Welcome to our spoilery look at part 4 of Netflix’s Raising Dion, “ISSUE #104: Welcome to BIONA. Hope You Survive the Experience.” In this episode, Nicole goes job hunting while trying to find out who took the photograph of the Storm that took her husband, while Pat takes Dion on a tour of BIONA Initiative. A series of interludes also introduce us to farmer Walter Mills, another person given powers by the unusual aurora in Iceland.
1. A Rollercoaster of a Day
Nicole has an emotional rollercoaster of a day in this episode, going to six job interviews (initially five, but then her sister Kat informs Willa has arranged another for her at a dance studio). Kat shows up to drop Dion’s birthday present, and a heated argument between the two siblings over Nicole’s job prospects gives way to shared laughter over a Lego piece that’s become stuck in the wall – likewise, Nicole’s upbea when she asks Malik for his help tracking down whoever posted the image of the Storm, offering to pay him in dance lessons.
However, Nicole’s optimistic mood is dampened after each unsuccessful interview, and she almost leaves the last one despondent after the owner reveals there are no teaching jobs available (way to go Willa!), until he reveals he could give her a job in ticket sales. I like that healthcare coverage is never far from Nicole’s mind in these scenes: it acknowledges the reality of American life in such a casual way that so many TV series never bother to do.
2. A Meaningful Name
Pat has a theory about Dion’s powers: he reckons his telekinesis and teleportation are both rooted in an ability to manipulate ions, which explains how he can move all this matter around (kid named Dion is born with the power to control ions, what are the odds?) During the tour, Dion and Pat discover BIONA have been experimenting on animals from Iceland that were present during the incident, and Dion uses his powers to heal a sickly wolf pup, as well as to shut off the electricity to cover their tracks (causing a huge blackout: probably best they don’t tell Nicole about that part). It all ties neatly into Pat’s theory about the nature of Dion’s powers, it may be all pseudoscience but it’s bound to get kids interested in physics.
3. Greeny’s Dead
It was pretty funny when Dion is looking at BIONA’s aquarium and notices a fish called Greeny — who was there when he visited while his dad was alive — is gone, and Pat lies that he’s been released back into the ocean. Dion quickly responds he knows Greeny’s dead, but still, I can’t believe Pat tried the whole “living on a farm upstate” thing when he should know his godson can cope with grief better than most kids his age. Pat’s such a nerd, something that’s also displayed in this chapter when he discovers the monitoring system he designed to help BIONA view weather around the world is also being used to spy on the people who were in Iceland (like Mills, who I’ll come to in a moment).
4. Changing Our Stereotypes
That said, one of the things I’m enjoying about the show is how characters like Pat challenge the preconceptions we might have about scientists and engineers, because he’s not completely socially inept, and active. At the start of this episode, he mentions he has a minor migraine from working out, explaining BIONA needs employees to be healthy in case they need to be dispatched anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.
Similarly, Malik discovers the person who posted the image of the Storm is a female conspiracy theorist working at a computer store, with blue dye in her hair. It’s another stereotype, but if this had been produced a decade ago, she’d have been an overweight white man with a pony tail: it’s an important little reminder that all kinds of people are into STEM, not just them.
5. Trying to Compete With Hollywood
Dion and Nicole’s long day ends when he reveals he can use his powers to create a beautiful of display of lights in her bedroom, and the two dance together to the music from the street party outside – it’s a beautiful and poignant moment, and one that illustrates how much better the effects are when they’re trying to be small and subtle.
Continued belowThat’s reinforced by the coda, depicting Mills on his farm as he’s attacked by the Storm. It’s a big effects moment, as Mills uses his powers to manipulate plants to shield his son before he’s taken, and it falls flat due to the unconvincing lighting and composition. This show is trying too hard to emulate the big screen’s superhero spectaculars, but it just lacks the budget of shows like Game of Thrones and Stranger Things, shows that still took time before they could afford to really compete with the big boys.
Oh, and don’t get me started on the cartoonish glowing hermit crab Dion stows away from the lab…
Bonus thoughts:
– I love that Dion has the power to heal others, because how many superheroes do have that power? It’s always accelerated healing factors with superheroes, nothing immediately helpful for others.
– No one notices Dion making the ID card zipping along the corridors and around the staircases? Stretching my suspension of disbelief there, to put it lightly.
– Mills’s son Brayden is a bit bloodthirsty, what with wanting his dad to take out the stoners who accidentally parked on their farm and all.
See you all next time for my thoughts on “ISSUE #105”: for now, I leave you with Nicole and Dion’s song, which, incredibly, is now over a decade old. (Isn’t it funny she has almost the same name as Alisha Wainwright?)
(When’s her next album?!)
