The Sandman
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Like HBO or the CW before it, Netflix has developed its ownhouse style, for betteror worse.
Individual episodes dont matter.
In fact, the boundaries between episodes are intentionally blurred to keep you bingeing.
No matter how prestige-y, streamers are ultimately in the business of making content to fold laundry to.
That means a sense of endless narrative and a stylistic sameness that tends toreplace color with shadow.
But now form (Netflix) and content (Sandman)have come together.
Were juggling multiple story lines and endlessly teasing the twists to come.
This episode introduces us to Desires twin, Despair.
They are often in competition with older brother Dream, in part because their realms kind of overlap.
These kids need a family therapist, but theyll have to settle for trying to kill each other.
Whats a Dream Vortex?
Remember when I said to remember Rose back in episode five?
Well, shes back.
Judys friend Rose is going through it.
Its Unity Kinkaid, who is somehow still alive despite falling into a comain 1916.
Well, the baby thing happened in the waking world, too.
That baby had a baby, who had Roses mother, who had Rose and her brother, Jed.
Poor Lindsay Lohan(s).
Rose and her friendsurrogate mom, Lyta Hall, travel to Florida to attempt to find Jed.
They move into a kooky B&B operated by drag queen Hal/Dolly (John Cameron Mitchell).
Also living at the house are Ken and Barbie, Chantal and Zelda, and Gilbert.
As played by Stephen Fry, Gilbert is a hoot and a half.
The gang feels like a big found family, but Rose should be more wary.
After all, the Fates told her to beware of houses.
Yeah, everyone wants to meet the new Dream Vortex.
Three so-called collectors are organizing a meetup of like-minded individuals, and theyve lost their keynote speaker.
so that get his attention, they commit a few copycat murders.
Its a dangerous gambit, as collectors apparently hate copycats for taking credit for their hard-earned M.O.
But once the Corinthian is told hes an inspiration to their kind, his innate self-centeredness takes over.
He wants to bethenightmare.
Unfortunately for him, a serial killer just doesnt have the oomph he did in 1990.
You kill one guy, in private?
When Gaiman first wrote this character, we were just beginning the true-crime industrial complex.
Serial-killer culture was still taboo.
Everyone thinks they can escape a serial killer; no one knows how to escape being in public.
We are immediately charmed by gossip queen Hal, and we feel for poor Jed.
Like all the most Netflix-y of Netflix shows, this episode ends with a character in dire straits.
Jed has been lost in the child-services shuffle.
His caseworker wont divulge his location to Rose, despite her being old enough to become his legal guardian.
Not cool, Florida Department of Children and Families!
Fables and Reflections
I did the math: Unity is 118 years old.
Presumably being connected to the Endless via Rose made her unnaturally long-lived?
Seemed to work for Alex Burgess and his boyfriend.
Also, how did a Black British family come to own a sugar empire in the 1910s?
Bet theres a story there.
As discussed byHob Gadling, the sugar trade historically had a very different connection to race.
Kens little topknot (too short to be a man bun) absolutely sent me.
What a caricature of basic masculinity.
Cant wait for more Gilbert content.
Im editing fancams with his sword cane as we speak.
