Imperfect Hosts
Episode 2 of The Sandman begins with Dream walking through the remnants of his old castle. Lucienne admits that after he left, the library withered and disappeared. The royal librarian was confident Dream would return but there’s a certain poetic irony to a librarian staying loyal to a library with no books. Dream is not at full strength, and without his belongings – the helm, the ruby etc. – that may not be possible in the foreseeable future. So there’s nothing to it but to find Ethel and track down his belongings. In order to do that, Dream first visits Cain and Abel, wanting to take back a gift he gave them a long time ago. And that happens to be their gargoyle, Gregory. Dropping to his knees and outstretching his hand, Dream absorbs the creature and that paves way for us to tumble through a trippy series of dreams to summon the Fates. Or, The Three as they’re more commonly known as; this trio of goddesses consists of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. Through them, Dream learns that his belongings are scattered across various different areas. His helm was traded to a demon. The ruby happens to pass from mother to son (this is, of course, hinting toward Johnny and Ethel.) Finally, the sand belongs to Johanna Constantine. With some clues to go on, Dream prepares to track down his things. Dream sets his sights on Johanna Constantine first, deciding to head off to London and get his sand back. In his absence, Corinthian makes a brief appearance, warning Lucienne that Dream doesn’t care about her and soon or later, he’ll make that clear.
The Episode Review
The second episode of The Sandman slows things down a little as we tackle parts of The Sandman’s main mission, with Dream heading off and picking up his items again, which are scattered across the realm. So far this adaptation has been pretty accurately adapted and the fantastical imagery, with the visuals of the dreams and nightmares in particular, working well to really show off the great visual effects in this one. Whether The Sandman will continue to remain faithful to Neil Gaiman’s graphic novels remains to be seen, but given the man has actually been advising a lot of the story and narrative beats on this show, it certainly poses well for the future.
