Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Raising Dion’ On Netflix, About A Boy With Dangerous Powers And His Protective Mom

Kids with superpowers seem to be a thing this year, considering one of the highest-profile network pilots, Emergence, features a girl who can flip cars with her mind. On Netflix, we now have Raising Dion, where a second-grader can move things with his mind, but just has no idea how to control it. Are the two shows similar? Yes, but both are pretty decent. Read on for more about Dion….

RAISING DION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a close-up of a boy’s face. “It’s coming, Dion,” says a voice over. “It’s out there, and it’s coming, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

The Gist: The voice over continues as we see Dion Reese (Ja’Siah Young) battling dark forces, “My sweet boy, why are you the one who has to save the world? I want to remember us like this, when it was just you and me… before everything changed.”

The voice belongs to Nicole Reese (Alisha Wainwright), Dion’s mother, who has been struggling to find steady work and spend quality time with her smart, shy son since her husband and Dion’s father Mark (Michael B. Jordan) died. They’ve moved to a new school in Atlanta, where Dion tries to befriend the only other Black kid in his class by trying magic, and fails miserably. But Dion is starting to find out something: He can make things move with his mind. As they’re scrambling to get ready to go to school for instance, Dion sees his spilled cereal and milk frozen in midair before making a mess on the floor.

One way he tries out these powers is going to a skate park where the guys he wants to be friends with hang out after school. He wipes out a lot, then realizes he can control the board and lands a massive jump. But he loses cool points when Nicole comes to get him, ticked off that Dion blew off aftercare to go to the park.

Dion had already invited his godfather Pat (Jason Ritter), Mark’s best friend, to come over before getting grounded. They go get some pizza, and Dion asks how his dad died. Through a flashback and during the talk Pat and Dion have, we find out that Mark was a scientist who was a storm chaser; all Pat would say is that “the problem with chasing storms, sometimes you catch one.” Nicole tells Dion that he drowned saving a woman during a hurricane in New Orleans.

Back at home, Dion shows his mother his powers, but he can’t control them well. He thinks saying “Abracadabra!” will make the swirling objects in the living room fall down, but it just makes it worse. Nicole brings him to the hospital, where her doctor sister Kat (Jazmyn Simon) just chalks it up to Nicole’s stress, exhaustion and grief.

The two of them go to the lake cabin Mark’s father built, and in the middle of the lake, Dion again shows his powers, lifting fish and water out of the lake. When he tries to put the fish down, he pulls trees down with it. Later that night, he goes out in the rain, and he conjures up ghostly images, what he calls “rain people.” Nicole sees them, too, including Mark, who tells Nicole to take Dion and get out for their safety. This is right after she finds the phone number of the woman Mark saved in the pocket of one of his old shirts.

Our Take: Raising Dion is based on the comic book written by Dennis Liu, who also directed a short film based on that book. He co-created this series with Carol Barbee, a veteran showrunner known for shows like UnREAL and Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce. We think it’s aimed towards families, given the first episode’s TV-PG rating, but there’s a whole lot of darkness in this show, too.

While we usually get frustrated at shows that give us dribs and drabs of information in the first few episodes, we like that method here. We’re learning about Dion’s powers right along with Dion and his mother; the most stressful scenes in the first episode are when he makes things worse by saying “Abracadabra!” to the point where things truly get dangerous. Going along for the ride with Nicole and Dion (and probably Pat, as Jason Ritter isn’t there to just be nerdy comic relief) and seeing how these powers might come into play to save the world will be the fun of the series.

One of the things we love is Young’s performance as Dion. He’s a smart kid, maybe a little nerdy, but more than anything just someone who wants to be in the cool crowd, no matter what Nicole tells him about being is special self. And Young’s performance reflects that; funny but only a little precocious, like when he touches his bowl with his finger when Nicole tells him he hasn’t touched his breakfast. Dion is struggling to find his place, especially because he barely knew his dad, and that will inform his performance.

What we also liked is that the source of Nicole’s stress isn’t just the fact that she’s a single mom. We see flashes of her remembering her days as a professional dancer, and the fact that Mark’s body was never found always puts his death in a tiny bit of doubt. When she has coffee with her friends right after being fired from her latest office job, we can see that the world is weighing on her, but just how much will be revealed as we go on.

What Age Group Is This For?: Because there’s some mild violence, and we deal with death and ghosts, we figure this is best for kids 8 and up.

Parting Shot: Dion and Nicole see the “rain people,” including Mark, who reaches out to Nicole and says, “It’s dangerous; you don’t have a lot of time,” and disappears. Nicole starts to tear up.

Sleeper Star: We hope to see a lot more of Sammi Haney as Esperanza Jimenez, Dion’s best friend at his new school. She’s disabled and seems to be sanguine about her social status at school. “The good thing about being invisible is that I hear things,” she tells him.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Stop it! You’re acting nuts! You don’t get to do this anymore, Nicole! You’re someone’s mother, for God’s sake!” says Nicole’s sister Kat after Nicole tells her Dion has powers. It alludes to the fact that Nicole has made claims like this when she was younger, but the way Nicole’s sister is admonishing her makes us feel like Kat is gaslighting her own sister.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Raising Dion works mainly because of the performances and chemistry between Young and Wainright, with a little help from Ritter. Let’s just hope things don’t go off the rails as the series goes on.

Your Call:

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Raising Dion On Netflix