THE NEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 25, 2019 83
lacks it; Gugu Mbatha-Raw is touch-
ing, as a booker with a secret. But, crim-
inally, the show wastes Aniston, whose
Alex is a seething phony whom we seem
meant to feel for, based solely on the fact
that she’s accessorized with Aniston’s
halo of vulnerable warmth. As an anti-
hero, she’s less complex than incoherent.
It’s a shame, because the show keeps
circling interesting themes, in particu-
lar the notion that from inside a system
you can’t see how much it’s shaped you.
There’s a singular late episode, an ex-
tended flashback to when Mitch was
still an adored celebrity, that captures
what it seems to be shooting for—a mor-
dant map of a world in which women’s
careers are snuffed as they become sex-
ual trading pieces, while everyone shrugs.
But by then it’s too late: when the show
finally looks more closely at the women
Mitch has messed with, it’s only to ex-
ploit their trauma, mawkishly so. They
can’t stay in focus, because the camera
has been facing the wrong way.
E
lsewhere on Apple TV+, luckily,
there’s the sweet surprise of “Dick-
inson,” which blossoms despite a prem-
ise that sounds like a gimmick: Emily
Dickinson’s life, as a modern teen com-
edy. And, to be fair, the pilot is, as the
kids say, “a lot,” giving the false impres-
sion that it’s a sketch show, like “Drunk
History,” a hot take on the poet as a
mouthy, death-obsessed feminist badass,
scored to songs by Billie Eilish and Mitski.
But keep watching and it quickly be-
comes clear that, for all the anachro-
nisms and slang (“That is a sick locket,”
one character coos, when she receives a
necklace), there’s nothing essentially
ironic about the production. It’s lovely
and sincere, joyful and sensual—and, in
its way, richer and more honest about
teen-agers than nihilistic contrivances
like “Euphoria” or “Riverdale” are. The
category it belongs in is not campy teen
soaps or costume dramas but playful
genre experiments like “Crazy Ex-Girl-
friend,” “Jane the Virgin,” and “Lady Dy-
namite,” series that sound silly in theory
but are crafted well enough to teach the
viewer, liberated from the need to be sol-
emn, how to watch them.
At the show’s heart is Emily’s steamy
affair with her future sister-in-law Sue,
with whom Emily (Hailee Steinfeld)
has her first orgasm, cued to her poem
“I Have Never Seen Volcanoes.” But
their relationship, which is backed up
by recent Dickinson scholarship, isn’t
treated as a dirty joke: it’s romantic and,
eventually, tragic, an impossible dream
in a world where women’s prospects are
limited. The other characters, initially
cartoonish, begin to feel real, too, in-
cluding Emily’s vain sister Lavinia and
her Whig politician father (a terrific
Toby Huss), who has a deep bond with
the daughter he has trapped in a box of
domesticity. Emily’s goth bravado and
her grandiose declarations that she’s a
genius are made poignant by their his-
torical context: we know that she’s right,
and also that she’ll end up staying at
home her whole life, largely unpublished.
Still, the key to the show’s effect is
how well it grounds emotion in humor.
Created by Alena Smith (a writer for
“The Newsroom” and “The Affair” who,
full disclosure, is a Twitter acquaintance
and the author of witty Twitter feeds like
Tween Hobo), “Dickinson” uses its free-
dom from bio-pic fustiness to get frankly
weird. Early on, the Dickinson kids host
a bash, about which Emily effuses, “Parties
are like shipwrecks. You should emerge
from them soaking wet, out of breath and
hopelessly disoriented.” We get opium
and twerking, cleverly interwoven (you’ll
have to take my word for it) with a tradi-
tional reel. But there’s also, at the climax,
a hallucination of a bee, wagging anten-
nae, whom Emily dances with, deliriously.
Things calm down after that, as, ep-
isode by episode, the show takes full ad-
vantage of its setting, with a freewheel-
ing disrespect for verisimilitude. Emily
meets a hypocritical Thoreau (a shirt-
less John Mulaney) and, later, Louisa
May Alcott (a shirty Zosia Mamet). An
amateur performance of “Othello” in-
tersects with white teens debating ab-
olition. (“This Shakespeare club has too
much drama!”) There are sly references
to the Trump era and kids screaming
“No spoilers!” while discussing “Bleak
House.” The visual design is just as en-
dearing, down to the Monty Python-
esque credits and details such as Emily
stitching a sampler reading “F My Life.”
Niftiest of all, each episode highlights
one of Dickinson’s poems, which feel
revivified, not merely invoked. The words
float onscreen, in Dickinson’s handwrit-
ing, glimmering like a spiderweb—the
best kind of message from beyond.
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