Vrinda Bachchan‘Dash & Lily,’ the Netflix Original TV series is based on the popular young adult novel “Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares” by authors David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. The show follows the budding romance between two New York teens who’ve never met each other but have grown close by writing to each other in a red notebook that they exchange back and forth. Here’s a short recap of episode 4 of the first season of ‘Dash & Lily,’ followed by an honest review. Remember, there are SPOILERS AHEAD.
Dash & Lily Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
The morning after the Jewish punk show, Dash searches the basement venue for the red notebook but only finds a single red boot that Lily left behind while running away, shocked and embarrassed at the sudden appearance of her middle school bully. With no other way to reach Lily, Dash turns to Boomer’s help in tracing the owner of the red boot. A tag on the boot takes Dash and Boomer to a costume rental shop in Queens.
From there, they manage to get the address for the boot’s rightful owner. Dash reaches the address and meets Lillian, Lily’s great-aunt and godmother. Since Lillian is the one who gave Lily the red notebook to write in, she figures that Dash is looking for her great-niece and asks him if he is in love with Lily. Dash denies being in love at first but then says that he cares about Lily a lot.
Elsewhere, Lily is wondering how she can get the notebook to Boomer at the pizza place since she is grounded and cannot go out herself and her brother is sick with a fever. Lillian shows up at Lily’s home and talks to her grandpa, Lillian’s brother. Grandpa, who proposed to his girlfriend while he was in Florida, lifts Lily’s punishment and takes her out for pizza. Lily takes the notebook to the pizza parlor and asks Boomer to get it to Dash before 5 pm as the next dare is time-sensitive.
Dash & Lily Season 1 Episode 4 Ending
For her next dare, Lily sends Dash to Dyker Heights, where she asks him to see beyond what is obvious, and beneath the surface of plastic Christmas decorations, to feel the emotions of people visiting the place with their beloved. Just as Dash marvels at the warm, festive ambiance all around him, he receives a text from his ex-girlfriend Sofia, telling him that she’s back in town and wants to see him. Well, the text message from Sofia, received in the final seconds of the episode, might indicate romantic problems in Dash’s future.
Before he found the red notebook and started writing to Lily, he was still pretty hung up on Sofia. So what happens when Sofia comes back into the picture, and Dash is forced to confront his feelings and choose who he loves? We’re left wondering how exactly would Sofia’s arrival mess things up for Lily and Dash because we know for sure Sofia’s presence is bound to cause friction. The episode ends on such a tense note that we are hardly able to appreciate the fact that Dash has slowly started to see the magic of Christmas again, going by the look of wonder he has on his face as he absorbs the spirit of Christmas all around him.
Dash & Lily Season 1 Episode 4 Review
Compared to Episode 3’s raw emotion and themes of self-worth, this episode feels a little flat. That may be because most of the episode was devoted to Dash’s search for Lily, a search that led him to Lillian, a free-spirited charmer who clearly loves Lily to death. But Dash’s desperate attempts to somehow reach Lily are cute and cement the fact that he actually cares about her, or maybe even is in love (though he denies it while talking to Lillian). The scenes with Lily’s Grandpa are a bit chafing because of his borderline oppressive control.
Yes, she went to a late-night party even though she shouldn’t have, but why is he not even letting her near the house’s front door? It’s not like Lily’s going to run away if she gets too close to the door. He does apologize later for being too harsh on her, so it’s okay, but his behavior kind of makes us not care about his character’s story arc with the girlfriend in Florida. Overall, Episode 4 is probably the weakest out of all so far, story-wise.
