Netflix Series, “Raising Dion” Season 2 continues to explore Dion’s journey as a superhero prodigy. He lives with his mother Nicole in Atlanta. He has formed a team with his friends Esperanza and Jonathan i.e. the Triangle of Justice with the aim to keep their neighborhood clean. But will they be able to do what it takes when the storm strikes back?
Major Spoilers Ahead
‘Raising Dion’ Season 2: Plot Summary
Two years have passed since Dion’s epic battle with the Crooked-Man, and Dion is back serving the streets of his neighborhood as a Mind-Mover. No, he doesn’t fight criminals. He does social work. From setting garbage bins to making sure that every newspaper reaches its door, he does it all. Back at BIONA, he is training under a guy named Teven to control his powers. But peace is temporary because the Crooked Man is back and has taken hold of Braydon. And this time, it is more powerful, thanks to Braydon’s mind-control, which can manipulate people’s minds.
Pat, too, turns up after two years of being presumed to be dead. Once incarcerated, he warns Suzanne, the CEO of BIONA, that something terrible is coming. And soon enough, Braydon joins Dion’s school. He shows Dion his powers, and Dion is thrilled. But it doesn’t take much time for Dion to realize that Braydon is different.
Meanwhile, BIONA discovers multiple sinkholes across the country, just like the one that formed after Dion defeated the Crooked Man (Season 1). Further analysis, with help from Pat, who still has some electrical charge left in him, reveals that the sinkholes also carry a power of the same nature. Later on, we see the flowers, which have grown inside the sinkhole, dispersing parasitic spores. These spores attach to their host, i.e., a person, and turn him or her into no less than a zombie. These zombies are what will become the Crooked Man’s army against Dion.
One of the zombies also manages to infect Nicole, and she doesn’t have much time left. There is also Dion’s school revue, where he and his friends will perform. Meanwhile, at BIONA, Pat and other scientists try to figure out an antidote to cure the infection using Dion’s DNA. But there isn’t enough time. Nicole is given an antidote by Suzanne that will only slow down the spread of the infection. Nicole has 36 hours and holds out as long as she can because she wants to make the most of her time left with Dion. This includes seeing his son perform at the revue. But just before the performance, Braydon, AKA Crooked Man, calls out Dion and challenges him to a fight. Dion also accepts this challenge because he wants to put an end to the threat his mom and friends face.
In the final fight, Dion, Nicole, Teven, and Janell(another girl training at BIONA), face the Crooked Man and his zombie army. Nicole manages to pull Braydon out of the Crooked Man’s grasp with her words. This leads the crooked man to lose his power. However, it doesn’t kill him, and he escapes. On the other hand, Dion manages to inject the antidote given to Nicole by Suzanne into the flowers in the sinkhole. This kills the infection and turns the zombies back into normal people. But all isn’t well, as it doesn’t end well because the crooked man returns to Pat’s body again. But this time Pat voluntarily accepts the dark energy after being unable to prove his goodness to those whom he wanted to help.
The post-credit scene shows Pat in his evil avatar with an army about to attack Atlanta, when a grown-up Dion lands in front of them.
See More: ‘Raising Dion’ Season 2: Review – Dion Faces An Old Villain In A New Avatar
Raising Dion Season 2: Analysis
The big revelation in “Raising Dion” Season 1 was that Dion chose Pat as his mentor, whereas Pat was the one who killed all those powered people, which gave Season 1 a great superhero-origin story. A similar scene occurs between Miles Morales and his uncle Aaron Davis in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Miles loves spending time with his uncle, unaware that his uncle is the Prowler who hunts down people for his boss, the Kingpin.
In “Raising Dion” Season 2, too, there is this dynamic. If we consider the Crooked Man as Pat’s boss who took control of him, then we can say that Pat follows the Crooked Man’s orders to kill powerful people. The only difference is that while Aaron didn’t know that Miles was Spider-Man until it was too late, Pat knew that Dion had abilities long before he was killed by Dion.
Although revealed much later in the show, the relationship between Dion’s mother, Nicole, and Pat is the conflict that establishes Pat’s behavior all along. And the fact that Pat is the villain adds more gravity to the conflict. We have already explored Pat’s behavior in our “Raising Dion” Season 1 analysis.
But, “Raising Dion” Season 2 has neither of these. There is no revelation other than the fact that Braydon is the Crooked Man, something we knew from the beginning.
Relationships
Relationships play a significant part in “Raising Dion” Season 2, pretty much as they did in “Raising Dion” Season 1. After her fall-out with Pat, Nicole meets a new guy, Teven, who is Dion’s new trainer. Although “he is fine,” as she tells her sister Nat, Nicole is clearly hesitant about getting into anything that even remotely resembles a relationship. The fact that the previous guy she was so close to turned out to be a monster that almost killed her son makes her not get involved with a “power man.” Time and again, it is made clear that both Tevin and Nicole share a liking, but care has been taken to keep it that way and explore nothing more. This is an excellent step to not letting the show veer off from the mother-son relationship. As it is, the show consists of 8 episodes, and exploring a love relationship will take a toll on the main plot.
Season 2 also explores the friendship between Dion and Esparanza. While Dion is dealing with his “power” problems, Esparanza, too, has a tough time accepting that she can become more than she is. And all the while, we see Dion giving her the boost that she needs. Even in the final episode, episode 8, Dion tells Esparanza that even if he doesn’t return, he wants her to “be awesome” and hugs her. It is an adorable and innocent way to establish something this crucial. Dion has no idea what is going to happen next, and neither does Esparanza. Both are fighting their own battles, and the series, by showing the two battles parallelly, proves that both are equal to each other.
Just as Dion must defeat a monster that wishes to absorb his abilities, Esparanza must defeat a “fear” monster that wishes to absorb her talents and prevents her from revealing them to others. And the best part is that after Dion beats the Crooked Man, he returns to see Esparanza perform Jennifer Hudson’s song “And I’m telling you I’m not going.” The song not only encapsulates the friendship between Dion and Esparanza but also that of Dion with his mother, Nicole. The song settles the scores and makes for a perfect ending.
Characterization
In terms of characterization, Pat is the highlight. He returns after two years to help, despite knowing the consequences. And indeed, he was taken into custody. He warns everyone that something terrible is coming, and he means to help. But Pat’s inability to find the cure and prove his usefulness affects his chances of proving that he wants to help. And he understands this clearly, as is evident from his wretched expressions when he is unable to extract the P strand from Dion’s DNA. He knows that the cure is impossible to make without it. He knows that Nicole will die without the cure. He knows that a lot of lives are at stake and that there’s not much time. But he can only do so much. But all this is to no avail as, after everything he tried to do, he is still held responsible for his past actions.
This continuous denial of acceptance despite trying to do good and be better leads him to believe that he will always be in the wrong no matter what he does. Thus, he decides to live by his own rules. So he does the only thing he could to get himself out of the cell and be free from everything once and for all. He injects the serum into himself and gains new abilities, escapes from his cell, and, as fate would have it, comes across the Crooked Man and imbibes it in him.
Nicole’s character is added with more practicality and involvement in “Raising Dion” Season 2. We see her get involved in Dion’s training in that she helps Janelle cope with her powers. She also gets involved in helping find the cure for the infection first-hand, which directly or indirectly results from her being attacked by a flora-powered zombie. She also fights the zombies alongside her son at the end, which is absurd since sometime earlier, she couldn’t even walk properly due to her infection. But we forgive that, don’t we?
Both Teven and Janelle have shown their personal issues, but nothing more has been explored about them. Teven’s village is mentioned once, and people who have read the comics will probably be able to understand the reference. Also, there is Teven’s anxiety, while Janelle has her fear of rejection. We can expect both these arcs to be explored better in the next season as well as Nicole’s budding relationship with Teven.
‘Raising Dion’ Season 2: Ending – Is Pat the Next Supervillain?
The post-credit scene of “Raising Dion” Season 2 shows an evil Pat in his black outfit and his army of droids that resemble stormtroopers about to invade Atlanta. But right then comes Dion, who is all grown up now. He has a suit with a cape too. From the looks of it, Pat’s aim after having amassed an army is to control a city, then a country, and then, perhaps even the world.
Domination and ardent following are two requirements for any supervillain, as such. Regardless, Atlanta appears to be the location for “Raising Dion” Season 3’s battleground. And we must also not forget that David Marsh, the newly hired VP of Operations at BIONA, has offered his services to Pat. So there will be more of him too. So, Dion will also have to up his strength and gain better control over his powers to fight. As for the Triangle of Justice, it will probably be renamed the Pentagon of Justice in “Raising Dion” Season 3 since we have two new additions, Teven and Janelle, who will be joining the ranks.
“Raising Dion” Season 2 is streaming on Netflix.
