Raising Dion season 1, episode 5 recap: Days of Mark’s Future Past

In episode 5 of Netflix series Raising Dion, Nicole scrambles to prevent Dion’s birthday from being a disaster. Also, we see how Mark died.

Previously on Raising Dion, Pat Rollins (Jason Ritter) and Dion Warren (Ja’Siah Young) explored the Biona research facility. Dion’s mom, Nicole (Alisha Wainwright), gets a job and Walter Mills (Marc Menchaca) and his son named Brayden (Griffin Robert Faulkner) faced off against the mysterious Man in the Storm.

This episode begins with a flashback of Pat and Mark Warren (Michael B. Jordan) in Iceland. Although we know he changes his tune later, Pat refers to Nicole as a “flaky dancer he barely knows” and tries to talk Mark out of seriously pursuing her. However, they get interrupted when their sonar begins picking up elevated turbulence during the Northern lights. In fact, radiation levels are off the charts, and there are strange asteroids.

In the present day, Dion levitates cheez doodles, claiming they’re for his new pet crab, Pinchy. It’s Dion’s birthday party soon, too. Unfortunately, Nicole is called in by Kwame (J Harrison Ghee) to cover a shift at work. Nicole gets her neighbor, Tessa (Dana Gourrier), to drive Dion to his birthday party in the park.

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At the party, Dion is embarrassed by other kids for still liking a game called Reptile Repo. Dion is also embarrassed by Esperanza (Sammi Haney). By the time Nicole’s replacement arrives at work, she has to race to buy Dion’s cake. Because the store is closed, she even has to pay extra for it. Meanwhile, Pat’s boss, Suzanne (Ali Ahn), asks Pat where he and Dion went soon after the lights came on at BIONA. Obviously she suspects they went snooping around, adding that “L5” was vandalized.

Then and now

Raising Dion uses Dion’s birthday as the focus of another flashback. It happens to be Dion’s birthday when Mark first learns of his own powers, and his hands go through the steering wheel. When he gets home, Mark looks up the Iceland event, then he messages back and forth with someone about superpower side effects. It turns out to take up too much time, making Nicole upset with him over the phone for missing Dion’s birthday. However, because Mark wants to be with Dion and Nicole, he accidentally teleports to the party, which Nicole assumes is an intentional surprise trick.

During Dion’s latest birthday, Dion is disappointed that Nicole bought him a Reptile Repo cake — a character which others said is no longer popular. Dion storms off to the inflatable bounce house, lamenting that he doesn’t have any best friends. While inside it, Dion suffers an asthma attack. When Esperanza retrieves Dion’s inhaler, Dion makes it fly across the yard right through the inflatable house, causing it to deflate. It seems like Suzanne may have witnessed the flying inhaler, though Pat and Nicole are not sure.

New Orleans

Raising Dion then goes back to Mark talking to Charlotte Tuck (Deirdre Lovejoy) in a flashback, down in New Orleans. She demonstrates her invisibility powers. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Man in the Storm shows up. Though Mark saves Charlotte, the entity zaps Mark up, then somehow makes him disappear. Now, in the present, it seems that Mark’s spirit is with Dion at least some of the time. Also, Dion and Nicole to see the Man in the Storm through his bedroom telescope, which does not bode well for the future.

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