The Slave Is Gone: The Show That Talks Back to AppleTV+'s Dickinson

Dickinson Season One ends with a funeral, a wedding, and another Funeral, in Emily’s brain.

Is Emily subconsciously guilty about her relationship with Sue? Was Mrs. Dickinson a lush? Did George Gould really go for gold? And why are season finales so difficult? Plus, new poems from our cohosts — and the Dickinson verse that launched #emisueforevermore.

Jericho, Breezy and Aífe talk back to Dickinson Season One, Episode Ten "I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain."

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In the finale of Dickinson, Season One, Emily gives Sue a poem so small she has to use a magnifying glass to read it.

On this bonus episode, Jericho, Breezy and Aife explore Emily Dickinson's radical experimentation with what we'd now call "mixed media" — using the skills of women's work the AppleTV+ series portrays her as not possessing.

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That poem Emily gives Sue:

It's Christmas Eve at the Dickinsons, and they've got visitors, including bestselling author Louisa May Alcott (on a runner's high) and just-returned-from-Spain Aunt Lavinia (experiencing widow's euphoria). Conspicuously absent (though perhaps not missed) is Edward Dickinson, who heads off to DC — but not without leaving a double-edged gift for Emily.

Could Emily cook? Were Austin and Sue into hunching? And does being a writer have to mean turning your back on your family?

Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest poet Chen Chen, talk back to Season 1, Episode 8 of Dickinson: “There's a Certain Slant of Light"

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On Friday, we release bonus material that takes you deeper into the world of Emily Dickinson, and the work of our guest poets. This week Evie Shockley talks about the complexities of Zora Neale Hurston's legacy — and how Black women writers have found meanings and possibilities in Emily Dickinson's poetry far beyond what Dickinson might have had in mind.

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It’s Election Day, and Rep. Edward Dickinson is showing his true colors, culminating in a literal blow to Emily.

Was Edward Dickinson dead set against his daughter becoming a poet? Can his refusal to embrace abolitionism be traced to the fact that both his and his wife's family fortunes depended on enslaved labor? And if her family hadn't profited from slavery, would Emily Dickinson have had the space to write the poems we continue to revere?

Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest, poet and scholar Evie Shockley, talk back to Season 1, Episode 7 of Dickinson: “We lose — because we win”

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Learn more about what our researcher Anna Smith uncovered about the ties between the Dickinsons' family wealth and enslavement: 

Emily feigns mortal illness so her family will leave her alone in her room to write. Sue, who's already suffered so much loss, hurries back from Boston to visit what she thinks is her friend and lover's deathbed, only to find it's a hoax. And to make it worse, Emily chooses this moment to tell Sue she should marry Austin, her possessiveness apparently softened by the previous night's poetic flirtation with her father's clerk Ben Newton. 

What do we know about the real relationship between Emily and Ben? How can Emily be so insensitive to Sue? Is Dickinson treating queerness as a "phase"? And is there a poet out there who hasn't been tempted to do something they shouldn't to get time to write? 

Breezy, Jericho and Aífe, joined special guest Amber Flame, talk back to Season 1, Episode 6 of Dickinson: "A Brief, but Patient Illness."

Plus: Aífe opens up Lavinia's juicy teen diary. Jericho speaks his truth on nude selfies, dating profiles, and men who act like they would never have anything to do with abortion, when in fact they've paid for them. And Breezy has a little something for the archivists and biographers of the future.

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In this special episode, cohost Jericho Brown is in conversation with Alena Smith, creator and show runner of AppleTV+'s Dickinson. They go inside the making of the show, and why Emily Dickinson's life and poems continue to inspire.

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There are rumors there's a fugitive slave in Amherst, which means the the threat of the slavecatcher hangs over all Black people in the town, including the Dickinsons' hired hand Henry. So how does Emily respond? By encouraging Henry to play Othello in her Shakespeare Club's latest production! George, having been rebuffed by Emily, decides to take the patriarchal route to get her to marry him. And in Boston, it's intimated that Sue may be sexually assaulted by the man who employs her as a governess for his children. It's a lot! (Probably too much.)

Learn what women dealt with in a world before consent was a thing, the truth about Emily and Austin's race and class prejudices (such as we can tell), and why Amherst is definitely not the town in Massachusetts an escaped slave would head to. Plus: Jericho's crush on George is definitively over.

Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest, the poet and playwright Malcolm Tariq, talk back to Season 1, Episode 5 of Dickinson: "I Am Afraid to Own a Body."

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Emily's father scoffs at her objection to cutting down an old tree to make way for the railroad, sending her (and suitor George) on a pilgrimage to to see Henry David Thoreau, a visit that ends in disappointment. Should we be disappointed in the portrayal of Thoreau? Why does Emily's sister Lavinia play at being an Indian? Who are the real indigenous people in the background of this episode? And how do solitude and the wild figure in a poet's life?

Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest US Poet Laureate Ada Limón, talk back to Season 1, Episode 4 of Dickinson: "Alone, I Cannot Be."

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A party jumps off at the Dickinsons, and raises lots of questions: Were they taking opium in 19th century Massachusetts? How did the son of a samurai end up there? What's with the colorblind twerking? And why doesn't anybody seem to understand Sue? Plus, the perils of poetry about Black death in a world of white readers.

Breezy, Jericho, and Aife, joined by special guest poet Danez Smith, talk back to Season 1, Episode 3 of Dickinson "Wild Nights."

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Poems featured in the episode: