How The Sandman Ends the Story While Keeping the Dream Alive

Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman graphic novel series gets its conclusion with the second season of the fantasy epic on Netflix. There’s much to like for those who were already delighted by the first season, which carried on the source material’s offbeat, fantastical atmosphere effectively. This final season, like its predecessor, delicately handles the balance between the anthology feel of the comics and a more grounded tale with its focus on the arc of Morpheus the Dream King.

Sexual misconduct allegations against Neil Gaiman (whom the showrunner said no longer has a direct involvement in the production, and who has denied the claims), Netflix’s January announcement that The Sandman was renewed for a second and final season, and reports about the two-season plan only in November led some to speculate the network rushed to end the show. However, Heinberg took to X to reveal the series was only intended to run for two seasons. When given the chance to create the second season, the creative team realized they had enough story for two seasons. I must say their intuition was right, even if they stretched.

Season 1 covered Preludes and Nocturnes, The Doll’s House, as well as the bonus episode “Dream of a Thousand Cats” and “Calliope” from Dream Country. Season 2 adapts primarily from Seasons of Mists, Brief Lives, The Kindly Ones, and The Wake with significant material from Fables and Reflections, specifically “The Song of Orpheus” and the latter part of “Thermidor” that deals with the Dream King’s former lover Nada, and the Hugo Award-winning “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from Dream Country, with the one-off bonus episode adapting the 1993 spinoff Death: The High Cost of Living. A Game of You and several of the short stories do not cut, but these also have little impact on the main narrative arc of the Dream King.

Season 1 ended with Morpheus achieving all his victories in the battle against those who dared to trap him, take his talismans, stop his reign, and escape the Nada business, as well as fixing the Vortex crisis. Now, in Season 2, Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) is focused on repairing the Dreaming, using the remnants of his old power, including his original helmet. He is first interrupted by an even rarer summoning from his sister Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste). Death, Desire (Mason Alexander Park), Despair (Donna Preston), and Delirium (Esmé Creed-Miles) all gather with Morpheus for a familial powwow to discuss the matter that she revealed to him in his first dream following his return to the Dreaming.

This family confrontation sends Morpheus on a path to save Nada (Umulisa Gahiga), the queen of the First People and his former lover, whom he had sentenced to Hell. He is soon drawn into another battle of wills with Lucifer (Gwendolyn Christie), who has never forgotten her Season 1 defeat and who has other plans for both Nada and her home, the Fourth Layer of Hell. However, Lucifer does not fight the Dream King; instead, she surprisingly resigns, taking off her horns, and hands him the key to an empty Hell so he can choose its next ruler, whether that be Odin, Order, Chaos, or the demon Azazel.

Delirium has been homesick for their missing brother, Destruction (Barry Sloane), who left his domain many years ago without a word, which sets the Dream King on a collision course with his eventual fate of spilling familial blood and thus awakening the Furies in their fury.

Highlights, Lowlights, and a Final Adieu

Production values remain stellar as with Season 1, including great casting and set designs, costumes, makeup, and, of course, the hauntingly beautiful visuals that truly nail translating the graphic novel’s imagery to the screen. The pacing has been described by some viewers as too slow, but that complaint is largely unfounded; it’s a deliberate choice and allows the audience to take in all that Gaiman has to offer fully.

The single weakest point is probably “Time and Night,” the episode where Morpheus enlists the help of his parents, Time (Rufus Sewell) and Night (Tanya Moodie). In all fairness, the sequence itself is canonically sound since, as the comics explain, the Endless are Time and Night’s children. However, the dialogue was simply clunky, and even Sewell cannot salvage a sequence that’s just there to paint the story as much of a classic therapy session rather than grounded in the mythic drama it could be.

The ones that stick with me include Lucifer asking Dream to cut off her wings; the goddess Ishtar (Amber Rose Revah) casting aside all her artifice to finally dance like a god one last time; Dream explaining to William Shakespeare why The Tempest must be; a reformed Corinthian developing feelings for Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman); and Dream killing his son in mercy after his transformation into the same madness his original puppet prince had suffered. The sheer devastation and cruelty of the Furies against Fiddler’s Green (Stephen Fry), Mervyn Pumpkinhead (Mark Hamill), and Abel (Asim Chaudhry) left me in awe.

Dream’s end is fittingly poignant, but even in this moment, he still takes Death’s hand once more before his successor, Daniel Hall (Jacob Anderson), steps forward to take his place. Daniel, the only human to ever have been conceived in the Dreaming (although a collaboration between Dream and a human), is understandably confused and a bit lost. However, with his Endless siblings lamenting the passing of Morpheus while also welcoming Daniel into their number, the new Dream knows he’s finally home and will achieve much in his new realm and the waking world.