ISSUE 101: How Do You Raise a Superhero?

“**ISSUE #101: How Do You Raise a Superhero?**” is the first episode in season one of *Raising Dion*.

## Plot

### Overview

Widowed mom Nicole struggles to raise her only child Dion, not knowing the second-grader possesses powers beyond anyone's comprehension.

### Full Plot

The episode opens with a narration of Nicole, telling the viewer that her son Dion is special. It then shows Nicole and Dion playing in a lake.

After the intro, the episode switches to Nicole and Dion in their home in Atlanta. Nicole urges Dion to hurry up with his breakfast since she can’t be late for work again, but Dion is more interested in practicing magic tricks. Nicole orders Dion to put his unfinished cereal in the sink, Dion trips and drops the bowl, but somehow the cereal and milk keep levitating in the air. Only after Nicole startles Dion do the milk and cereal fall.

On the way to school, Dion tries to repeat the trick in the car, while Nicole has a memory about her and her late husband Mark. Without either he or Nicole noticing, Dion causes some cardboard waste outside the car to levitate. Dion complains how he failed to make any friends since moving to this new school, not counting Esperanza, but Nicole assures him everything will be fine.

No sooner has Nicole dropped Dion off, or her boss calls her and fires her for being late again. Nicole meets up with her friends Willa and Liz at Le Petit Marché. Willa offers her to ask Kwame for a job, but Nicole objects. To her dismay, Liz tries to arrange a date for her to get her out of the house. At school, Dion is left to eat lunch by himself since none of his classmates want to sit with him, except for Esperanza. She advises him to seek out the other kids at the skatepark after school. Dion doesn’t want to since his mom comes to pick him up, but Esperanza reminds him that Nicole is always late. Convinced, Dion goes to the skatepark after school and convinces the other boys to let him try. After several falls, Dion uses his new powers to perform an amazing jump. Dion’s joy is short-lived however when an angry Nicole comes to the skatepark to get him home.

Back home, Nicole and Dion find their friend Pat waiting, arguing with Nicole’s landlord George. Nicole sends Dion straight to his room for running away from school. Pat however convinces Nicole to let him take Dion out for pizza, so she can relax. While taking a bath, Nicole has some flashbacks about Mark, and how he drowned. At the pizza restaurant, Pat shows off his new comics to Dion and shares some stories about Dion’s dad Mark.

Later that evening, after Pat has dropped Dion off at home again, Dion’s powers begin to act up. He causes first some of his toys, and then multiple objects in the room to levitate, much to Nicole’s surprise. He can’t make them stop again however and accidently causes quite some damage to the living room, as well as injuring Nicole. Only after he panics do his powers finally stop. Nicole is also frightened, but tries to stay calm for Dion. She calls her sister Kat, who is a doctor, to check Dion. Kat can’t find anything wrong with Dion however, and refuses to believe Nicole’s story about Dion’s powers.

The following day, Nicole takes Dion to their cabin at the lake, where Dion convinces her to take the old boat out on the lake for fishing. While on the water, Dion begins to practice his powers, using them to levitate some fish out of the lake. His powers go out of control again and Dion ends up pulling some trees down. A branch knocks him out of the boat and Nicole has to save him. That night, while Dion is asleep, Nicole finds Mark’s old jacket, and in one of the pockets is a paper with a phone number of someone named Charlotte Tuck. Before she can investigate further, Dion calls her; he has left the house and is standing outside in the rain. When Nicole joins him, she notices several human figures standing in the rain. Dion tries to touch them, but they are intangible, like ghosts. One manifests besides Nicole, and to her horror, it’s Mark. He warns her to take Dion away from the lake.

## Cast

### Main Cast

* Alisha Wainwright as Nicole Warren
* Ja'Siah Young as Dion Warren
* Jazmyn Simon as Kat Neese
* Sammi Haney as Esperanza Jimenez
* Jason Ritter as Pat Rollins

### Recurring Cast

* TJ Wright as Chris
* Gavin Munn as Jonathan King
* Skyler Elyse Philpot as Steffi
* Moriah Brown as Willa Stokes
* Michael B. Jordan as Mark Warren
* Afemo Omilami as George Lewis
* Donald Paul as Anthony Fry

### Guest Cast

* Claudine Mboligikpelani Nako as Liz Roberts