‘Dickinson’ was one of the first pleasant surprises that Apple TV + gave us in its early days. In the sense that it was not a high-profile series like ‘The Morning Show’ and that it did not enjoy the same ambition as the rest of its fellow promotion. But the fictional take on the life of the poet conquered us with its freshness and it is difficult to say goodbye to the series, which premieres its third and final season.
A season definitely more mature (even more than the previous one) in which the life of Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) and company hits a wall in the shape of the American Civil War. The conflict sets the mood both at the plot level and in the tone of Alena Smith’s creation, which reaches an inevitable maturity in troubled times.
This causes a certain shock at the beginning of the season. A start drenched by this darkness in which the stability in the Dickinson house is torn. A strong fight between a son (Adrian Blake Enscoe) more concerned with drinking than with his obligations – marital, professional and military – and his father (Toby Huss) ends with the patriarch suffering a heart attack.
Seeing his father on the brink of death stagger Emily’s already fragile pillars, who again finds himself without knowing where he is in the world, in his relationship with Sue, in his family, in society. This existential crisis will lead her to continue exploring and even attending to the wounded on the front lines.
The resistance to letting go
I have to acknowledge some resistance to this season’s proposal from ‘Dickinson’. Perhaps more for the fact that I do not want it to end than for purely objective issues. Although this season it is noticeable that he leaves aside the freshness a bit for plot and thematic themes, his anachronistic pose and his characteristic sarcastic humor is still present.
It is in this balance between continuing to do comedy while the drama acquires more prominence where I think there are more obstacles. Again, this is inherent in the very nature of Dickinson’s evolution, both series and character, but as a viewer one cannot help but be a little disoriented by these developments.
Becoming, I insist, completely logical when ‘Dickinson’ is a story about the search for identity, of her own voice and, incidentally, of maturity and transcendence, of an artist. With this in mind the series continues to enrich the universe created in this exquisitely anachronistic magical realism. Expanding and going far beyond the figure of the poet.
In this sense, Alena Smith He is aware that his time is running out and instead of trying to prolong the sweet moment of infatuation, moves the series forward with a firm step. Being true to herself and leaving the feeling that everything was mapped out from the beginning. Sometimes a bit more broad brush than we would like, but completely efficient.
Despite my small reluctance and visible imperfections here and there, the final season of ‘Dickinson’ reaches heights of brilliance and maturity in his exploration of a unique voice. The Apple TV + series says goodbye as a great little gem in its catalog.