A scrooge and a Christmas nut exchange dares through a notebook leading them to numerous famous locations in the Big Apple as each other’s identities stay secretive while their exchange stays strictly between the pages of the red notebook. As the festive dares bring them closer together with a certain distance, will they be lonesome for Christmas or find each other in time for New Years?? If you dare, find out in Netflix’s Dash & Lily. 

Episode One: “Dash”

Dash & Lily starts off with meeting the first half of our two main characters; Dash. Dash is this snarly, sarcastic, broody, loner boy who would rather read than socialize with, let’s be honest, anyone. Another very important detail about him; Dash is a grinch for Christmas and hates everything to do with the holidays. He even says, “It’s the most detestable time of the year. The forced cheer, frenzy crowds, the carolers who had so much eggnog they forgot the words.” The only thing that somewhat brings Dash joy is books and the one place he can find some peace is, The Strand, which is an actual location like most of the places found in Dash & Lily. (Based on what Reading Addicts said, “The Strand is the largest non-commercialized bookstore in New York and is the sole survivor of Book Row”). One day while wandering The Strand, he finds a mis-shelved red notebook that reads, “Do You Dare?”, on the front cover. Curiously opening the book, Dash finds a message he must decode which he eventually discovers asks, “Are you going to be lonely on Christmas?” With the help of Dash’s best friend, Boomer, the two hatch a scheme to catch “Clue Girl” but don’t think that won’t stop her. In revenge, “Clue Girl” sends Dash to one of the most festive yet chaotic places during the holiday season, Macy’s. As Dash points out that “Clue Girl” is sadistic, “She’s sending me into a department store right before Christmas. Clearly, her sadism knows no bounds.” There Dash gets himself into a little frenzy as he completely destroys SantaLand at Macy’s, stealing Santa’s hat as instructed in the notebook. On the flap of the Santa hat in glitter glue is the name of “Clue Girl”, Lily. The ending of the first episode rewinds where it all started off, with Dash getting knocked into with tinsel. Not only is the girl who accidentally ran into Dash, Lily, but the only caroler singing the right lyrics as seen in the beginning of the episode. “Well, at least someone knows the words.” Dash, the scrooge he is, lost all hope in the spirit of the holiday season. But Dash’s spirits brighten after Lily shows him how to actually enjoy Christmas in the big city even with the painful tourists. Will Dash finally understand the true meaning of Christmas through the notebook? And will the dares traded between the two while he finds himself all around New York make his heart grow three sizes or will he stay the Grinch he is during the holidays? 

Rating: Though critics (IMDB) gave this episode 7.7, overall I would give it a 10 out of 10. Please note I do not agree with the scores on IMDB and do not base my personal out view of the show on critics’ scores. 

Episode Two: “Lily” 

Viewers already met the cynical Dash, in episode one, and briefly met “Clue Girl”. But it’s time to know more about the other half of our two main characters; Lily. Right from the start, the series wants to show the difference between Dash and Lily. Within seconds of the opening Lily says, “I don’t care what anyone says. This is the greatest time of the year. I love Christmas!!” Which is completely different from Dash’s views claiming “it’s the most detestable time of the year”, as for Lily, it’s the greatest. Right away it shows that Dash and Lily are complete opposites. It is then revealed that Lily will be spending the holidays alone as her parents are taking a vacation to Fiji while her Grandpa is visiting his “lady friend”, Mabel, in Florida. Leaving Lily and her brother, Langston, all by themselves for the holidays. Well, Langston isn’t completely alone, he has Benny, his boyfriend. Feeling defeated by her loneliness, the prospect of a lonely Christmas inspires Lily to connect with someone through the notebook in which she left purposefully at The Strand. With the help from Langston and Benny, the three of them write up the first couple of clues and dares to pull the one who takes the red notebook in. After Dash’s first dare is successfully completed, Lily picks up the notebook just to find out “Notebook Boy” hates Christmas. It is then when Dash tries to trap Lily by going to Two Boots Pizza, where Boomer is supposed to catch “Clue Girl” in the act of placing the notebook in the instructed area. (Two Boots Pizza is actually a real chain of pizzerias based in New York City but don’t be too upset. One of their locations is actually in Jersey City, New Jersey). In episode one, Boomer told Dash that he missed “Clue Girl” during the lunch rush, where in reality Boomer actually caught Lily but swore he wouldn’t tell Dash to keep the mystery of the notebook. It is then shown once again but more in depth Dash’s encounter with Santa Claus himself in Macy’s while Boomer befriends the stubborn elf, Jeff. “This girl wants me to suffer.” “Look, or maybe she just wants you to, I don’t know, feel the holiday spirit.” There Dash completely destroys SantaLand at Macy’s, stealing Santa’s hat as instructed in the notebook. On the flap of the Santa hat in glitter glue is the name of “Clue Girl”, Lily. “Her name is Lily.” “I like that name.” “Yeah, me too.” After his Macy’s dare, Dash is already coming out of his comfort zone and feeling the Christmas spirit and snow begins to lightly fall. “You’re actually smiling. It’s a Christmas miracle.” Uncle Sal AKA Macy’s Santa returns the red notebook to Lily, while Dash is on his way home stuck in the subway filled with Santa Claus’. Episode two ends with a split screen of Dash and Lily singing “Fairytale of New York” simultaneously. “So, tell me, Lily… What do you want for Christmas?” 

Rating: Though critics (IMDB) gave this episode 7.7, overall I would give it a 10 out of 10. Please note I do not agree with the scores on IMDB and do not base my personal out view of the show on critics’ scores. 

Episode Three: “Hanukkah” 

On a “dare”, Dash sends Lily to a location in the city that just feels like him so Lily can get to know “Notebook Boy” more. Though Dash claims the place that is most like him isn’t a place… it’s a time. On this dare, Dash sends Lily to Grand Central Terminal where she must go before the first train leaves. “There are few moments when you can find stillness in the middle of the city, when you can enjoy the heart of New York without the crush of people.” Lily’s following dare is also finding stillness in the city which shows Dash that it doesn’t have to be early in the morning and without crowds. Dash then poses as one of those human statues. In the notebook Lily finally asks for Dash’s name but he can’t give it away since “it’s too particular.” He does however give Lily a clue, saying his name is a “connector of words.” In the notebook, Lily asks Dash that even though he claims to hate Christmas, he must have at least one good Christmas memory, so which one was the best? He then writes about the time his parents told him they were getting a divorce by saying he would have two Christmases. So to reverse the dare, Dash asks Lily about her worst Christmas experience. Lily then explains the heartbreaking time she made friendship bracelets for everyone she went to school with. Her gift however backfired when a kid named “E” made fun of her and her gifts as well as the rest of her school did. This was the exact moment when Lily began to shut herself off from the world. After Lily shares this heartbreaking memory, Dash devises a dare that will push Lily out of her comfort zone. The idea comes when the Challah Back Boys, friends of Dash and Boomer’s, go to Two Boots to spread the message about their secret underground Hanukkah concert. That is exactly where Dash sends Lily, “Weird is cool, Lily, and I’m going to prove it.” Dash advises Lily to go to the Hanukkah concert after leaving the notebook at the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park (Lily calls Alice the “patron saint of weird girls”). This dare terrified Lily because it means she’ll have to put herself out there after sheltering herself for so long. Putting herself out there freaks Lily out so much that she has a nightmare that shows that Lily is worried that she’ll embarrass herself and Dash will see that she isn’t the girl in his head or the girl in the notebook. The masked man Lily pictures as Dash in this dream sequence says, “You don’t belong. Nobody wants to know you in real life.” This nightmare is supposed to be a nod to Alice in Wonderland. After some brotherly advice from Langston (and Benny), Lily goes on to complete her dare while rocking a cute sparkly blue dress she’s been hiding because she was too afraid to wear it. But that is what this dare is all about; opening yourself up and not being afraid of others. Once Lily gets to the secret underground party she is stopped by a drag-queen bouncer, who happens to be none other than Jeff the Macy’s Elf. He doesn’t let Lily into the party until she admits something that is a drag in her life. This is when Lily admits she has never been kissed, unable to let such a sob story stand, Jeff finally lets Lily into the party. He even tells Lily to “head down the rabbit hole” (which is yet another Alice in Wonderland nod). At first the party completely overwhelms Lily which leads her to hide in the bathroom where she sees a message Dash left on the bathroom mirror saying, “Get back out there, Lily.” Lily does exactly that and more. She gets back out into the party and starts dancing very weirdly but weird is cool, right?! She’s having the time of her life until she comes face-to-face with Edgar or you may know him as “E”, the boy who broke Lily’s spirits all those years ago. Even in the club Edgar laughs and says to Lily, “You are so weird.” In this moment, the nightmare Lily was dreading came true, knowing that going out would be a disaster. Embarrassed of herself, Lily runs out of the club crying, losing one of her red boots. But worst of all, she not only didn’t complete the dare but failed Dash by forgetting to leave the notebook in which she has no way of getting it to him. Meaning the game they had going on is over… To make matters worse, when Lily gets home at four in the morning, she thinks an intruder broke into her house and is attacking Langston and Benny. Only to find out that it is her grandfather home early from Florida. He’s quite angry at Lily for staying out until the morning so he grounds her… forever!! So not the best night for Lily, was it?

Rating: Though critics (IMDB) gave this episode 7.7, overall I would give it a 9 out of 10. Please note I do not agree with the scores on IMDB and do not base my personal out view of the show on critics’ scores. 

Episode Four: “Cinderella”

Dash and Lily are a bit bummed out due to the halt of the little game they had going on. At the end of the last episode, “Hanukkah”, Lily failed Dash by forgetting to leave the notebook, meaning she has no way of getting it to him. Grandpa held through with his words saying Lily is grounded forever. Lily is on lockdown only allowed to stay in the house. Dash is heartbroken when he finds out that Lily didn’t leave behind the notebook like they’ve been doing in the exchange. The Challah Back Boys tell Dash that Lily was at their concert and having the time of her life meaning she had the opportunity to leave the notebook. Dash starts to think she doesn’t want to talk to him anymore and wants to end the game. It isn’t until Dash finds the only thing he has of her… the red boot she left behind. Boomer and Dash use the red boot as a way to track down Lily since they initially believed she left it as a clue like Cinderella, hence the title of this episode. The tag in the shoe leads them to a costume rental store where Boomer and Dash try to get as much information out of the woman who owns it. Dash notices the worker wearing a Phantom and the Opera sweatshirt and tells her,  “Look, you… you don’t know me, but I’m like the Phantom.” “His name is Erik.” Finally, Dash learns that the boots were used in the original production of the Music Man but were loaned but never returned. A woman named Lillian paid to keep them. This leads Dash and Boomer to the address of where he thinks Lily is but it’s not. It is actually Lily’s aunt’s apartment, the woman Lily keeps mentioning under the name, Mrs. Basil E before entering the apartment Dash tells Boomer he has to go in by himself because, “this is a Dash and Lily moment.” This is of course a title drop. After Mrs. Basil E tells Dash some heartwarming stories, she decides to help out Dash and deliver a message to Lily. Mrs. Basil E returns the red notebook to Lily and has a heart to heart with Grandpa. Grandpa tells Lily he was too harsh to and un-grounds her. Instead of bringing her out to ice-cream as an apology, Lily decides they should go get pizza at Two Boots instead. There Lily gives Boomer the notebook and begs him to deliver it to Dash by 5 PM because it is a time sensitive mission. Boomer barely makes the cut but finally gets the notebook to Dash. The last five minutes of this episode is perfect with Dash running through New York to catch the train for Lily’s next dare. In the notebook, Lily explains everything saying, “I’m sorry I messed up the game.” She then sends Dash on a dare to Dyker Heights to see the Christmas lights, specifically “The Nutcracker House”. The moment Dash gets to “The Nutcracker House”,  “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole begins to play. The soundtrack for the show is perfect, festive to say the least. Dash twirls around as the snow starts to fall. Snow is highly important in the series because it reflects how Dash and Lily’s relationship is going. During these episodes, Dash and Lily are starting to develop feelings for each other, the snow flurries symbolize the butterflies in the stomach feeling. It’s also perfect because it shows how Dash has a new perspective on not just the holidays but on love and Christmas and believing all because of Lily. The song ends at the end of the episode with Dash opening up his phone to find a message from his ex-girlfriend, Sofia, saying she’s in town and that they should meet up. That won’t strain anything Dash has started with Lily, can it?? 

Rating: Though critics (IMDB) gave this episode 7.9, overall I would give it a 9 out of 10. Please note I do not agree with the scores on IMDB and do not base my personal out view of the show on critics’ scores. 

Look Out For, “’Do You Dare?’: Dash and Lily *Festive* Guide” Coming Soon!!