The Sandman’s Final Season: Poetry in Motion

The Sandman, Netflix’s ambitious adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s classic graphic novel series, has concluded with the arrival of the show’s second and final season. For those who enjoyed season one, which succeeded in capturing the uncanny, dream-like quality of Gaiman’s source material, the second season will feel largely familiar. It works to preserve the anthology quality of the source material while also establishing a satisfyingly grounded narrative arc for Morpheus, the bookish Lord of Dreams.

Season two was confirmed in January by Netflix, with showrunner Allan Heinberg confirming the sexual misconduct allegations against Gaiman, which the author has since denied, had nothing to do with the show’s future on the streaming platform. Heinberg later revealed on X that the series had never been intended for more than two seasons, as “we always felt that we had enough story for two seasons but not a lot more.” Heinberg’s comments echo the Sandman community’s consensus, who feel that the two-season arc is largely sufficient for the source material.

Season one covered Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll’s House with bonus episodes focusing on “Dream of a Thousand Cats” and “Calliope” from Dream Country. Season two, however, covers more ground, drawing mostly from Seasons of Mists, Brief Lives, The Kindly Ones, and The Wake, but also featuring important material from Fables and Reflections (chiefly “The Song of Orpheus” and certain portions of “Thermidor”) and the Academy Award-winning “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from Dream Country. The Sandman’s second bonus episode is adapted from the 1993 Sandman one-shot spinoff Death: The High Cost of Living. The main arc of the Dream King also notably does not cover the events of A Game of You or any of the important short stories in the series, an absence that ultimately does not feel very significant.

Season 2 picks up after Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) has survived season 1’s literal war on his domain, escaped his imprisonment, recovered his three magical talismans (his helm, sand, and ruby), apprehended the escaped Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), and averted the Vortex threat. Morpheus is in the process of restoring the Dreaming with the assistance of his infernal architects (Peter vice) when he is ordered to appear before his sister, Destiny (Adrian Lester). He is forced to come together with his sisters Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), and Despair (Donna Preston) as well as his wayward sibling Delirium (Esmé Creed-Miles) for a surreal family summit.

The summit proves to be the catalyst for a mission that Morpheus must embark on, to rescue Nada (Umulisa Gahiga), queen of the First People and Dream’s ex-lover, from Hell. It also forces Dream to a second reckoning with Lucifer (Gwendolyn Christie), who is still angry over her season 1 defeat and reluctant to relinquish control over the realms of Hell, forcing Dream to engage with his old nemesis once more. Lucifer, however, does not fight Morpheus and instead resigns, entrusting the key to an empty Hell to Morpheus and leaving him to decide who will be its next guardian, from a slate of impressive candidates (including Odin, Order, Chaos, and the fallen angel turned demon Azazel).

Delirium’s quest to find their missing sibling, Destruction (Barry Sloane), who mysteriously abandoned his kingdom hundreds of years prior, sets Morpheus on the path of his own destiny, inviting divine retribution for his misdeeds and angering the Furies and the Kindly Ones.

Highlights and a Bittersweet Finale

The series continues the trend of world-class production values from season 1, from its excellent casting to the visually striking set design that so evocatively brings the graphic novel’s illustrations to life. The pacing has been described as somewhat sluggish by some, but the slower pace of the show can be seen as a deliberate artistic choice in its own right.

The weakest link of season 2, and by extension the whole show, is the episode “Time and Night” in which Dream and Dream delegate their issues to Morpheus’ parents, Time (Rufus Sewell) and Night (Tanya Moodie). Although these scenes are canonically on-point and are true to the source material (The Endless do, after all, have parents), their scenes feel stilted by laughably unnatural dialogue that even Sewell’s excellent performance is unable to conceal, as it takes on the cadence of a session with a therapist.

Season 2 also features many impressive set pieces, such as Lucifer’s request to Dream to cut off her wings; the goddess Ishtar (Amber Rose Revah) stripping off the social masks of all humanity to reveal her true form as a goddess as she performs one last dance with all of creation; Dream explaining to William Shakespeare that he cannot change his fate as an author and must write The Tempest as he finds it in the pages of his notebook; and a reformed and emotionally sincere Corinthian falling in love with Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman). Other standout scenes include the pained and haunting funeral song by Orpheus for his late wife Eurydice in the Underworld, Morpheus’ mercy killing of his own son, and the brutal assault by the Furies on Fiddler’s Green (Stephen Fry), Mervyn Pumpkinhead (Mark Hamill), and Abel (Asim Chaudhry) for defying the divine.