The Sandman is free from human-induced bondage! Hooray!
But he’s lost his mojo until he gets his precious tools back! Boo!
So he kills an adorable dog-like gargoyle to get some energy back! Hooray! Wait, I mean boo!
But then The Sandman hatches them a new impossibly cute baby Gargoyle! Hooray!
I’ve got to say at this point that the CGI gargoyles have so far been the most captivating characters in The Sandman, Dark Sleepy Bo-bos Man himself notwithstanding (credit to my mate Dan for using that particular name when trying to think of the character's actual title).
HAPPY BOI.
It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s just that the floofy-without-actual-floof Gregory the Gargoyle and his successor, tiny, wide-eyed Girving/Goldie were the heart and soul of this second installment of a TV series I’m attempting to recap without any previous knowledge of or commitment to the printed source material.
Perhaps it’s because gargoyles are dragon-adjacent, and you know me and some flying reptiles.
Fly, my pretties, fly. Look out for giant dragon-skewering crossbows.
Either way, this episode was much shorter than its predecessor, coming in at 37 minutes in true “Hey, we’re Netflix, the episodes take as long as they take” fashion. And I’m rather glad of that, as it seemed to be bridging the set-up of episode one to a promise of more action/confrontation in episode three, in much the same way we’ve been told that ravens can bridge the worlds of the doing and the dozing.
Dream is back in his Dream Palace, but it’s much worse for wear since all the dreams and nightmares he created smashed up the joint and sod off. It’s not spelled out exactly where they sod off (sodded off?) to, but they can’t all have gone into the waking world like Creepy Corinthian did. Someone would have noticed, surely.
Dream tries to do the Spooky Arm Raising trick deployed with such aplomb by the Night King at Hardhome, but failed not only to muster an army of zombies, but put any of the shattered pieces of his former life back together.
Come at me, chateau.
Turns out the man’s not strong enough without his TOOOOOOOLS: His pretty stone, his fancy hat and his bag of sand. I do love the way Dream intones “bag of sand”, making it sound so mysterious and special and not as pedestrian as what you’d probably shake out of your togs after a day at the beach.
Lucienne suggests he ask one of his siblings, the fellow Endless, to help him retrieve his accoutrements, but Dream’s pretty pissed off with that lot. Not one of them bothered to check in or help him when he was Sphere-bound by Roderick Burgess (aka Tywin Lannister, Warden of the East), even though they must have known something was up. Dream is all petulant, declaring “They have their own realms to look after, I’m going to go ask the Fates instead.”
To do this, he needs to find something in the Dream World he made that remains intact, just so he can destroy it. Well, they say to “re-absorb its energy” or something, but we know what that means.
The lucky victim turns out to be Gregory the Gargoyle, briefly seen flying through the Dream World at the start of episode 1. Gregory seems to have once been a nightmare that was turned into a good guy, one assumes by Dream himself. Now, he is a HAPPY BOI, bouncing around the grounds of his two owners, Cain and Abel (yes! Those ones!).
Dream tells the bearded brothers that he must ask Gregory to make the sacrifice to restore Dream World, because it’s just about to end (fall).
Obscure reference.
Heartbreakingly, the CGI critter agrees, and nuzzles his farewells to Cain and Abel, who are distraught at the prospect of life without their HAPPY BOI.
Dream is determined, but has the respect to let his guyliner be turned red with held-back tears as he sucks the life out of the PRESHUS GARGY.
As soon as he takes off though, Cain murders Abel with a pitchfork, so that’s nice. It turns out the Biblical brothers are stuck in some sort of continuous loop, destined to forever play out their roles as The First Murderer and The First Victim.
It’s all very Judeo-Christian for what I thought was a fantasy show, but I guess religion is just as much about myth-making as any other archaic story-telling conceit.
As awful as it must be for the sweet and well-meaning Abel, gosh it must suck to be Cain. Imagine - you knocked off your brother once out of jealousy, and now you not only have to find creative ways to re-kill him daily, but also bury him in a different shallow grave every day. Surely even John Wayne Gacy would get sick of that much digging.
Now Lucienne had warned that there was a TERRIBLE PRICE to pay for consulting the Fates, because you had to take them VERY NICHE GIFTS and be sure to INCLUDE THE RECEIPT so they can EXCHANGE AT PLACE OF PURCHASE IF PRODUCT/SERVICE DOES NOT MATCH DESCRIPTION ACCORDING TO CONSUMER LAW PROTECTIONS.
It made out like it was going to be something horrible, like they’d cut off his legs or something.
But they seemed quite happy eating the snake he found while Dream-surfing, and the only bit of crankiness came when he talked too much. Hardly the worst price in the world. The Maiden, Mother and Crone repeatedly told Dream not to ask follow-up questions after his allotted three questions and our dude didn’t listen.
WELL COLOUR ME SURPRISED THE KING OF THE GOTHS DIDN’T LISTEN TO SOME VERY SENSIBLE SNAKE-EATING WOMEN. Bloody men, I tell you.
I did enjoy that both Lucienne, and the Fates commented on the fact that Dream looked thin, and needed fattening up, to which I of course exclaimed IS THE BEAR CATHOLIC.
Perhaps Death doesn’t eat food the way we would understand it - hustled over a Colonel’s dinner with extra nuggets in the KFC carpark - but needs some other nutritional sustenance. Otherwise how did he get through a near-century in a glass jar with not so much as a lettuce poked through strategic food holes?
All Dream was able to glean from the Fates was that some weirdo occultist sold his gas mask headpiece (possibly to the Devil?), his ruby went to America, and some woman named Constantine had his bag of sand. Now I’m going out on a limb to ponder whether this woman is related to the Constantine character from that Keanu Reeves movie, which I actually have seen. From memory, he was like a devil-fightin’ dude, and he had been a comic character first too. Bust out the cocaine and call me Sherlock, but I reckon I’m onto something here.
Speaking of tools, let’s check in with Corinthian, whose ego is in such inverse proportion to his natural blandness it beggars belief. I saw his eyes more clearly this episode, and his has tiny big-toothed mouths for eyes. It’s basically the physical manifestation of that Donald Trump meme with his mouth for eyes.
He spends most of this episode chin-wagging with Ethel, who’s changed her name and appearance but is still looks far younger than someone born around the turn of the 20th century should be in what looks like modern day, but again is more likely to be the 70s or 80s.
Corinthian wants to teach Ethel how to use the tools she stole from Tywin Magus all those years ago to permanently disable Dream. Trouble is, she doesn’t have them. Sure, she’s built up a profitable career as a procurer and seller of precious items, but she doesn’t have the original treasures that helped her get started.
Just as the Corinthian takes off his specs, with clear plans to murder Ethel, she rips out an amulet on her necklace and turns Ol’ Mouth Eyes into a mini-tornado. “I have tools of my own,” she says and YEAHHH YOU DOOO GIRL-FRAAAAAND.
Lucienne, meanwhile, has bade farewell to Dream once more, this time heading for London and the Constantine lady. She begs him to take a raven for safety’s sake, but after Jessamy’s tragic/hilarious dispatching in episode one, Goth King has decided to forego the tradition of Corvus corax accompaniment. He does his best Charlton Heston and parts the waters of The Dreaming, creating a portal back to London.
Lucienne has nothing to do but wait; but she has a brief encounter with a briefly returned Corinthian, who insists Dream cares nothing for anyone but himself, and sands himself back to the waking world.
A very self-assured Ethel turns up at what appears to be a cross between a bank with those fancy safe deposit boxes and a mental institution, which has her son Johnny locked up. She’d told the Corinthian that he had the ruby for a while and went a bit nutso-whacko with its power. Now he’s a suspicious pyjama-clad loony who looks suspiciously like David Thewlis.
I just checked Wikipedia. It IS David Thewlis! You are welcome, Professor Lupin.
And just to put a (delightfully cute CGI) tail on this episode, it was very sweet of Dream to leave a rather large egg behind for the Biblical Brothers. Abel is delighted when it hatches into a big-eyed baby gargoyle, a replacement for poor Gregory. Cain is suspicious of Dream’s motivations, but cannot help being won over by the critter’s adorable chirps and squawks.
NAWWWWWW TINY HAPPY BOI
He is less impressed with Abel’s choice of Irving as a name, as gargoyles can only have “G” names. Abel’s compromise of “Girving” is enough to make Cain murder him again, but with new life to care for, Abel is pretty much fine with his daily post-lunch date with death.
So that’s the end of episode two, and as mentioned at the start, it felt very much like a bridging episode. We met Cain and Abel, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t show up again.
The Corinthian remains rather bland to me… all beige in a world full of colours anchored by Spooky Goth Protagonist’s whole aesthetic. But it’s not just his clothes, it’s his face too. Obviously having sunnies on most of the time stops you from connecting with any evil in his eyes (as well as the whole “mouths for eyes” business), but his face feels like it’s CGI. There’s no lines, no crags. He’s a fully Botoxed Baddie. At least our beautiful Sandman has interesting lips. Somewhat dry and cracked in this episode, did you notice? Let’s hope he gets some nice gloss or a moisturising balm in Episode Three.
Join me, as I ask, “Mr Sandman, bring me a dream!”
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