Vrinda Bachchan
Based on the bestselling YA novel, “Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares,” the Netflix Original show ‘Dash & Lily’ follows the heartwarming story of a teenage couple who falls in love by writing to each other in a notebook that they keep passing back and forth between them, even though they’ve never met one another before. The show, set in New York City during the week before Christmas, stars Austin Abrams and Midori Francis in the leading roles. Here are the recap and review of Episode 5 of the first season of ‘Dash & Lily.’ Please note that there are SPOILERS AHEAD.
Dash & Lily Season 1 Episode 5 Recap
To teach him how to quieten the noise in his mind, Lily sends Dash to a mochi-making class with a bunch of Japanese grannies who are tough to impress when it comes to making mochi. After a lot of tries, he finally gets one right. On the other hand, Lily goes to an arts and crafts pop-up as part of her dare and makes a muppet. Just when she thinks her too-easy challenge is over, Lily is told that she also has to break her creation as part of therapy, to get those angry, “un-Lily-like” feelings out of her. Lily, choosing to not destroy her muppet, walks out of there and goes to the dog park instead.
Leaving the dog park, Lily runs into Edgar, who, yet again, calls her “weird” for feeding dog treats to other people’s dogs. Lily is about to freak out again as she did in Episode 3, upon hearing the word “weird,” but Edgar quickly clarifies that he means that as a compliment and not as an insult. Edgar praises her for her individuality and admits to being jealous of her always being herself no matter what, even when they were kids. He also invites her to a slam poetry event in the neighborhood and flashes the bracelet that Lily made for him in middle school. He leaves as Lily looks on, utterly bewildered.
Elsewhere, Dash’s father comes home from his vacation earlier, newest girlfriend in tow, and catches Dash hanging out alone at his apartment. He convinces Dash to join him and his girlfriend for dinner. Dash, who had been ignoring Sofia’s texts till now, calls her and asks her to come to dinner as well.
Dash’s motive is to diffuse tension between him and his dad since their dinners tended to culminate in shouting match).
But when the situation is about to turn volatile at dinner, Dash calms himself by imagining Lily’s words of encouragement inside his mind. He channels the mochi-making spirit and handles the outing with his dad admirably. Sofia, who is impressed by this new and improved Dash, takes him to meet some friends from school. At Lily’s home, her brother tells her that the family might very soon be moving to Fiji and that their parents were not on vacation but had gone to hash out the details of the move. Lily leaves the house in an emotionally charged huff and beats up (more like brutally kills) some snowmen.
Dash & Lily Season 1 Episode 5 Ending
Still angry and on a roll, Lily goes to the slam poetry event and calls out Edgar on his rudeness to her in middle school, which he seems to have forgotten entirely. In front of a big audience, she tells him that it’s because of him calling her weird back then that she stopped herself from making friends and going out and living her life freely. Lily tells Edgar that he made her feel small and like an outsider when he made fun of her in middle school, but she couldn’t tell him back then how upset he’d made her.
Edgar apologizes profusely, sounding quite sincere, and admits that he was a dumb 12-year-old. He wants to make it up to her, so he invites her to a party on Christmas Eve, and Lily accepts. The episode ends with Edgar meeting a group of friends in a restaurant, which includes Dash and Sofia. Apparently, Dash and Edgar are schoolmates and part of the same social circle. Sofia asks Dash to go to the same Christmas Eve party with her, but as friends. Dash agrees. This episode’s ending is bound to leave viewers a little confused.
We know that currently, Lily goes to an all-girls school, and we know that Lily and Edgar used to attend the same middle school. Edgar also says he changed schools after the seventh grade and went to boarding school. So then how does he know Dash? Dash doesn’t attend boarding school, so either Dash went to the same middle school as Lily, and they actually know each other from years ago, or it may be that Dash knows Edgar from somewhere that’s not school.
We’re sure things will become clearer in the next couple of episodes. But we cannot get over how well Lily stands up for herself in this episode, and calls out Edgar for his bullying behavior, even if it was five years later. She finally admits to herself that it’s not possible to stay happy and positive all the time and that sometimes, things are just awful. This painful realization is a part of her growing up journey.
Dash & Lily Season 1 Episode 5 Review
Many major revelations happen in this episode, the most crucial being the fact that Dash and Lily are slated to attend the same party on Christmas Eve but as things stand right now, they may not even recognize each other. There is also a good chance that maybe they already know each other from middle school if it turns out they attended the same one. Then there is the news about Lily’s family moving to Fiji.
It would be a mighty let-down if Dash and Lily meet and declare their love for each other, only to break up because she has to move away. It’s impressive how much of the plot the makers revealed in the limited time frame of 23 minutes. We especially appreciated Lily calling out the toxic notion that if a boy is mean to you in school, he probably likes you. That’s a notion that can potentially develop into a justification for abusive partners in adult life.
12-year-old Edgar calling her weird and making fun of her is not cute, even if he kept the friendship bracelet for all these years. Overall, this episode acknowledged a lot of raw, angry emotions that Lily is feeling while giving her an effective outlet to blow off steam instead of letting her anger manifest and build.
