The Biggest Questions We Have After ‘The Sandman’ Season 1

Three decades after author Neil Gaiman brought The Sandman to comic book stores near you, the show finally debuted on the small screen at Netflix and with great timing. The series follows the pandemic-fueled arrival (and still-running) Audible rendition of the long-running saga that spanned 75 issues and a smattering of standalone stories. And the series is a straight-away runaway hit with at least 69.5 million hours streamed in the first weekend alone.

Will those numbers continue to stack up Only time will tell, but the people that loved The Sandman really loved to see it, which is an astounding feat after such a build up and with dark fantasy not being the easiest type of story to translate onscreen. So much could have gone wrong in retelling how Tom Sturridge’s Dream goes about repairing his domain, but it didn’t, so let’s fly like Patton Oswalt’s Matthew the Raven and explore the questions left open by Season One, which only covers the Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll’s House volumes with plenty of material to go.

Will Season 2 of The Sandman happen With any luck, yes. If not, fans will likely faux-rage after waiting so long for a first season to finally happen, especially after Gaiman delivered on his promise to avoid any The Sandman adaptation if it was in danger of being a “bad” version of The Sandman. And make no mistake, there are tons of lore left for several more seasons of this series. Maybe even a Death spinoff! I’m only half kidding on that last note, but let’s get real: Netflix is riding some choppy waters, so they’re the wild card here. Hopefully, they’ll prioritize more of this show, and they’ll be rewarded with fans of The Endless, happily streaming into oblivion.

Who is “The Prodigal” Season One made multiple references to this member of The Endless, who’s not on the scene yet. But his siblings, Despair and Desire, mention him, and there’s the sense that he will definitely materialize onscreen if given the chance. He’s missing from the current action for a reason: he decided to get the heck out of dodge, meaning that his duties as Destruction were bound to fall by the wayside. Don’t let that name label fool you, though. Just as Death is great with humans, the Prodigal is a family favorite and great at getting along with his siblings. Fingers crossed that we’ll see him onscreen, but at this point, we have no clue who might play him.

What exactly are the Sunless Lands We do not hear too much about this place, if you can call it that, when Death references where she escorts departed souls. Humans obviously aren’t happy to go there, and the differentiating point is that Death is different from the rest of her siblings in that she does not rule the Sunless Lands, and in fact, things are left very vague throughout The Sandman‘s comic book run. One can only imagine that Neil Gaiman wanted to leave conclusive details open, so that readers could revisit them later and infuse them with their own meanings, according to what they need to gather from the series. I can’t imagine that the Netflix show would actually decide to take on some visual representation of this place, but rather, follow Gaiman’s lead. In turn, the Sunless Lands can be interpreted for an allegory of how we, in our own lives, choose to view what happens (in our own reality) after literal death.

Why does Desire have beef with Dream One would think that Desire would be happy to see their brother after he was imprisoned by mankind for over a century. Nope. And to be perfectly honest, most of the siblings aren’t exactly crazy about Dream, whose personality can (generously) be described as rough around the edges. Death handles him best, but even she knows that he’s not easy to warm up to, as evidenced in her verbal, bread-wielding dressing down of him during her introduction. Destiny could do without Dream either way, and both Delirium and Destruction aren’t fans of his unapproachable ways, but damn, Desire outright cannot stand Dream. She actively f*cks with him at every opportunity and wreaks havoc on those who he falls in love with, so look for more to come on that end with more explanations of Dream’s long-standing vendetta (which definitely had something to do with the imprisonment) against Dream.

What did Gregory’s story mean At first glance, it was difficult to see how adorable Gregory (a Gargoyle) was just fine with knowing that was going to die when Dream arrived to reabsorb his energy, so that Dream could gain the power to recruit the Fates. And it must be mentioned that Dream had initially created Gregory, and he’s been entrusted to Cain and Abel. Yep, those are Biblical references, but Cain and Abel were already established in the DC comics realm and, yes, Cain kills the hell out of Abel on a regular basis. In short, it was fantastic to see these two characters onscreen, if only in passing, but more to the point, Gregory serves to help fuel Dream’s power to a point where he can repair the destruction to the human realm, which was left in tatters due to his extended absence. Fortunately, Dream did leave a little gargoyle egg behind, so we got to meet wee Goldie.

Why is Lucifer so bored
 The simple answer to this question: because that’s how Neil Gaiman wrote Lucifer Morningstar to be. This is the case not only in The Sandman but also in Gaiman’s Lucifer comic book series, recently brought to delightful life with Tom Ellis as the title character — who was so bored after doing the same job of ruling Hell (for thousands of years) that he decided to pop onto Earth’s surface and do detective work. Makes sense! In The Sandman Season 1 finale, Lucifer vows to take down Dream after failing to do so in their big head-to-head moment earlier in the season. That’s one way to make things more interesting, and Gwendoline Christie’s the most regal Lucifer.

What happens to Rose Walker next She ends up in New Jersey, but at least she’s not dead. This poor young woman never asked to be a dream vortex, and Dream is faced with the inevitability that he’ll have to take her out in order to save not only his kingdom, The Dreaming, but also the Waking World. She was attempting to find her brother, but she was also up against the Corinthian, who also (like a lot of entities) has beef with Dream and wants to harness Rose’s abilities to take out his foe once and for all. Rose was actually the granddaughter of Unity Kinkaid, who was impregnated by Desire after she fell into a century-long sleep during Dream’s disappearance. In the end, Dream did not kill Rose, whose powers (long story short) end up within Johanna Constantine.

Will we meet Kirby Howell-Baptiste’s Death again If we’re sticking with the comic, then we should definitely plan on seeing Death again, since she has plenty of ongoing business as written by Gaiman in both the graphic novels and in spinoffs including The High Cost Of Living. And Netflix’s collaboration with Gaiman brought us a different Death than fans are accustomed to seeing, given that Gaiman wrote her as a perky, eternally cheerful little goth. In contrast, Kirby gives us a Death (upon arrival in Episode 6, “The Sound Of Her Wings”) who’s warm and endearing and charismatic and full of emotional gravity while escorting human souls to the Sunless Lands. Her performance is a stunning one and should prepare us to expect more of the unexpected in Netflix’s The Sandman, should we be so lucky for it to continue for several seasons.

Where does this leave us We’re hoping that Netflix makes an announcement in the coming months about a future for Neil Gaiman’s greatest work (and that’s a tough call to make, given his other successful TV adaptations, not only including Lucifer, which Netflix resurrected, but also American Gods and Good Omens). The streaming realm has been good for Neil Gaiman fans, and now, we’re finally getting to know Death, Dream, Desire, and the rest of the Endless in all their anthropomorphically personified glory. In all likelihood, we’ll never hear a “peachy keen” from Kirby’s Death, but it sure would be peachy keen for Netflix to continue this dark fantasy saga.

The Sandman is currently streaming on Netflix.