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[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Dickinson Season 1.]

There’s lots to love about the Apple TV series Dickinson starring Hailee Steinfeld, but one of the show’s standout qualities is most certainly the unique tone. I’ve really got to kick the terrible habit of judging period pieces before seeing them because, quite often lately, my assumption that those shows and films won't be for me is just so utterly wrong. It’s too easy to box content into the most superficial description of its genre, but right now we've got shows like Dickson and The Great, for example, absolutely obliterating genre barriers and taking the creativity to the max.

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Image via Apple TV+

If you couldn't already tell, I was absolutely delighted by Dickinson Season 1. The costume and set design are stunning, the ensemble is electric, and the soundtrack and music cues give the series an explosive energy. And on top of that, Dickinson is a remarkable and very timely rendition of Emily Dickinson’s story.

After spending all of Season 1 nearly exploding with enthusiasm for writing poetry but being forced to bottle it all up due to her gender and the expectations that come with it, Emily finally lands in a place where, enough is enough. She doesn’t care about her family’s demands anymore. As she tells her father (Toby Huss) at the end of the season, “I am a poet, and I am not going to die. I am going to write hundreds, thousands of poems right here, in this room, the greatest poems ever written, by Emily Dickinson, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.” 

Even though Emily was quite dedicated to her craft all throughout the season, there’s a different tone to her conviction in that final moment, which made me wonder; will Emily’s new mind frame affect the tone of the show in Season 2? Here’s what Steinfeld had to say on the matter during her episode of Collider Connected:

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Image via Apple TV+

“Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I think in Season 1 we have seen sort of glimpses of what we’ll definitely see a lot more of in Season 2 … We have to imagine that at some point in Emily’s life, she sat at that desk, right? And only wrote these poems for who she wanted to see them. But there had to have been moments where she wanted the world - we know that - she wanted the world to see her work and hear and read, and appreciate her work and her worth. She says at the end of Season 1, ‘I am a poet and this is what I’m gonna do whether you like it or not,’ and she takes that to another level [in] Season 2.”

Given how exhilarating and inspiring Emily’s passion was in Season 1, bring on this next-level determination! We already knew filming on Season 2 of Dickson was well underway as of November 2019, so hopefully that means we won’t have long to wait to see what creator Alena Smith has coming our way next. And if you're looking for even more from Steinfeld, you're in luck because we have her full episode of Collider Connected dropping shortly!