Based on the young adult novel, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Dash & Lily explores the idea of falling for someone based on their words alone. The Netflix holiday rom-com series follows the escapades of two New York City teens, Dash (Austin Abrams) and Lily (Midori Francis).
They’re polar opposites, but they both find themselves in the same situation— alone on Christmas. Over the course of two weeks, they get to know each other by exchanging messages through a notebook and giving each other dares that take them all across the city, before they even meet in person.
With eight episodes all under 30 minutes, Dash & Lily is a miniature bundle of joy, perfect to binge when you’re tired of watching Hallmark Christmas movies but not ready to give up on the festive season. It has many of the stereotypical markers of a Christmas movie, but instead of getting lost in the tropes, it allows its quirks to shine.
Dash and Lily start off as not much more than caricatures on opposite ends of the Christmas spirit spectrum but evolve into more complex characters as the series progresses.
Dash is an angsty and jaded loner, whose idea of a fun movie night involves “a depressing French film about murder.” A running joke in the show is the list of adjectives different characters use to describe him: snarly, snarky, finicky, and pernickety— you get the idea. His memories of the holiday season include a breakup and his parents getting a divorce, so there’s no wonder he hates Christmas.
Lily is a self-confessed weird girl with a bubbly yet withheld exterior. She loves Christmas, makes her own clothes and hangs out with adults because she feels like she can’t be herself around people her own age. Francis plays the character’s extremes well, mixing intensity and joy, assertion and fear, and balancing Lily’s need to be herself with her desperation to be liked.
Dash and Lily don’t actually have many scenes together, so most of their conversations occur in voiceovers of them reading their journal messages. This dialogue is carefully arranged and cleverly timed to come across as a flirty conversation between the person narrating the message and the one doing the dare.
The show is self-aware that the concept of forming a relationship via a notebook is a little far-fetched. It acknowledges several times that in keeping their interactions on the page, Dash and Lily are idealizing each other and building up unrealistic expectations.
This catches up to them when they finally (knowingly) meet in person. It’s a moment the show implies will be a magical, swoon-worthy Christmas miracle, but it’s a complete anticlimatic letdown for both of the characters. And it happens on Christmas Day!
Refusing to give viewers the obvious gratification of this moment and throwing one last wrench in Dash and Lily’s relationship before the inevitable happy ending adds some necessary complexity.
The show also dips into deeper topics when the cute gimmick of the notebook eventually gives way to stories that focus on each of the main characters showing real personal growth outside of the dares. As Dash and Lily fall for each other through the notebook and grow individually, the series makes you root for them to make the relationship work off the page.
Dash learns to let down his walls and let other people, and happiness, in. Lily gets out of her bubble, both literally and figuratively. One dare takes her to an underground Jewish punk show, and it’s a delightful whirlwind of raw fear and pure joy. That experience sparks confidence in her that carries on to later episodes.
Dash and Lily accept their vast differences, but they also open up new worlds for each other, allowing each of them to change for the better. They spread this positive change to the people around them, and it’s ultimately what allows them to have their happy ending.
Of course, some of the storylines have the surface-level and predictable tendencies of Hallmark movies. The last episode kicks into full rom-com mode, with one character moving to a foreign country but jumping out of a taxi at the last minute, and the other racing against the clock to pull off a completely unrealistic grand gesture.
Dash & Lily embraces these corny Christmas rom-com moments but balances them out with appropriate doses of teenage angst, whimsical dares and childhood trauma. The show pulls you into this whirlwind and keeps you engrossed in Dash and Lily’s worlds for all eight episodes.
It’s refreshing to see a romantic comedy that doesn’t let its characters get away with putting each other on pedestals. Dash & Lily acknowledges a meet-cute in a bookstore doesn’t mean true love. It shows a good relationship starts with having a meaningful connection, showing your vulnerabilities and being open to new things— it’s no Christmas miracle.