Apple TV Plus
The latest episode of Dickinson is called ‘This is my letter to the World’:
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—
The simple News that Nature told—
With tender Majesty
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see—
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me/em>
A common interpretation of this poem is the feeling of alienation from a world that has never reached back, yet the poet craves outside contact. Thus we get the conceit of this episode, mirrored in multiple plots. We finally catch up with Henry as he’s arrived at the camp of Colonel Higginson, the man who wants to command the first all-black battalion of the Union Army.
In real life the dude was famously progressive for the era, and here we get an extended conversation jam-packed with white savior guilt and overly ‘woke’ over-conversation. Thus we get Higginson offering cringe-inducing drops like ‘May he rest in power’, ‘movement building’, and of course, ‘safe space’. It’s funny if also a bit odd — is it really fair to compare this particular historical figure to modern day problematic white allies?
Henry is given the offer to teach literacy to the newly freed men, but they give him a lot of grief about their situation and his own freeman privilege. But this is Henry continuing his own fight to make a difference, his own attempt to use his own privilege to help those without it — even he looks like the ‘cat that drank too much milk’ to quote expressive and simmering Erasmus.
We touch briefly on Austin and Sue as Austin attempts to be a good father despite Sue being dismissive about it — we know that this is something he probably really does want, despite not wanting to be with Sue anymore. So it’s another parallel to that ‘outreach’ idea and a fairly poignant one — but the most absurd subplot is the one with the Dickinson parents and Lavinia, as they have become infected by the outside world, with fleas, while Lavinia has buried herself alive.
It’s something about the dissonance and their disconnection to real struggles, while Emily does two things at the same time. She reads ‘Leaves of Grass’ by Walt Whitman while on a ‘date’ with either herself or Walt Whitman himself. As per usual, the show plays with reality and both things seem true at once. While she seems to get off on the conversation that’s happening, the conversation is also happening.
Apple TV Plus
Billy Eichner wonderfully portrays Whitman, who historically was certainly queer in some way. His overly exuberant and ebullient personality is a great offset to Emily, and becomes even more so when we see Louisa May Alcott again. Emily is seeking to find the truth to great poetry and wanting to help the world in her way while Walt is dancing about with his turns of phrases and odd physical touching of dying soldiers while Louisa is making notes about the facts for a possible book.
The two are great pair, both dropping a lot of great lines — Whitman literally quotes the song ‘New York, New York’ while Louisa mentions that being a Civil War nurse is another ‘legit fact’ about her. Eventually they end up in the historically famous Pfaff’s Bar, while Whitman pushes Emily to get her to admit that she is turned on by Sue and only wants her. A good rebalancing of the last few interactions between them.
And they all spend the rest of the episode dancing to the music that is played out of time, to the poem that is America as Whitman proclaims. And don’t think I didn’t notice the shout of ‘New York is back!’ — yeah, I get it.
It was a pretty funny episode, not as emotional as some of the recent ones, but it did show another example of the inspired casting of this show. I could probably watch another hour of Billy Eichner as Whitman while Louisa snarks nearby. It’s not so important about the reality of the situation, as the metaphor is true and not true at the same time — the theme of the outside world creeping in permeates Emily’s tale.
A song drop of note is ‘One More Time’ by Robin Schulz and Felix Jaehn, which is now on my playlist.
What did you think of this episode? Start a conversation in the comments section below.
New episodes of Dickinson stream Friday on Apple TV+.
Share this post
