Netflix’s Sandman Ends on a Haunting, Poetic Note

Streaming on Netflix, the series is based on a highly acclaimed graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman. The second season of Netflix’s Sandman will end the series. If you watched the first season, you will be relieved to know that season two still captures the trippy, surrealistic quality of the source material that made the first one a must-watch. The season also maintains its effort to tie together the episodic nature of the graphic novel into one cohesive arc with a distinctly Morpheus flavor, more “grounded” than its predecessor in terms of narrowing its focus. That does not mean the season skimps on the material it adapts.

Netflix announced in January that the show will end with Season 2. Many have speculated that its cancellation had something to do with sexual misconduct allegations made against Gaiman, which he has since denied. But Sandman showrunner Allan Heinberg has explained on X that the two-season plan was always there, “We all felt we had two great seasons’ worth of story and not a stitch more. On reflection, I think we were right. Sorry!”

Season 1 adapted Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll’s House, along with two bonus episodes adapted from “Dream of a Thousand Cats” and “Calliope” from Dream Country. Season 2, by contrast, is more frontloaded, focusing primarily on Seasons of Mists, Brief Lives, The Kindly Ones, and The Wake. Key elements from Fables and Reflections (notably “The Song of Orpheus” and key elements of “Thermidor”) and the award-winning story “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from Dream Country are also crucial to the story, as is the 1993 standalone spinoff Death: The High Cost of Living, which is adapted for the second season’s bonus episode. Elements of A Game of You, as well as several important short stories, are notably absent, but are ultimately not felt as part of the overarching arc of the Sand King.

Season 1 saw the Dream King escape from captivity, recover his stolen talismans, defeat the rogue dreamerman Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), and sort out the mess left behind by the Vortex experiment. Season 2 opens with Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) picking up the pieces after his battle with the Corinthian and rebuilding the Dreaming with the assistance of his familiar Matthew (Poovitha Purty). His work is interrupted, however, when Destiny (Adrian Lester) makes a rare appearance to summon him to a meeting with his siblings, Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), Despair (Donna Preston), and Delirium (Esmé Creed-Miles). The resulting family gathering is acrimonious.

The meeting puts Morpheus on a rescue mission for his former lover, Nada (Umulisa Gahiga), queen of the First People, whom he imprisoned in Hell in revenge for her part in the slaughter of her people. Inevitably, his rescue mission lands him back in Lucifer’s (Gwendolyn Christie) path. Unlike last time, Lucifer is less keen to engage in a battle of wills, and astounds Dream when she resigns as Queen of Hell, leaving him with the key and the decision on who should be the next in charge from a range of interesting candidates, such as Odin, Order, Chaos, or the fallen angel turned demon Azazel.

Highlights, Missteps, and Finale

Season 2 continues the standards set by the first season, boasting first-rate production values, high-quality casting, and visuals to capture some of the strongest visuals from the graphic novel series. Season 2 has been criticized by some as being slow and leisurely, which some have taken as a negative. However, the pace is a deliberate artistic decision and, if nothing else, serves to luxuriate viewers in Gaiman’s imaginative world.

The low point of the entire second season comes in the episode “Time and Night.” When Morpheus turns to his parents for aid, he meets with Time (Rufus Sewell) and Night (Tanya Moodie), and although canonically it’s fine, the Endless are their children, and Gaiman confirmed as much, the dialogue is very clunky for all parties involved. Sewell’s acting can’t hide how the scenes play more like therapy sessions or a soap opera than mythological, superhero drama.

Other indelible images and scenes include Lucifer cutting off her wings for Dream’s appraisal; the goddess Ishtar (Amber Rose Revah) stripping off her clothes (literally) and dancing one last time in all her divine splendor; Dream having to explain to William Shakespeare why he has to write The Tempest and an absolved Corinthian falling in love with Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman). Other not-to-be-forgotten moments include Orpheus’ dirge in the Underworld, Dream’s mercy killing of his son, and the Furies’ murderous rampage, which results in the deaths of Fiddler’s Green (Stephen Fry), Mervyn Pumpkinhead (Mark Hamill), and Abel (Asim Chaudhry).

Dream meets his end with Death by his side for the final time, giving the torch to the new version of herself: Daniel Hall (Jacob Anderson), a human conceived in the Dreaming. Confused but preordained, Daniel takes up the mantle of Dream as his Endless siblings grieve Morpheus, the “once and future Dream King,” and welcome the latest evolution of their brother into their pantheon.

The bonus episode, “A Day in the Life,” functions as a melancholy coda to Morpheus’ tale as Death, who has the option to experience a day in the life of a human being every hundred years, sums up much of the series’ attitude in an understated fashion: “It just goes so fast,” she says, taking in the fading light at the end of her latest day. “You want to hang onto every second. And you’d give anything for just one more.” Also included is her pulling a suicidal young man (Colin Morgan) back from the brink and giving him the will to live another day.