‘Dickinson’ Season 3 Review: A Triumphant Ending to TV’s Most Innovative Show

Late in the third, and final season of Dickinson, one character tells another that “great writing always finds a way to reach its audience.” That’s true of Emily Dickinson, the famous American poet played by Hailee Steinfeld on the Apple TV+’s series; but it’s also true of Dickinson itself, a show that has deeply connected with a devoted audience, yet also seems so far ahead of its time that it almost by definition will fit a slot in “underrated shows you missed” lists for decades to come.

For those new to the series, creator Alena Smith’s love letter to Dickinson, poetry, and even the concept of love is a mash-up of comedy and drama; music and romance; dreamlike side-trips and dramatic confrontations. Yet through it all is the real history of Emily Dickinson, her family, and the people who knew her. Though Smith and company’s scripts intuit some aspects of Dickinson’s life, and the dialogue swerves between historical accuracy and modern slang, the anchor is always the actual events and people Emily Dickinson experienced and interacted with, sometimes to a surprisingly slavish degree.

In Season 3, that anchor is the Civil War, and more specifically the correspondence between Emily and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a commander in the Union and future editor of Emily’s poems (minor history spoiler there). Though Higginson, played by Gabriel Ebert, is a relatively minor character in the season, he keeps two, ongoing plotlines loosely connected as we follow Dickinson family friend Henry (Chinaza Uche) signing up to help teach a Black regiment guided by Higginson in the South; and up North in Amerst, Massachusetts, Emily dealing with a Dickinson family Civil War of her own.

Both storylines are compelling in their own right, but in particular it’s been fantastic to see Dickinson up its representation both in front of, and behind the camera over the course of three seasons. Last season Ayo Edebiri joined the writing staff of the show, and was featured; and this season late night host Ziwe wrote on the show, while also portraying a laugh-out-loud funny take on Sojourner Truth. While Henry is down South dealing with the realities of being a Black soldier fighting in the war (or rather, not being allowed to fight), up North his wife Betty (Amanda Warren) is trying to focus on her burgeoning business designing chic mourners outfits so she doesn’t worry about Henry. Each character is given weighty emotional arcs over the course of 10 episodes on par with any member of the Dickinson family, as well as plenty of comedy to play. And both — without getting into spoilers — reach a beautiful catharsis that ranks among the highlights of the season.

That said, particularly in the final season of Dickinson, the focus doesn’t shy too far from the titular role. Steinfeld is as compelling as usual as she attempts to become the family peacekeeper, a role the dream-prone, artistic Emily is uniquely unsuited for. And while she tries to keep the Dickinsons together, she only ends up driving everyone in her life farther apart. It’s one last refusal of the call for America’s future poet superstar/hero, before she ultimately accepts her destiny.

While Emily is struggling with the push and pull of her family, everyone around her is having their own problems dealing with their new status quo. Emily’s sister Lavinia (Anna Baryshnikov) gets deep into performance art after she realizes all her boyfriends have died in the Civil War. Her mother Emily Norcross (Jan Krakowski) is glacially coming to the realization that women don’t just have to serve the men in their lives, a seismic shift for Amherst’s number one home maker. And even Emily’s father Edward (Toby Huss) is growing as he realizes he doesn’t know what legacy — if any — he’ll leave behind.

But the bulk of the drama, and the biggest changes are saved for Emily’s brother Austin (Adrien Blake Enscoe) and his wife, and also Emily’s life-long love, Sue (Ella Hunt). After stepping up as Dickinson family patriarch at the end of Season 2, Austin has fallen to rock bottom when Season 3 opens, leading to a beautifully nuanced (and occasionally monstrous) performance by Enscoe that shows the depths of feeling the actor can accomplish when challenged. As for Sue, she’s in a committed relationship with Emily, as well as her husband; and the formerly restrained Sue is finally realizing she can ask for what she wants, or outright demand it. As a bonus, this fully realized Sue is not only passionately involved with and cheerleading Emily; she’s also allowed to be funny, a gift for a comedically talented actress like Hunt. Season 1 found Sue in mourning, Season 2 in hiding; Season 3 finally allows Sue to flourish.

But again, we need to come back to Emily, and in particular the question that is probably foremost in fans’ minds: how does it all end? To say how the journey goes at this point would be too spoilery, though you can reference your history books to see how everything ultimately turned out for the real people involved. But in terms of the series, Season 3 of Dickinson is an emotionally powerful and fulfilling journey through the final seconds of the final episode that found this reviewer’s eyes wet multiple times. Often, particularly when it comes to the Dickinson family Civil War, scenes are challenging or hard to watch, particularly if you’ve lived with these characters for the past few years. But as usual the beauty and power of Emily’s poetry infuses every moment of the episodes, lifting the storytelling to ethereal heights and redeeming the characters in their darkest times.

This is the true triumph, and legacy of Dickinson: using Emily’s life and words to recontextualize the experience of growing up and finding yourself as an artist through Smith’s revelatory use of TV as a medium. While some among us may view Emily Dickinson’s poetry as dusty words on a page, devotees have long known that her verses thrum with life. What Smith has done is use Dickinson’s work as inspiration to create a new, artistic feat of her own (along with the hundreds of other people who work on the series), one that redefines what television can be. Part of the wall some viewers may have when first watching Dickinson is trying to describe what the series is, and how it approaches the subject matter. That, though, is a feature, not a bug. It’s allowing comedy and drama to exist, sometimes simultaneously, in the same scene. It’s using modern music not for humor, but to show that the situations present in the 1800s are often the same ones we are dealing with today. It’s allowing the cast to thrive and soar through situations so charged with emotion they often seem to jump off the screen and into your living room.

Emily Dickinson lived from December 10, 1830, until May 15, 1886. Dickinson the TV series lived from November 1, 2019, until December 24, 2021. But the writing both Dickinson the person and Dickinson the show gifted to the world will live on far longer than their otherwise scant years on Earth. It just may take time for those great words to reach their audience.

Dickinson Season 3 premieres three episodes Friday, November 5 on Apple TV+, with one new episode premiering every week thereafter.

Where to watch Dickinson