Raising Dion
The other day I sat down to watch something on Netflix. The idea was to find something so I didn’t have to think about anything. As I was flipping through the various options, I came across “Raising Dion” and remembered watching the trailer on it and thinking it sounded interesting. At the time I didn’t remember exactly what it was about. Even as I watched it, I barely remembered the trailer, but the more I watched, the more I loved it. Okay, for those of you who haven’t seen it, but are wanting to I have to be upfront about possible spoiler alerts.
The show starts out with a mother talking about her son and how she wishes they could go back to the way things used to be before everything changed. They are at a lake and you see them playing and having a great time. Dion (her son) jumps off the dock and goes under the water, doesn’t resurface, and she starts to get worried, and so do you. That is, only until you finally see him pop out from behind her, saying “Gotcha.” Little do you know, that is only the beginning of your uncertainty with this show.
I had intended to only watch one episode, maybe two, as I wasn’t really in the mood to get mentally hooked. However, five episodes later, or was it six, I had to make myself stop watching it. The thing is, it draws you in from the very first scene and before you know what’s happening, you are fully vested.
Dion and his mom (Nicole) live in a small apartment and his dad isn’t around. His mom is frazzled and mostly sad, but you’re not sure why. Dion is smart, in his own world, and magical. Yes, I said magical, for a lack of a better word. This comes to light in the first episode and you keep finding it out more and more. You also find out what happened to his father and how that event is somehow related to Dion’s powers. As you can see, I am trying to tell you a little without giving it all away.
Dion’s dad is/was (not really sure) a scientist and a storm chaser to be exact. He worked for a leading corporation in the climate control field (as in they tried to fix the environmental damage by trying to control the weather) among other things. It sounds crazy, like a story destined to breed disaster and well, it does. The story is his dad was working and a hurricane came about in which he saw a lady drowning, jumped in to save her, she lived, he died. The only thing is, the story doesn’t make much sense.
As Dion’s powers start to grow stronger his mom decides to take him to the lake to get away and try to control what is happening to her son. This is where the story starts to get interesting.
The first night at the lake there is a storm and Dion is outside in it, just looking up at it. Nicole runs outside to find him and instead of just finding him, she also finds Dion’s dad as a ghost, along with several other ghosts. I will be the first to say that I’m not quite convinced that they are ghosts, but instead some kind of energy. I’m not sure they can change back to life form as they are now part of the storm. It’s as if they belong to the storm.
This story is wild, I believe it was originally a comic, or at least they portray it that way in the opening of each episode. I don’t want to give all the details away so I will not explain too much more but it turns out Dion’s dad had powers too in which he got while witnessing a meteor cross over the Northern Lights. In fact, every person who was at that event received powers and they believe came from the fallout of the meteor. The powers seem to come from nature and work with the inner strength (heart) of the person who has them.
Throughout the show, there is much talk of being your true self no matter what other people think and how if you believe, you can accomplish just about anything. The characters that I have seen so far, use their power to do good, to heal, and mostly stay in hiding, to avoid being taken back by the storm. It is unclear to me whether or not the company Dion’s dad worked for is good, but I’m definitely leaning toward bad.
What prompted me to write this blog about this show isn’t just that it’s great entertainment, but that it has a deeper underlying meaning that really parallels with the world we live in. The thing is we all have special powers inside of us, that if cultivated through self-love and care, can turn us into the most powerful benevolent beings if we could just tap into our higher self. This would create a world we would all want to live in.
“Raising Dion” teaches affirmations and how if you can control your feelings, you really can do anything. It also shows us that we really can’t control nature and in trying to do so, we upset the natural balance, which in the end creates chaos and disorder. And finally, it teaches us that there is always going to be a force that wants to render us helpless, to leach the power within us, so that we will forget just how truly special we are. We have to remember that it only matters what we believe and our power can only be taken if we give it away willingly.
I haven’t finished the first season yet because I know it’s going to be extremely hard to wait for the next season once I’m done. This show moves me, I laugh, I cry, and I believe in all the possibilities. If you believe in the metaphysical, the universe, space, and anything in between, I say run, don’t walk to watch this.
If you’re interested in watching “Raising Dion,” you can find it on Netflix.
When will there be a Raising Dion season 2?