Review of the Final Second Season of The Sandman — Netflix's Terrifying Nightmare

The second season of The Sandman from Netflix went through many trials. Initially, the streaming service was counting on a long-running show — especially given that the original comic spans ten volumes. However, unexpected accusations against Neil Gaiman — the author of the source material and, at the same time, executive producer and screenwriter of the project — of sexual assault ruined everything. Netflix is certainly not the kind of company that can take the bold stance of not making hasty conclusions, and so it followed Disney’s path with Johnny Depp. Gaiman was quickly fired, and the second season about Morpheus’s adventures was reworked into the final season right in the middle of production. Keeping all this in mind, we hoped that at least there would be no more issues with the agenda, and the streaming service would focus its resources on delivering a worthy conclusion to the cult story. If you’re going to wrap up the tale of the Lord of Dreams, it should be done at a respectable level and with fidelity to the original, right? Right?

The Sandman is a recognized classic of comic books. To this day, this series remains a benchmark for many authors and artists — and deservedly so. At the time of creating Morpheus, Neil Gaiman was already a skilled writer, so he approached the comic not like a typical scriptwriter. The result was filled with elements often considered fatal for comics, yet this did not stop The Sandman from earning fan love. Huge blocks of text, abstract imagery, and extremely slow, heavy storytelling with frequent jumps through time and space — all of this made the project very risky. Moreover, The Sandman was made part of the DC universe, which meant the inclusion of known characters — though Batman and Superman were obviously not a good fit for the story.

Gaiman managed if not everything, then at least a great deal. Using the seemingly trivial concept of Endless beings who control fundamental forces of the universe — like dreams, life, death, or destiny — the writer explored what the daily existence of such characters might look like. At the center was Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams — fittingly, since for Gaiman he was the god of stories and imagination.

The first book told of how, due to a mistake, cultists summoned not Death but Morpheus, trapping the Endless in a glass sphere for decades. Without the Lord, dreams spun out of control: people stopped sleeping or, conversely, couldn’t wake, nightmares rebelled, and Morpheus lost his three most important artifacts — his pouch of sand, his helm, and his ruby. The first season was entirely dedicated to these events, showing at an unhurried pace how Dream finally breaks free and then slowly and methodically restores his dominion.

Some scenes were recreated nearly shot-for-shot, which immediately made the project one of the most important shows of the modern era. However, many casual viewers — and, unfortunately, critics — did not appreciate the idea. As we already noted, The Sandman was never about action or superheroes in the usual sense. It is more of a vast philosophical allegory, often stretching over multiple pages of reflection and at times featuring a complete absence of spectacular action. Sadly, today’s audience, raised on Marvel, doesn’t really like that.

To at least justify the fact that the comics were part of a larger universe, at a certain point Gaiman introduced John Constantine as Morpheus’s companion. He was never meant to form a full-fledged duo, but Constantine became an important character whenever events shifted to the human world. Of course, Netflix could not allow the two central figures of the first season to be heterosexual white men, even if that was the canon. So instead of John Constantine, they created Johanna Constantine — a very lazy gender-flipped version of the well-known exorcist, stripped of all his charisma and defining traits. Unfortunately, the adaptation’s troubles didn’t stop there.

The first book — and the first season by extension — presented Gaiman’s world only in broad strokes. It was difficult to call this kind of introduction a proper origin. Morpheus was hardly revealed, acting instead in a series of unfavorable circumstances, endlessly punishing those who had a hand in his captivity. What he was like before all this, no one described. This problem was gradually resolved in later volumes, as the author preferred to reveal the protagonist’s inner world through micro-scenes where he made decisions — rather than direct descriptions (though there were some of those, too).

But because Netflix aimed for a faithful shot-for-shot adaptation, Gaiman’s firing backfired disastrously on the show. Before season two — which suddenly turned into the finale mid-production — the series faced an almost impossible task. The pace, aligned with the source material, didn’t fit a sudden curtain drop. They had to skip about 5–7 volumes and butcher the rest. In other words, a long and carefully crafted development of every character had to be thrown in the trash, replaced with a rollercoaster ride barely squeezed into twelve one-hour episodes. The final result turned out, to put it mildly, controversial. The acceleration of everything, the introduction of a whole slew of cardboard new characters, and a muddled, chaotic storyline — that’s what the continuation of The Sandman became.

If Netflix had a bit more courage, the service wouldn’t have abandoned a potentially successful idea over baseless accusations that have yet to be substantiated. Absolutely nothing prevented the company from continuing production at the same pace and rhythm, even without the direct involvement of the author. And although showrunner Allan Heinberg continues to insist everywhere that the producers’ decision had nothing to do with the scandal, we don’t believe it. The first season makes it very clear what kind of vision the creators had chosen for the show. It was supposed to become one of the best adaptations ever, with each season representing a separate volume of the original — not a "creative reinterpretation" or other such experiments.

So what does the second season represent? The first thing that jumps out is the lack of an ongoing storyline in the opening episodes. Or at least, it seems that way. The narrative distinctly divides events, switching from one theme to another after three episodes. The closest comparison would be an anthology. Overall, this makes sense, since the different volumes of the comics focused on separate subplots. Not all of them advanced the worldbuilding in a major way. Sometimes Gaiman concentrated on fleshing out details. But what in the original could take up a full volume gets crammed into a couple of hours of screen time — or even a few lines of dialogue — in the series. This is a crucial difference that ruins the experience. The viewer doesn’t have time to feel the moments or simply live alongside the characters. Just as you get used to one set of characters, new ones take the stage.

In the second half of the season, the situation improves, and it turns out that everything wasn’t quite so random after all, and each story shown is important — but not equally so. For example, Morpheus rescuing his former lover from Hell has no real significance for the bigger picture and exists only to introduce the audience to Loki. The Asgardian trickster, however, appears for just a few seconds before vanishing until the finale. Meanwhile, Dream’s lover simply departs and is never involved again.

Without exploring the characters’ inner thoughts and their own selves, the main story feels truncated and incomplete. It’s a show inspired by the comics, but by no means a worthy adaptation. In every scene and frame, the audience will sense haste and rushing.

Such chaos is the hallmark of season two. The story simply doesn’t have time to slow down or expand. The only character that The Sandman manages to flesh out is Dream himself — and only because he had time in season one and appears in most of the crucial scenes in season two. All the others — including Morpheus’s long-awaited family, the fae (one of whom even becomes part of Dream’s court), Johanna (heaven help us) Constantine, the Asgardian gods, the demons of Hell, and countless other beings — are nothing more than functions. They’re not personalities, not real characters. Just bundles of useful knowledge or abilities for the story.

The catastrophic nature of the situation is best felt with the already-mentioned faerie. She’s a former general of her realm’s queen — Titania. Intelligent, witty, and exactly the kind of strong, independent, and memorable woman usually seen as a successful example of a powerful female character. The queen treats her poorly and offers her as a gift to Morpheus. The reasons behind such behavior are never really revealed, and all the explanations are on the level of a kindergarten play. What happens next? The faerie disappears for most of the season, reappearing only in the finale for a couple of scenes. She provokes no empathy whatsoever, though clearly she was supposed to. Hints are given of an inner conflict, feelings for Dream, and contradictory emotions toward Titania, but none of this is ever explored. The character has only the barest outlines of personality, with the script never going beyond broad strokes.

A second example: the shape-shifter girl, who exists in the story for only one reason — to tell the tale of her tragedy and inner strength, because she was once a man. Yet it’s obvious that the actress has nothing to do with any of these issues and is as feminine as one can possibly be. No real trans person would look like this. Not only does this mislead the audience about the appearance of such people, but it also reminds us yet again that — unlike most other studios abroad — Netflix still pushes its agenda, forgetting that it’s not these people who bring in the ratings. And what does this contribute to the overall story, besides wasted screen time? Nothing.

The agenda deserves a separate discussion altogether, as it’s one of the show’s most serious global problems. Every single male character on screen, except for Morpheus, is either a villain, a nice gay guy, a weakling in need of wise female guidance, or a person of color. Practically every possible white male role that could be swapped out — was swapped out. No matter how much the show is chopped up or how hard it tries to cram massive amounts of lore and story into 12 episodes, the characters constantly find time to talk about their sexual preferences. And this often happens out of place, as if stitched in at the very last minute with the thinnest thread. It doesn’t take much effort to realize how artificial these confessions and dialogues look.

We honestly don’t understand what the issue is. The canon already gave plenty of attention to this theme. Desire — Dream’s genderless sibling — literally embodied non-binariness and lust. But such a direct reference wasn’t enough for the creators, so now every single episode has something of the sort. And that’s not even mentioning Lucifer, who suddenly became a woman — a gag that’s been running since season one. It’s hard to imagine how much screen time would be freed up if the writers cut all these mentions of sexual preferences and instead focused on Morpheus himself and the personalities of the characters around him.

As for the plot overall — it’s not bad, and at least at its core it follows the source material. But of course, there are downsides again. For instance, the characters love to take long dramatic pauses between lines, which is frankly exhausting. On the positive side, the reason behind Morpheus’s conflict with the Furies is conveyed quite accurately, with no complaints there.

Unfortunately, in a series called The Sandman, there’s often very little of the Sandman himself. There are stretches where Dream only appears at the beginning and end, or just stands in the background with his usual discontented face. Meanwhile, the problems of secondary, passing characters — whose names fade from memory faster than they’re introduced — get explored thoroughly, including their romantic sighs and personal traumas. It’s frustrating.

But whenever the creators remember that they’re supposed to be telling the story of the Lord of Dreams, it feels like a true breath of fresh air for the audience. The visuals are at times stunningly beautiful, the special effects are rich, and the overall design is gorgeous. Ironically, the show has everything it needs to be a great project — except time.

The finale deserves special mention. After finishing Morpheus’s storyline, the creators, for some reason, decided to make a special episode about Death. It has nothing to do with the main events, and Death here exists outside the show’s timeline. In other words, in the comics this would be considered a special issue. The episode turned out decent. The TV version of Death is wonderful, though she too became another victim of "Netflix’s signature style", with her pale skin and punk look swapped for chocolate tones and a black cloak.

Is season two worth watching? Well, the answer is more complicated than it may seem. The Sandman is still one of the most unusual projects of our time. But Netflix seems to have done everything possible to destroy its potential. And yet, the powerful original material salvages the overall impression. If you can overlook the ton of agenda-pushing, the constant belittling of white male characters, and other such "quirks", you’ll find a subtle and mature story about a weary god reflecting on his past mistakes and trying not to repeat them. The comic is still easily available, and in every way it surpasses what the streaming service ultimately produced. But if you’re looking for something unconventional, The Sandman is exactly what you need.