The intensity of this conversation is emphasized in the scene’s one-camera shot style.
Emily, in her eccentricity, proclaims that she wishes she were a cat.
“You’re not a cat,” Mrs. Dickinson replies.
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To which Emily snaps back, “No, tragically I’m a woman.”
Emily marches into the room and plops herself on the couch in a nonchalant fashion.
A husband, she says, would just stand in her way.
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Plus, she’s in love with someone else.
“Who is he?
I’ll kill him!”
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Queue a text overlay of Emily’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death.”
Emily is wary of her father’s reaction, but she boldly decides to go for it.
George kisses her, but Emily is clearly not feeling it.
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Later, we learn that writing and death are not Emily’s only lovers.
The two girls meet, and neither appear to be ecstatic about the marriage arrangement.
The two share a passionate kiss under the apple tree while doused by a rain shower.
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George is successful in his efforts to get Emily’s poem published.
Well, if he only knew.
Death’s mannerisms are quite seductive, and his actions are tender toward Emily.
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The scene cuts back to Emily in her white gown post-cleanup.
Her mother ominously announces that another suitor will be visiting tomorrow.
“Sexy,” Emily retorts.
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Then she finishes her “Because I could not stop for Death” poem.
Later that night, she and her father reconcile.
For a sensual guy, he really does have the worst gaydar.
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“The kitchen was kind of my thing,” she sullenly says to Mr. Dickinson in private.
In the newspaper, she discovers that an illustrious geologist will be lecturing about his explorations of Mt.
Vesuvius at Harvard University later in the afternoon.
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“Are the hips wide enough?
I want to look really fertile for you-know-who,” Lavinia asks Sue and Emily.
But looking fertile for the boys is far from Emily’s mind.
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I want to see a real volcano!"
Emily throws out the idea of tossing on men’s garb and sneaking into the volcano lecture in disguise.
Sue is hesitant and points out that those types of things “only work in storybooks.”
Emily says defiantly while sporting the top hat.
Sue smirks at her friend/lover’s handsomeness and joins in on the scheme.
George Gould recognizes them immediately but humors Emily, asking, “Who are you, young man?”
At first, it seems that the male mirage will go on as planned.
Sue and Emily enter the lecture hall and camouflage themselves in a sea of college boys.
A volcano-related outburst from Emily blows the girls' cover, and they are immediately kicked out.
It does not take long for Mr. Dickinson to hear about the incident.
As a peace offering, Emily bakes her father a loaf of bread.
That’s how I feel sometimes.
Like I’m frozen.
Like I’m trapped," Emily sighs.
“I think I know what a volcano feels like,” Sue responds.
They then briefly escape the world the only way they know how.
The poem foreshadows such stormy evenings.
The Dickinson parents are going on a trip to Boston.
How must we cope with the unbearable pain of your absence?"
Mrs. Dickinson asks the girls to “clean constantly” while she’s gone.
All teens watching this know that it’s party time at the Dickinson’s.
Well, the 19th-century version of throwing a party when parents are out of town, anyway.
Lavinia retorts, “It’s actually a traditional courting ritual.”
Austin finally agrees to the house-party and wishfully sees it as the perfect moment to announce his engagement.
Sue, unsurprisingly, is hesitant and blames it on her lack of finances.
Poor George takes this as an encouragement, the woes of unrequited love.
She alludes to Emily that they may be sisters-in-law someday.
He proves his sexual prowess by showing Austin and George a wallet full of locks of girls' hair.
He could probably fashion a full wig out of it.
Opium is the 19th-century weed and everyone in the party takes a couple okay a few drops.
Emily, completely at the mercy of the narcotics, thinks she’s dancing with a bee.
George cuts in and things get awkward.
Emily soberly tells George that he should marry a “normal girl, not a crazy lady.”
“Maybe I like crazy,” he objects and kisses her on the lips this time.
Yes, an unforgiving red sea.
He dismisses it, in denial.
The Dickinson siblings proceed to fight over Sue, who then complains of them suffocating her.
This secures Sue in her resolve to move to Boston and become a governess.
“The wilderness is honest, trustworthy, whereas all other people do is hurt you.”
In the background, surveyors prepare for construction on the great Amherst Belchertown Railroad.
“If you let them kill that tree, you’re killing me!”
she tells her father back at the Dickinson house.
Just to spite her, Mr. Dickinson tasks his son with opening the railroad construction with an original poem.
“Are you sure you want me to do it?”
Austin asks while looking to his sister, who is the actual wordsmith in the family.
“Who else?”
Oh no he didn’t!
“Plus, I feel like taking a day trip.”
Okay, he got her there.
More on that later.
Emily and her unwanted suitor board the train by way of stagecoach.
Fantasize about growing old together on the porch that I’ll build for us?
Just to get to know each other better."
But since mics didn’t exist back then, quill drop?
Well, unless he lost his pen in his pants, not sure how helpful this will be.
Walden is bustling with people.
Thoreau technically lives in the woods a wooden cabin in the woods that is.
Plus, Emily and George find him to be a pretentious and slightly hypocritical figure.
“Ah, more cheap society!”
is Thoreau’s warm welcome to Emily and George when they interrupt his solitary yoga sesh.
But as the conversation progresses, it’s clear that Thoreau is a fraud.
“Great writers tell the truth,” Emily responds to all of Thoreau’s red flags.
Emily leaves with her tail between her legs.
The time arrives for railroad construction.
Austin opens the ceremony with a juvenile and slightly offensive poem.
You could call it a piece of work.
And him one too.
He agrees to “lay the tracks around the old fellow (the tree).
It’s your own fault, you know.
There were many men who wanted to marry you, but you said no to them all.”
I think a spinster has more independence."
Mrs. Dickinson eavesdrops on this exchange and urges him not to encourage their daughter.
And ah, there is that Civil War narrative hinted at in the pilot!
The country is now split in two, which seems eerily familiar.
Then he requests a private meeting with Mr. Dickinson to discuss church fundraising details.
All of Christendom knows that is a cover.
So does Mr. Dickinson.
George discloses the motives for this private engagement: an engagement.
Mr. Dickinson asks if George and Emily have discussed a betrothal.
“She hasn’t exactly said yes.
We communicate on pheromones, pretty much” is his reply.
Later in the episode, he locks the door when he enters Sue’s room.
Is every guy trying to get under her skirts?
George does not prevail in his attempts.
A montage ensues of the crew dressing up in different Shakespeare costumes and snapping historically accurate, vintage photos.
“Besides, Othello is black,” Emily points out.
Henry’s original objective was to tune the piano.
“A man of his kind shouldn’t be here acting with us,” George interjects.
Lo and behold, Emily has no choice but to follow George out because he forgot his book.
Because he “loves her.”
“You don’t love me.
You don’t even know me!
All this time we spent together, and you weren’t listening!”
I don’t belong to him, and I never belong to you!"
Profound, precarious property, possession not optional."
But like most youngsters, she’s just playing sick to take a day to herself.
“Your vanity astonishes me, Lavinia.
“Do you want me to get sick and die without having a beautiful portrait ever painted of me?
It would be like I never existed at all!”
Priorities, Lavinia, priorities.
Emily briefly leaves her sick room to fetch a book from her father’s office.
He also recites poetry, so what are you waiting for, Em?
“Most people quote love poems,” Emily says, impressed with Ben’s spooky choice of recitation.
“I prefer Dirge,” he answers.
“It’s a different kind of love poem.”
These are the only ways I know it.”
Speaking of losing heads, Emily’s nearly rolls off when a doctor visits her bedside.
Now he thinks she’s going to meet her maker and informs the family of his diagnosis.
Is it true love?
Then Emily “makes a miraculous recovery” and joins her relieved family at the breakfast table.
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Em then heads to a gazebo to ponder whether Ben loved her poem or not.
“Dying is not a metaphor to me.
Everyone in my family died, so I take death literally,” Sue says wearily.
The dramatic poet admits it was all a rouse and that she thinks Sue should marry Austin.
Spoiler alert: Ben loved the poem.
Pretty sure Emily loves him.
Nothing is suitable for young ladies, according to Mr. Dickinson.
“It turns out people like being told who to blame,” says Mr. Dickinson’s campaign manager.
Again, sound familiar?
Mr. Dickinson will not stand for this.
For someone so politically open-minded, Mr. Dickinson is a real dictator dad toward his daughters.
No reading, no swimming, no circuses?
Well, he did not say a thing about boys!
“We seek the undiscovered, lyrical genius of Amherst.
That is you,” Ben encourages with those twinkly blue eyes of his.
She requests as much while they’re chatting in a graveyard.
Super on brand for Emily.
Letting Austin take the credit for her genius!
“I’m in deep contemplation of our national situation.
I cannot bear another moment of their inane chatter!”
To quote Lavinia, they’re “so woke.”
They even predict the Civil War.
So, take that Mr. Dickinson.
No need to “Whig” out.
But wait, there’s more!
It’s not [Austin’s] fault either.
He didn’t choose to be born a man."
He barges into her room and shouts that he will not be “taken for a fool.”
He knows his daughter wrote the poem and blames her for humiliating himagainon the day of his congressional election.
Since he thinks his political career took a hit, he feels compelled to hit his own daughter.
The whole family on Christmas Eve is there to see him off, except for Emily.
Due to some neuralgia over her husband’s departure, Mrs. Dickinson ends up “shirking her housewifely duties.
This is unheard of!”
But guess who’s planning on picking up the slack to cook Christmas dinner?
Plot twist: Emily!
Ensuring the Dickinson Christmas party prevails as planned is her way of making sure Ben stays for the holidays.
The things we do for those we love.
Sue witnesses the whole flirtation in the kitchen and casts the shadow of envy on the exchange.
She even takes a jab at Em for acting like the “frugal housewife herself.”
The guests begin to arrive and among them is one of Jane Humphreys' friends, Louisa May Alcott.
Yes, that one.
Jane previously informed Louisa that Emily is a writer too, so she offers to help her get published.
Bodice rippers, ghost stories, stories about ravens, keep tabs on the marketplace!"
Louisa advises Emily while sprinting.
She also tells her not to get married and to ditch poetry for prose.
After that exhausting run for more reasons than one, Emily returns for dinner and some entertainment.
“He gets its meaning.”
Sue eloquently labels it a “poet’s definition of love.”
He thinks it’s just the flu, but death’s carriage pulls up, so that’s concerning.
Ben’s still alive (how dare this show scare me like that?
), but still with that dreadful cough.
“The only fire I want to see is that ring of fire around the moon.”
Sue heads to the dressmaker to get fitted for her wedding.
She finds that her “appetite” has caused some thickness around her middle.
The dressmaker promises to leave some room around the waist in case her “appetite doesn’t subside.”
Ben immediately picks up on the boy’s affections for Emily, and her lack thereof for him.
“You kicked him out of the garden of love, huh?”
“I never said he could enter it in the first place.”
“Sometimes I want to ask you to marry me.
I mean, not to marry me, forever.”
“I would do that,” Emily says and then she proposes to him.
“Till death do us part” is definitely around the corner.
Ben’s illness goes from bad to worse as he doubles over and coughs blood.
You’re a true genius.
You’re going to write things the world will never forget."
While letting her beloved rest, the budding poet finds Maggie in the barn praying.
The kindhearted, Irish maid asks if Miss Dickinson wants to pray with her.
“Perhaps the headmistress had a flee up her arse.
Hope seemed to be turning up, but Death did instead, in his phantom horse-drawn carriage.
Emily, dressed in her date-with-death gown, attempts to bargain with him for Ben’s life.
So, Emily decides to plea with a power higher than death.
Episode 10: I Felt a Funeral in My Brain
This time, Emily stops for death.
Ben passed away way too soon, and now she stops by his grave day after day.
Or at least, it should be happy.
The bride grows paranoid that her dress fits less as the wedding draws near.
She tells Em that she’s pregnant and asks her if her bump shows.
Her friend assures her that she looks gorgeous.
“I do?”
Sue asks on the verge of tears.
“Don’t say, ‘I do’ for me.
Save it for Austin,” Emily tells Sue halfheartedly and gives her a poem she wrote for her.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Dickinson puts belladonna in her eyes, which is affecting her vision.
It truly gives new meaning to the saying, “love is blind!”
I’m asking you to make your own choice.
Come out west with me.”
Sue forevermore," Sue reads aloud.
“You know what, Austin?
But Lavinia isn’t.
She breaks things off with him so she can focus on herself “and her cat.”
The surprise entrances continue when Mr. Dickinson arrives minutes before the wedding to walk orphaned Sue down the aisle.
Emily is devastated and wishes she could die, so she gets her death wish.
Thankfully it was all just a “funeral in [Emily’s] brain.”
Emily disrupts the wedding downstairs by screaming, “LET ME OUT!
LET ME OUT!”
Austin urges the clergyman to go on.
And Emily decides that she must go on too.
I am a poet, and I am not going to die.
I am going to write hundreds of thousands of poems right here, in this room.
And he withdraws: “Yes, Emily.
