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James Marsh

4/5 stars
Season two of Netflix’s The Sandman comes to its tragic conclusion, with the last five episodes that dropped on the streaming platform on July 24 detailing the fate of Dream (Tom Sturridge), Lord of The Endless.
In these final chapters, it is more apparent than ever that the show, adapted from Neil Gaiman’s fantasy comic book series, is wrapping things up in an unexpectedly hurried fashion. An 11th bonus episode is scheduled for July 31, but the dramatic denouement of The Sandman unfolds here.
Season one, which premiered in 2022 and covered roughly the first quarter of the comic book series, followed Dream as he escapes from decades of wrongful imprisonment and sets about restoring order to his otherworldly realm, The Dreaming.


At that pace, showrunners David S. Goyer, Allan Heinberg and Gaiman would need at least four seasons to do justice to all 75 issues of The Sandman.
When news broke at the beginning of 2025 that the second season would also be the show’s last following a scandal involving Gaiman himself, it meant that they now had just 10 hours of television in which to complete the saga.
While huge swathes of The Sandman have inevitably been excluded, the writers have cherry-picked the key events from across the entire narrative to ensure Dream is given the best possible send-off.
We pick things up with Dream facing a death sentence after spilling family blood when he helped his own son Orpheus (Ruairi O’Connor) end his life.

The three wizened Furies, referred to somewhat ironically as “The Kindly Ones”, enforce the sentence, and Dream scrambles to get his affairs in order. While he remains in The Dreaming he is safe, but not for long.
Dream identifies his successor as newborn baby Daniel Hall, son of Hippolyta (Razane Jammal) and the only child to be conceived within his realm.
When Daniel is abducted by Norse god Loki (Freddie Fox) and Robin Goodfellow (Jack Gleeson) – also known as the mischievous fairy Puck – Hippolyta mistakenly believes Dream is responsible, and is transformed into an agent of vengeful chaos by the Furies.
In response, Dream resurrects The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), a vicious nightmare last seen in season one, to partner with detective Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman) and tasks them with rescuing his heir.

The central appeal of The Sandman has always been that it is a “story of stories” packed full of characters from history, literature and mythology, each of whom has the opportunity to take the wheel and steer the narrative wherever they choose.
Needless to say, in this heavily curtailed adaptation of the comics, which were first published between 1987 and 1996, many of these ancillary tales have been left by the wayside, although many of the characters remain.
We are treated to the toxic attraction between Loki and Puck, seemingly fuelled by lust rather than any semblance of trust, as well as the flickerings of a burgeoning romance between Constantine and Corinthian, despite naturally being on opposing sides of any supernatural conflict.
Dream’s rogue’s gallery of prodigal siblings remains as emotionally volatile and dysfunctional as ever, even as Dream’s fate looms large over proceedings.

Anchoring everything is Sturridge’s wonderfully dour performance as Dream himself. His incessantly morbid and despondent anti-hero slowly wrestles with compassion, love and self-sacrifice in his tireless fight against the powers of fate and destiny, and comes painfully close to experiencing genuine humanity in the process.
At the end of the day, this is what makes The Sandman special – taking our memories, emotions and interactions and fashioning from them stories that teach and inspire, and from which we might be remembered.
In that regard, Netflix’s show is a thrilling success, and proves a tantalising primer for viewers to discover the comic books themselves and, by extension, the myriad myths and legends that inspired them.
The Sandman is streaming on Netflix.


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The final five episodes of the fantasy series are forced to leave out a lot from Neil Gaiman’s comic book series, but are still thrilling


The final five episodes of the fantasy series are forced to leave out a lot from Neil Gaiman’s comic book series, but are still thrilling.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The final five episodes of the fantasy series are forced to leave out a lot from Neil Gaiman’s comic book series, but are still thrilling

The final five episodes of the fantasy series are forced to leave out a lot from Neil Gaiman’s comic book series, but are still thrilling