Dickinson
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Praise to the poetry gods: We have our first five-star episode!
Lets make like Em trying on fake yellow fever for size and commit fully to this story.
If she gets one solid poem out of the effort, she decides, it will be worth it.
AND YET: Material she needs is missing.
She craves a specific book that is in her dads office.
If youre thinking, Wait, didnt I already have a crush on this guy once?
that is because he is Luke fromFriday Night Lights.
These kids really do meet-cute, as in, it is ADORABLE.
Ems performative fake cough!
They both love spooky poems more than love poems!
Oh OKAY, EM, GO OFF.
But then she catches sight of a wedding band and that kind of kills the mood.
His answer about where his wife is: evasive.
I write in my notes,maybe she is fake or dead??
She tells him shes a poet and he wants to read her poems and !
Look, I know that in real life, Sue and Em have a lifelong, very intense thing.
But Sue does not actually have chemistry with any of the people around her!
It is not enough.
All of which is to say: I am rooting for Ben and Em for now.
Yellow fever is so hot right now.
Leeches will not save her.
Mama Dickinson admits that she never really wanted children and to have them is pure agony.
The opium bumblebee buzzes in to question Ems strategy, but she persists.
He loves that he doesnt understand her.
and summons her outside for a midnight hang.
He gives her his copy of Emersons essays with his underlines already in there, Jess Marianostyle.
A wedding ring as freedom, Em says.
Thats a new one.
Ems eyes turn into little hearts, like the emoji, when he asks if hes struck a chord.
They swim in the freezing lake because Em is already pretend dying so nothing matters.
and delivers a poem to Ben.
Em handles this by assuring Sue that Austin really loves her.
Oh, and Ben tells Em he loves her poem because OF COURSE HE DOES.
Elsewhere on the ranch, Vinnie wants to have her portrait taken by the hottest portraitist in town.
Dressed like a deranged Belle (while her sister is supposedly dying ofyellowfever, the CHUTZPAH!
She is dismayed with the results, which look exactly like her.
