The Sandman
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Dream, one of the most tight-buttholed characters in fiction, has declenched.
And all it took was a near-apocalypse.
We start the episode with the Corinthian filling Rose in on whats happened to all the other vortices.
In short, they got mercd.
The Corinthian is offering Rose protection from Dream, but at the cost of killing everyone she knows.
Not a great offer.
While Rose mulls over her options, Dream goes to give his keynote speech at the convention.
This monologue from the Corinthian is at the heart ofSandman,I think.
Even more than being a story about stories, the subconscious, dreams,Sandmanis about self-delusion.
For good, or for ill.
But its also what Morpheus has been doing for eons.
Doomed, I say.
But the Corinthian counters that hes just trying to rationalize away from having feelings.
At the keynote speech, the Corinthian stages his coup.
Rather than let humanitys subconscious be overrun with serial killers, Rose decides to set up good boundaries.
Clearly, shes been to therapy.
Neither the Corinthian nor Dream really counted on Rose having agency in her own story.
And to be fair, she doesnt really in the comics.
But first the Corinthian has to be unmade.
This is where Dream catches his unfeeling-bitch accusations.
But if Dream doesnt feel enough, the Corinthian doesnt think big enough.
All hes done in his century in the waking world is give people another thing to be afraid of.
If Dream had his way, hed make humans scared of themselves.
While Dream and his nightmare are beefing, Rose and Jed make their getaway.
Lyta is having her magic baby, after approximately 18 hours of being pregnant.
This idea is used in a terrifying (and truly disgusting) cold open onFringe,btw.
Now theres a show not afraid to get yucky.
In Lytas estimation, Dream sucks.
He did aRaiders of the Lost Arkstyle face melt to her husband and wants to steal her baby.
Why shouldnt Rose replace him?
But Rose doesnt have the rigidity to order the chaos of the Dreaming.
As we learn that night, when as the zoomers say the Vortex is vortexing.
Rose accidentally lets all the boardinghouses dreams blend together.
For Chantal and Zelda, this allows them to grow even closer.
For Ken and Barbie, its the beginning of a divorce.
Barbies dreams are so elaborate and mythical, while Kens are base and boring.
There is zero inner life there.
The Vortex appears to swallow everyone.
Ken, Barbie, Chantal, Zelda, Hal, and even Jed get sucked into its maw.
Rose decides its time to end this, even if it means dying.
Meanwhile, multiple people are still trying to save her.
Gilbert wants to exchange his life for hers, which makes no sense and wouldnt work.
Unity has a similar idea, and that one holds water.
It turns out that Unity would have been the Vortex, had Dream not gotten bubbled.
And then her Vortex powers traveled down her matrilineal line.
Because the father of her child is none other than Desire.
I think that makes Rose Dreams niece twice removed?
Rose and Jed are descended from the Endless.
And one of the biggest rules in Dreams big book of rules is you cant kill family.
First, Unity is pushing 120 and its her time to go, tbh.
However, hecanthreaten his family, which he proceeds to do.
If anything, they manipulate us.
Desire isnt interested in learning their lesson, though.
And thus the season ends tied up in a little bow.
Itsmaybe a little too neat, with Dream remaking Gault as a happy dream like shed always wanted.
He still hasnt released Nada from Hell, so theres still room for growth in a potential season two.
Boy howdy, doesSandmantry to tee a second season up!
My subs have unionized, Lucifer seems to say.
But they have a plan, and its a doozy.
Renew the show and well find out.
EvenChilling Adventures of Sabrinahad more outstretched-hand work than other incarnations of the character.
Another good change from the comics: lessening the hardships Jed undergoes.
The world ofSandmanisnt child-friendly, but theres only so much IRL suffering people want to watch.
Not bound and gagged in the trunk of the Corinthians car, as he is in the comics.
Kens dreams dont seem bad enough to merit Barbie rejecting him.
So he got a dream beej, so what?
In the comics, his dreams are Reaganomics + the vilest misogyny you could imagine.Thats grounds for divorce.
Okay, just in case Warner Bros. Go to your local comics shop and start getting hyped.
