Why The Sandman’s Conclusion Will Stay With Viewers Forever

No matter how you feel about the first season, there are things to love in Sandman season 2. As with the first installment, it’s gorgeously made, and the actors are terrific. The show has almost perfected the ambience of the original comic: a woozy, midcentury-feeling creepiness that feels very Gaimanesque.

Season 2, the final batch of episodes, has adapted Season of Mists, Brief Lives, The Kindly Ones, and The Wake, with large chunks of Fables and Reflections, most notably “The Song of Orpheus” and part of “Thermidor,” as well as the Hugo-winning novelette “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from Dream Country. The bonus episode is based on the 1993 one-shot spinoff Death: The High Cost of Living.

The biggest changes to the order and content of the story are the excision of A Game of You and some of the short stories, but both of those have no bearing on the main Dream King’s story arc.

Morpheus has won the big battle in Season 1. He escaped captivity and recovered his talismans; caught up with and vanquished the escaped Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), and stopped the Vortex crisis. So now he’s rebuilding the Dreaming, and getting on with life when his sibling Destiny (Adrian Lester) summons him and three other siblings, Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), and Despair (Donna Preston) as well as Delirium (Esmé Creed-Miles), for a family powwow that doesn’t go well.

Dream is now on a rescue mission for his ex-lover Nada (Umulisa Gahiga), a queen of the First People, whom he sentenced to Hell. That pits him against Lucifer (Gwendolyn Christie), who hasn’t quite gotten over being defeated in the previous season, but who, instead of fighting Dream, surprises him by quitting her job and turning the key over to him when he’s finished with Hell. She leaves him with a key and the responsibility of picking who the next demon in charge of Hell will be. The short list is an eclectic one with Odin, Order, Chaos, and the demon Azazel all in the running.

Delirium’s desire to find the missing brother, Destruction (Barry Sloane), who abandoned his realm centuries ago, also leads Morpheus to his final destiny, of spilling family blood and drawing down the wrath of the Kindly Ones.

Best Bits, Weak Links, and Last Goodbye

Netflix’s Sandman lives up to its reputation as a gorgeously produced series with stellar actors bringing Gaiman’s characters to life. The series once again evokes the artwork of the original comic with a midcentury ambiance that is almost spectral.

The pacing of the episodes is sometimes considered to be slow, but it is by design, and the series is designed to be savored.

The weakest part of the season is when Morpheus has to go to his parents, Time (Rufus Sewell) and Night (Tanya Moodie), for help. The scenes play like a bad group therapy session, and not even the always-excellent Sewell can make some of the clunky dialogue work. It’s ironic, since the idea that the Endless are children of Time and Night is not a modern addition to the comics; it’s always been in the mythology and comes from Gaiman. But even so, it’s clunky.

It’s fun when Lucifer challenges Dream to cut off her wings; it’s moving to see the goddess Ishtar (Amber Rose Revah) slip off all the armor and make-up to just dance one last time as herself; it’s interesting to see Dream explain to the greatest writer of all time, William Shakespeare, why he has to write The Tempest; and sweet to see a reformed Corinthian start to fall for Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman). Other memorable highlights include Orpheus singing in the Underworld, Dream killing his son out of mercy, and the Furies, making short work of Fiddler’s Green (Stephen Fry), Mervyn Pumpkinhead (Mark Hamill), and Abel (Asim Chaudhry).

Dream’s death comes with him taking Death’s hand for the last time. The new host, Daniel Hall (Jacob Anderson), is introduced as the sole human being to ever be conceived in the Dreaming. Still reeling from the shock, Daniel will grow into his role as Dream, but for now, his Endless siblings will grieve Morpheus and welcome the latest incarnation of Dream into their number.

The bonus episode is a lovely coda to the season and series in general: Death is allowed to be a human being for one day every century, and of course, she always dies at the end of that day. “It just goes so fast,” she laments. “You want to hang onto every second. And you’d give anything for just one more.” Colin Morgan also stars as a young man who stops from killing himself. The episode is a nice reminder that while Sandman is sometimes a melancholy series, it’s still got a touch of hope.

Season 2 is a fitting end to a series that went out on a high note, with nearly all the best bits of the original 30-year-old story, adapted with artistry and passion to the small screen.