Dickinson episode 2 review: I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’

AppleTV+’s fizzy, anachronistic period drama Dickinson continues, as Emily fights against the gender restrictions of her time, and learns a few new things about herself along the way..

AppleTV+’s Dickinson is a weird, fizzy romp that often feels as much like a CW drama as it does a prestige period piece. This anachronistic combination is a big part of the show’s oddball charm, but it does mean that we’ll get episodes like “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’”, which feels nothing so much like Gossip Girl in corsets.

That in no way means that this isn’t an enjoyable half-hour, however. It positively whizzes by, in fact, with laughs and swoony sighs aplenty. Sure, it makes a bit of its more modern-minded concerns text rather than subtext, but for the story Dickinson’s telling this week, it works.

The show continues the trope of basing its episodes around particular Dickinson poems – the series’ first installment centered on “Because I could not stop for Death,” whereas this one frames itself around “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’, in what feels like the most literal way possible.

Emily, you see, is desperate to learn all she can and to experience the world beyond her relatively safe life in Amherst. So when a visiting professor at the local college arrives to give a talk about the historical eruption of Vesuvius, she’s captivated and wants nothing more than to go.

One drawback, though – women aren’t allowed. In a lot of places.

They aren’t allowed at the college. They aren’t allowed to want to learn. They aren’t allowed to want more for themselves than the simple confines of a domestic universe. And they certainly aren’t allowed to love one another.

Rebellious, free-spirited Emily wants all those things, however. She wants to see the world, to eat knowledge like air, to be given the freedom to direct her own future and make her own choices and freely love Sue, her BFF who is weeks away from becoming her sister-in-law. More than anything, she wants the power of choice, and  that’s precisely what she so infrequently has.

So, naturally Emily and Sue decide to disguise themselves as boys, and sneak into the volcano lecture anyway.

Dickinson’s presentation of Emily and Sue’s relationship is truly one of the series’ highlights. Yes, we’re only two episodes in, but their connection is sweet, real and totally easy to root for. The decision to make the volcanic eruptions at the center of the story a symbol of sexual awakening is maybe a bit on the nose, but their episode closing hook-up isn’t exploitative or racy, and in fact it simply seems the natural next step in expressing what the two young women obviously feel for one another at this moment in their lives.

Austin really does not deserve Sue, is what I’m saying, even though her reasons for marrying him are both many and obvious.

The montage in which the girls don boys suits, pants and top hats to the tune of LIzzo’s “Boys” is straight out of a rom-com, as is the inevitable embarrassingly public revelation of their true identities at the event itself. But Dickinson spins the fallout from the event in an unexpected way – by making it largely about Emily’s parents.

Though her father purports to be progressive, he nevertheless still has strong views about what is and is not appropriate for women – and his daughter, specifically. While he thinks education is fine, he still insists women and men should inhabit different spheres. (Between this and his snippy comment about hiring a maid to give Emily more time for her little scribbles, well. Zero stars, sir.) Emily’s mother, for what it’s worth, is not a particularly modern woman. In her view, her job is to make her husband’s life easier, and to be grateful for the chance to do so. (In fact, she’s actually angry about the addition of a maid to the Dickinson household, as she views the domestic sphere as exclusively her domain.)

Emily, for her part, at least tries to bridge the gap between them, having new maid Maggie teach her to make bread as a peace offering to her father. (Her mother, I guess, is just out of luck? I desperately need to see more scenes between the Dickinson women in future installments. Their relationships are so strange.)

But, whether or not she can bake a decent loaf of bread isn’t going to change who Emily is at her core – and that’s someone her parents don’t approve of or particularly believe in. Where will she go from here?

All episodes of Dickinson are now streaming on AppleTV+.