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The latest episode of Dickinson is called ‘Split the lark’, which is a poem with a lot of interpretations:
Split the Lark – and you’ll find the Music –
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled –
Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning
Saved for your Ear, when Lutes be old –
Loose the Flood – you shall find it patent –
Gush after Gush, reserved for you –
Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?
A common theme is the juxtaposition between the medium and the message. The metaphor of the dissection of the songbird to find the song is a quixotic and pointless endeavor, because music and art is not simply about the mechanism to create it. The entire episode takes place in an opera house, with a dizzying jump through emotional highs and lows. The episode starts with a joke, having Mrs. Dickinson begin to call out ‘We’re here…’ and then immediately the credits cut her off. I admit I laughed.
The family has extremely different reactions to the opera, of varying resolutions. Lavinia is a real opera nerd, which feels perfectly in character, and whispering notes to Ship like ‘she has tuberculosis’. A very modern sort of ‘whispering in the movies’ kind of thing. But she gives an interesting viewpoint, that one’s first exposure to opera informs the rest of their feelings in the future — if you love it, you always will, but if you don’t, you never will quite get there. Her relationship with Ship is shown as off balance, as she condescendingly ripostes that he never graduated from high school.
Much of the focus of Emily and Austin revolves around Sue, who directs the eye and watches over things sometimes to her own detriment. After the performance from Adelaide May (real name was Adelaide Borghi-Mamo, played here by Kelli Barrett), Austin is in tears and clearly realizes the truth about his relationship with Sue. There is nothing good there anymore. Interestingly, he mentions his friend Frazar Stearns, another real person who was friends with Austin and an interesting potential plotline if they choose to go down that path.
The pure comedy and pleasantness comes from Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson, who both despair over the lack of comedy and prefer vaudeville. Although they are being a bit insulting to others who enjoy it, it does seem to draw them closer together — Lavinia’s relationship is in stasis, while Austin’s is plummeting. And Emily is the most complicated of all.
The real emotional punches come from Emily and her conversations in the episode. It starts with Emily giving an absolutely molten look to Sam, but then he reveals that Emily’s letter made him and his wife uncomfortable. Sam says that, despite rumors and flirtatious energy aside, he is entirely loyal to his wife and the situation with Emily is entirely professional. Although this affects Emily, she insists that it’s not a problem — but it’s really about something deeper, as we’ll see. Sue watches this exchange from a distance with her opera glasses, and who knows what she’s seeing?
The romance of being published is between you and yourself, Sam tells Emily, and perhaps there’s a real commentary about the nature of art and the artist. The metaphor of the songbird and song and the nature of trying to reconcile that with how that song makes you feel.
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Because the episode takes an electric direction when Emily watches Adeladie’s solo performance and suddenly it’s Sue on stage, singing the poem of the episode — the poem Emily intended for Sam. Or was it? Emily’s forbidden passion for Sam is an effective mirror of her forbidden relationship with Sue, who is similarly married and unavailable. Ella Hunt sings the poem in a haunting, beautiful arrangement, which I have to assume is an original for the show.
There’s a jump of emotional complexity and Emily’s relationship with fame when she sneaks backstage to meet Adelaide, who is bored with her fame and almost nihilistic about it. Everyone is forgotten, she says, eventually, so what’s the point in it? She explicitly brings up a concern that Emily has discussed — if your poems are seen they are also exposed and could one day become stale (although that hasn’t happened yet over 150 years later).
It gets romantic as Adelaide leads Emily out on to stage and they discuss what, perhaps, Emily truly desires as she once again shifts into the form of Sue. The two kiss furiously while the image or phantom or perhaps really their vision of Sam watches on (but I think he is Emily’s imagination, the representation of the mirror of forbidden desire).
Over the course of the episode, Hailee Steinfeld once again shows off a range of everything from incendiary attraction, heartbreaking sadness, gleeful joy, and confused passion. It’s patently absurd that she didn’t get any awards contention to speak of last year and The Morning Show got everything? Next year this and Ted Lasso better show up in everyone’s list of best performances. The episode hit me hard and it wasn’t even a down note — just a roller coaster of emotions and a really great episode overall.
What did you think of this episodes? Start a conversation in the comments section below.
New episodes of Dickinson are available Fridays on Apple TV+.
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