100 TIME November 8/November 15, 2021
An activist looks backDickinson has a freshness that belies its 19th century settingAPPLE TV+ ENTERED THE STREAMING
race in 2019 with a small but splashy
stable of originals. The Morning Show
had Jennifer Aniston and Reese With-
erspoon. For All Mankind paired Battle-
star Galactica’s creator with an alter-
nate history of the space race. See spent
millions per episode on Jason Momoa
tromping through forests. And then
there was Dickinson, an odd,
anachronistic period piece
from fi rst-time creator Alena
Smith that cast Hailee
Steinfeld as a young
Emily Dickinson.
Surprisingly, Dickinson
became the breakout. Smith’s
bizarre creation caught on
because it felt alive and im-
passioned in its messiness. That momen-
tum persisted and suff uses the show’s
third, fi nal and most ambitious season.
Rooted in an intelligent, wild, sensuous
performance from Steinfeld, Dickinson
remixes facts and conjectures about the
poet’s life into an exuberantly implau-
sible family dramedy. We meet Emily
on the precipice of adulthood. She has
found the love of her life in her best
friend, Sue (Ella Hunt), who’s destined
to wed Emily’s brother, Austin (Adrian
Blake Enscoe). To her family’s dismay,
the rebellious Emily has no intentionREVIEW
Emily in Amherstof marrying. Why would she waste her
life keeping house when she could be
writing brilliant poetry? Also, she sees
things—like a horse-drawn carriage
whose passenger is Death, personifi ed by
rapper Wiz Khalifa.
As this detail suggests, the show
mixes realism and fantasy, 19th
century and 21st. Alongside a punchy
pop soundtrack, Smith
peppers the dialogue with
contemporary notions;
“I just don’t know why this
had to happen in our 20s,”
someone whines about
the Civil War. This style
can be jarring, but it’s no
gimmick. It recontextualizes
Dickinson and her
poetry , scribbling over stiff black-
and-white portraits to reveal a truly
colorful character.
Following a sharp second season
in which Emily grappled with fame,
Season 3 fi nds her pondering her role
during wartime. By intertwining her
story with that of a Black journalist
who travels to aid the abolitionist
cause, Dickinson leaves us with a timely
message: even in the darkest days,
words matter. —J.B.DICKINSON returns Nov. 5 on Apple TV+REVIEW
Kaepernick’s
origin story
Natural talent helps, but
icons are made, not born.
Colin in Black and White, from
co-creators Ava DuVernay
and Colin Kaepernick, traces
that process, connecting the
iconic pro footballer turned
activist of 2021 to the teen
athlete he was in the
early 2000s.
Jaden Michael from The
Get Down stars as the young
Colin, a biracial boy growing
up with white adoptive parents
(played by a clean-shaven
Nick Offerman and a pinched
Mary-Louise Parker) in a
conservative town. His run-ins
with prejudiced cops and
coaches—exacerbated by his
mom and dad’s well-meaning
obliviousness—become case
studies in white privilege
and systemic racism. The
real Kaepernick hosts each
episode, offering primers on
everything from Black hair to
the birth of hip-hop.
That these are such worthy
topics makes the show’s dry,
awkward execution all the more
disappointing. Colin’s parents
often seem so clueless as to
who their son is, it’s as though
they’ve only recently met him.
Kaepernick’s mini-lessons
have a PowerPoint vibe. Colin
might work as a teaching tool,
but as topical entertainment,
it’s a long third quarter.
—Judy Berman
COLIN IN BLACK AND WHITE
comes to Netfl ix on Oct. 29
‘I dwell in
Possibility—/
A fairer
House
than Prose’
EMILY DICKINSONTimeOff Television