REVIEW: ‘The Sandman’ Season 2, Vol. 2 Falls Apart Like A Sandcastle
- Mira Jacobs
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Although The Sandman avoids the fate of many cancelled series by wrapping up the main plot without leaving too many hanging threads, Season 2 - Vol. 2 still feels incomplete. Fans have expressed their discomfort with Neil Gaiman’s work after last year’s sexual abuse allegations against him, but that isn’t the only baggage that weighs down the series — there’s a sense that everyone involved in making it, except perhaps for the set designers, simply wanted it over with. Maybe they knew something we didn’t.
In these latest six episodes, Dream (Tom Sturridge) is facing dire consequences for mercy-killing his son. The metaphysical laws of his universe dictate that spilling family blood leaves him vulnerable to the Furies (Souad Faress, Nina Wadia, and Dinita Gohil), but he’s also made enemies among any number of other entities and wants to secure the safety of his realm and its residents before meeting his own fate. This means naming an heir, and the only candidate is Daniel, a baby who was conceived in the Dreaming and born to Lyta Hall (Razane Jammal) only a year ago.
All this is in line with the plot of the comics; the adaptation is reasonably faithful with its major strokes. The nuance of the details is another matter.
Idle Dreams and Forgettable Legends
Several other characters from Season 1 return to have their own fates settled, including Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman), Fiddler’s Green (Stephen Fry), and the Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook). As mortals and myths attempt to help or hinder Dream’s plans, the staff of the Dreaming, led by Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong), mostly huddle together sharing exposition-heavy dialogue. The novelty of seeing a pumpkin-headed scarecrow custodian (Mark Hamill) at work in an infinite impossible kingdom fades quickly when neither the person nor the place has their potential really explored.
Newer additions Loki (Freddie Fox) and Puck (Jack Gleeson) add some liveliness through their chemistry as a pair of trickster gods teaming up as both conspirators and lovers, but overall, nobody gets enough development to earn their big moments. Dream himself mostly stands around brooding while other characters lecture him about how he feels.
Detour Through Supplemental Comics
Although several major arcs and significant characters from The Sandman comics were cut out entirely in the adaptation, some new ones were added from source material that wasn’t published as part of the main series. First, Dream’s desperation leads him to beg for help from his estranged parents, Time (Rufus Sewell) and Night (Tanya Moodie), who were never mentioned in canon until the prequel graphic novel The Sandman: Overture was published in 2013. Their respective scenes are engaging enough, but both refuse to get involved and thus have no impact on the plot other than some worldbuilding, which seems wasted considering that the live-action Sandman Universe is about to end.
Later on, an unlikely romance sparks between Johanna and the Corinthian, apparently a nod to one of the more recent comic spinoffs of The Sandman, titled The Dreaming: Waking Hours. The idea of this version of the iconic Constantine character being courted by a reformed nightmare is intriguing enough to become another disappointment, now that we’ll never see any more of it.
Art in Motion
As the story marches toward Dream’s inevitable doom, there are some undeniable visual delights, and some might find it worthwhile to watch the show just for that aspect. The faerie court home of Nuala (Ann Skelly) is represented by elegantly costumed people riding horses through lush forests. The Dreaming’s gates are guarded by an enormous Gryphon, Wyvern, and Hippogriff. At one point, Dream searches through a chest of Easter eggs that includes an entire living city in a bottle.
Other than those, the show relies heavily on the charisma of its cast, which sometimes backfires: the portrayal of grieving mother Lyta is wooden, and Rose Walker (Kyo Ra)
has no apparent purpose but to follow Lyta around looking sad. Of Dream’s siblings, Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) is still the highlight, but her serene compassion has limited influence over the dreary atmosphere that seems to form around any gathering of the Endless.
Does The Sandman Have a Future?
If The Sandman ever gets another adaptation, it won’t be for a very, very long time. This may be for the best, as Gaiman’s works are now tainted by association, and probably can’t succeed either with or without him. It's still a shame that Netflix's retelling of the story is the only one that some viewers will ever experience, and that longtime fans of the comic didn't get to see it brought to life as it deserved.
More than anything, Netflix's The Sandman is a missed opportunity. In spite of everything it had going for it at the inception, the foundation was faulty. This will be remembered as one more piece of Gaiman's unfortunate legacy.