When will it air?

Dickinson returns on Friday, January 8, 2021, with three new episodes. The rest of the season will premiere weekly on Fridays.

What will season 2 of Dickinson focus on?

After a first season that re-imagined Dickinson's artistic ascension, creator Alena Smith revealed season 2 will explore the writer's position on fame. In an interview with The Hollywood Reportershe discussed how the series would dissect why much of the late poet's work was written in secret and not published until after her death. "Season 1 gives one answer, which is it was a patriarchy and her father was opposed to women publishing. Season 2 is going to completely turn that on its head or inside out and give a very different answer, which is that Emily herself had a deeply ambivalent relationship to fame," Smith explained. "Season 2 is really all about fame and the attention economy, which was a central concern in Emily Dickinson's poems. She wrote many, many poems about fame and about running from fame or rejecting fame. But she definitely had an obsession about fame even if she was subverting it."

The showrunner also tweeted a tease of things to come, writing, "Dickinson really is as much a dramatic adaptation of her poetry as it is a historical depiction of her biography. This will become even more clear in season 2."

The official Apple TV+plot description for season 2 reads, "Emily Dickinson is pulled out of her private literary life and thrust into the public eye, while struggling with the sense that the pursuit of fame might be a dangerous game for her to play." The first teaser for the new season illustrates this, with Emily and her sister Lavinia (Anna Baryshnikov) conducting a seance with their friends in which Emily asks, "Oh great spirits, should I seek fame?" A lightning bolt and extinguished candles suggest the answer is no. New character Hattie, played by Ayo Edebiri, adds, "I wanna make spooky shit happen and get paid." Returning characters Abby (Sophie Zucker), Jane (Gus Birney), and Toshiaki (Kevin Yee) also make appearances.

The newest trailer, which you can watch at the top of the article, introduces Finn Jones's newspaper editor Sam Bowles, "influencer" Sue ("I don't even recognize you!" Emily tells her), and a few killer one-liners from Lavinia.

Who's in the cast?

Several new faces will join Emily, Sue, and Lavinia in season 2. Jones's Samuel Bowles plays "an energetic and magnetic newspaper editor," while Pico Alexander will star as Henry "Ship" Shipley, an Amherst College dropout who rents a room at the Dickinsons' house.