Dickinson spoken about for 200 years to come and that “publicity is not the same as immortality.” Death also professes that he has many mortalities in store concerning a “Civil War that will divide this nation.”

The scene cuts back to Emily in her white gown post-cleanup. Her mother ominously announces that another suitor will be visiting tomorrow. “Sexy,” Emily retorts. Then she finishes her “Because I could not stop for Death” poem. Later that night, she and her father reconcile.

Episode Notes:

• Emily, in her actual life, was notorious for wearing a lot of white. Already in the show, she has that capsule wardrobe going. She even wears white to Sue’s sister’s funeral.
• Lavinia is basically Mrs. Dickinson’s mini-me. First reaction: “Oh no, there are two of them!”
• Emily’s off-the-shoulder red dress, while she’s courting death, is every fan’s next Halloween costume. Mark my words.
• Billie Eilish’s entire debut album could have been the soundtrack for this episode.
• Prediction: The Civil War is going to be a huge plotline later on in the show.

Episode 2: “I Have Never Seen Volcanoes”

We last left Emily and Sue in bed together, mourning over the fact that once the latter lady is married, they will no longer be able to sleep with one another (double entendre, surely). The fiancé in question, Austin Dickinson, barges in on the two girls:

“I don’t know how the two of you fit into such a tiny bed,” he says. For a sensual guy, he really does have the worst gaydar.

Once the girls are dressed, they head downstairs to the kitchen to find their new sprightly maid, an Irishwoman named Maggie. Mrs. Dickinson basically has an identity crisis because she’s not allowed to cook or clean the house with the new help around.

“The kitchen was kind of my thing,” she sullenly says to Mr. Dickinson in private. Well, when housework is the only acceptable hustle in society for 19th-century women, perhaps it would suck to have it taken away.

Emily, on the other hand, is enjoying the perks of not having to do housework, utilizing her spare time to leisurely read the Springfield Republican. In the newspaper, she discovers that an illustrious geologist will be lecturing about his explorations of Mt. Vesuvius at Harvard University later in the afternoon. Mr. Dickinson protests that Emily cannot attend because she is not a university student, and she cannot become a university student because the education she needs “as a woman,” she will not find in a classroom.

Speaking of expected societal attributes of 19th-century women, Sue and the Dickinson sisters head to the town’s dressmaker to do some good old-fashioned window shopping. “Are the hips wide enough? I want to look really fertile for you-know-who,” Lavinia asks Sue and Emily. But looking fertile for the boys is far from Emily’s mind.

While twirling a top hat later in her bedroom, Emily rants to Sue about how unfair it is that she cannot attend the Harvard lecture. “Isn’t it funny how this huge universe exists, and we’ll never seen any of it outside of Amherst? I want to see a real volcano!”

Emily throws out the idea of tossing on men’s garb and sneaking into the volcano lecture in disguise. Sue is hesitant and points out that those types of things “only work in storybooks.”

“Maybe they’re scared that if they teach us how the world works, we’ll take over!” Emily says defiantly while sporting the top hat. Sue smirks at her friend/lover’s handsomeness and joins in on the scheme. Lizzo’s “Boys” plays during the cross-dressing and dancing montage, and it is a better usage of the song than all the viral TikToks ever made.

And so, the girls — I mean boys — galivant to the ivy league institution in a whirl of waistcoats and fake facial hair. George Gould recognizes them immediately but humors Emily, asking, “Who are you, young man?”

Emily caves to George, asking him not to tell anyone, and he agrees to oblige the “weird beautiful boy” by the name of “Lysander Periwinkle” and his friend, “Sir Tybalt Butterfly.”

At first, it seems that the male mirage will go on as planned. Sue and Emily enter the lecture hall and camouflage themselves in a sea of college boys.

The lecturer tasks George with enacting a volcano prototype and engages in a borderline-sensual explanation of how tension builds before a volcano erupts. A volcano-related outburst from Emily blows the girls’ cover, and they are immediately kicked out.

It does not take long for Mr. Dickinson to hear about the incident. He reproaches his daughter for such disgraceful behavior and urges her to read his essay “On the Proper Place of Women.” A magma of frustration arises in Emily at the mere title, prompting her to do some “scribbles in her room” that eventually evolve into another iconic poem, “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes.’”

Despite her disagreement with her father, Emily does feel guilty when Mrs. Dickinson reminds her that night that her father provides for her and she needs to behave and exercise gratitude. As a peace offering, Emily bakes her father a loaf of bread.

That evening, Sue and Emily end up right where they started: in bed together pondering their place in the world.

“I just can’t stop thinking about Pompei, a whole city covered in ash, frozen in time. That’s how I feel sometimes. Like I’m frozen. Like I’m trapped,” Emily sighs.

“I think I know what a volcano feels like,” Sue responds. They then briefly escape the world the only way they know how.

Episode Notes:

• I laughed out loud when George had to call a boy in passing a “weird beautiful boy” to cover for the fact that he called Emily a “weird beautiful boy.”
• Your third-grade DIY volcano could not conjure up such feels.
• Lavinia’s asides on the ridiculous expectations of women, like “Wait, have I been knitting all day?” are a true win. 

Episode 3: “Wild Nights”

Dickinson is Sue and Emily’s love story and the rest of the Dickinsons are just living in it. “Wild Nights” opens on Emily caught in a shipwrecking storm, calling after Sue, who’s about to jump ship. Emily awakes from the nightmare with a gasp of breath, lifting her head from her desk pillow, which is actually scraps of parchment featuring her newest composition: “Wild Nights.” The poem foreshadows such stormy evenings.

The Dickinson parents are going on a trip to Boston. Emily rushes down the stairs and dramatically pleads, “No, you can’t, you mustn’t! How must we cope with the unbearable pain of your absence?” Her father’s comeback is priceless: “I know why you prefer poetry to acting, goodbye,” and kisses her on the cheek.

Mrs. Dickinson asks the girls to “clean constantly” while she’s gone. Yeah, right. All teens watching this know that it’s party time at the Dickinson’s.

Well, the 19th-century version of throwing a party when parents are out of town, anyway. Case in point, Austin’s comment to his younger sister, Lavinia: “Every time we throw a party, I find you with your hair tied around some boy’s neck.” Lavinia retorts, “It’s actually a traditional courting ritual.”

Emily, who instigates the soiree, declares, “Parties are like shipwrecks: you should emerge from them soaking wet, out of breath, and immensely disoriented.”

Austin finally agrees to the house-party and wishfully sees it as the perfect moment to announce his engagement. Sue, unsurprisingly, is hesitant and blames it on her lack of finances. She tries to put off the engagement by offering to be a governess in Boston for a few months, but Austin won’t have it.

As we remember, Austin is not the only Amherst bachelor who longs for someone he cannot have: George still has his sights set on Emily. The evening of the party, he brings Emily white lilies, the symbol of death, which she thanks him for with a peck on the cheek. Poor George takes this as an encouragement, the woes of unrequited love.

The party also introduces some new faces, including Jane Humphreys (Gus Birney), Amherst’s lavishly-dressed mean girl, who is determined to be the object of Austin’s affections. She alludes to Emily that they may be sisters-in-law someday.

“I suppose if Austin married a flesh-eating demon she’d be my sister too,” Emily says to her matter-of-factly. Bravo, Em.

No college house party is complete without the popular girl, or the pompous player bragging about his female conquests, which in this case is a boy named Joseph (Lavinia’s “you-know-who”). He proves his sexual prowess by showing Austin and George a wallet full of locks of girls’ hair. He could probably fashion a full wig out of it.

While the house party has all the dressings of a refined soiree: fancy finger food, candlelight, and resplendently-clad guests, it is still a teen party after all, so drugs are not off the table.

Opium is the 19th-century weed and everyone in the party takes a couple — okay a few drops. Emily, completely at the mercy of the narcotics, thinks she’s dancing with a bee. George cuts in and things get awkward. The lovesick boy says that if he and Emily were married, they could “have parties like this all the time.”

Emily soberly tells George that he should marry a “normal girl, not a crazy lady.”

“Maybe I like crazy,” he objects and kisses her on the lips this time. With coincidental timing, Emily grips her abdomen and tells George that she feels sick as she runs from the room.

After rummaging through an endless layer of petticoats, Emily discovers that she just started her period (which is actually shown on-camera) and cries out into the void, which all of womankind past and present can feel on a cellular level:

“Life is an endless sea of pain!” Yes, an unforgiving red sea.

Jane, meanwhile, asks Austin if Sue is suitable for him because she’s weird and alludes to her being romantically involved with Emily. He dismisses it, in denial.

But then Austin discovers Emily’s poem to Sue, “Wild Nights,” and comes to terms with reality when he walks in on Emily and Sue kissing in Emily’s bedroom. Oops. The Dickinson siblings proceed to fight over Sue, who then complains of them suffocating her. This secures Sue in her resolve to move to Boston and become a governess.

Episode Notes:

• Emily’s royal blue off-the-shoulder party gown is exquisite and so is her half-up ‘do.
• We all need a gay best friend whose samurai father will bring us a matching fan for our party dresses from Japan.
• When a guy asks you how you are, perhaps refrain from Lavinia’s killer line, “I just knitted a pillow for my cat.”
• Finally, a show that is talking about periods. Not just time periods.
• RIP cat pillow.
• The Victorian dance sequence to a rap song is genius. If only rap was discovered in the 19th century!
• When Joseph called Lavinia “hella ripe,” it was difficult not to throw up a little.

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