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The latest episode of Dickinson is called ‘Grief is a Mouse’ after a poem that considers the many metaphors of grief:
Grief is a Mouse—
And chooses Wainscot in the Breast
For His Shy House—
And baffles quest—
Grief is a Thief—quick startled—
Pricks His Ear—report to hear
Of that Vast Dark—
That swept His Being—back—
Grief is a Juggler—boldest at the Play—
Lest if He flinch—the eye that way
Pounce on His Bruises—One—say—or Three—
Grief is a Gourmand—spare His luxury—
Best Grief is Tongueless—before He’ll tell—
Burn Him in the Public Square—
His Ashes—will
Possibly—if they refuse—How then know—
Since a Rack couldn’t coax a syllable—now
This theme of grief is a pretty important one in the series as a whole, but another one is the contrast of that feeling — hope through the darkness. In grief we can wallow or drown, but we can also emerge whole and sane, damaged perhaps, but still ourselves — if simply a new version of ourselves.
The episode wraps itself with a joke based in history as Edward and Ithamar are off on the road and Edward is told that he’s being nominated for lieutenant governor under the Republican party instead of the Whig, his current one (cue the great joke ‘a Republican, at last you’ll be on the right side of history’). Edward, as he actually did in real life, declines the offer, but this infuriates Ithamar, who kicks him out of the carriage and gives us some great Robert Picardo umbrage as he derides Edward as ‘a coward, and a milksop, and a mouse’ (which all naturally are the same meaning).
Of course this is a follow-up to last episode where Emily called her father a coward, even if this time her father doesn’t seem to be doing things based on that, but a desire to try to keep his family together. After that, though, we get the consequences from Emily’s side, as she calls Austin and Lavinia together to apologize about her mistaken loyalty to her father, who she calls an asshole for being a typical man of contemporary mores and morals.
But Austin points out that there’s legally very little they can do about the will, but he does touchingly promise that he will not treat his sisters as chattel, nor will he continue the sins of his own father as a father to his son. In an interesting little parallel, they note that the past is the past, and they can only hope not to repeat them in the future — this is a counter to when Austin dismissed Edward’s similar words about regretting striking his daughter.
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This success leads to Emily trying to continue her ‘family fixing’ and moves on to her mother, whom she delightfully calls the ‘Broom Queen’ in what is perceived as a compliment. In one of the few truly touching moments between them (recalling their time in the spa last season), Emily helps her mother deal with the grief over losing her sister by anthropomorphizing a mouse. Although on this show, who knows? Maybe the mouse really was inhabited by the spirit of Aunt Lavinia.
Suddenly Emily has managed to fix things that seemed broken, while Edward is still missing somewhere — a telling moment. Two moments of promoting hope through the veil of grief — even if one is the loss of a family member in a more figurative sense and the other more literal. After that we get back into the Civil War parable, two plotlines of different sorts of hope in the darkness.
We discover that old George Gould is heading off to war with his head high, and this sends Austin in a spiral because he paid someone to take his place (mostly true in reality). He desperately wants to be a good father for his son, and how can he be dead on the field? Here now he calls himself a coward, another connection to the prior conversation. This touches Sue, even if maybe not romantically, but they have a fascinating relationship building. George offers the idea that maybe Austin can make the world better by being there for his family, and he’s not the only one thinking that way.
Out in the field, Higginson finally finds Henry’s conquering battalion and acknowledges his failures. The explicit metaphor of birds in flight is compared to these freed slaves, and Erasmus throws yet another joke about Michael Jordan flying at us. Higginson decides to head back home to get his head straight, but in the meantime promotes Henry to Sergeant. In the real world there actually was a Sergeant named Henry in that battalion, although this Henry is entirely fictional so that’s an interesting historical parallel.
Higginson also tells us he’s stopping in Amherst to meet this mysterious Emily who’s written such genius, dropping a few lines that even impress the soldiers. But we don’t see that meeting, at least, not yet — instead we get a reunion, as Emily barges into George’s farewell party to finally admit to Sue that she was wrong.
But they can’t be alone together just yet, instead it’s time for one last party, and it’s delightful. Intercut with the party is Edward finally arriving back in Amherst, saved by Betty and her daughter, leaving Edward to tell them that being a father is one of the greatest gifts in the world — even if we know how badly things have gone for him.
As the party moves to its endgame, we discover that Sue had anonymously published some of Emily’s poems, and she is able to encourage Emily to finally read one aloud for the first time. This one is ‘these are the days when birds come back’, which indeed was published in the Drum Beat newspaper anonymously. As she reads, we spot a montage of the post party as we see Austin with his son and then the poem becomes the far more seductive ‘all the letters I can write’ as we see the mirror of last season’s finale with Emily and Sue finally in bed together again.
Of course, what holds for the season finale, I cannot guess, and I can barely anticipate. As usual, it was a beautiful episode with heartfelt emotions and heady humor, and a lot of great thematic resonance throughout. Song drops of note were ‘Inside Love’ by Grouplove during the party and, of course, ‘ivy’ by Taylor Swift during the credits.
What did you think of this episode? Start a conversation in the comments section below.
New episodes of Dickinson stream Friday on Apple TV+.
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