Lost Hearts
Episode 10 of The Sandman starts with The Corinthian confronting Rose and Jed in their hotel room. He promises to keep them both safe from Morpheus, but Rose knows exactly who he is and doesn’t fall for his lies. In fact, Rose decides to leave the hotel and head home. Corinthian offers an alternate plan – stay in the hotel and hang about, evading Dream’s ravens and work with him. Downstairs, Dream shows up before Corinthian during his keynote speech. With all the killers asleep, reflecting on their killings, Dream reveals that Corinthian has given them something else to fear. Unfortunately, Corinthian has grown in strength since their last meeting, and with Rose Walker at the center of his Dreaming, bringing the walls down between the dreaming and waking world, things don’t pose well for our protagonist.
Does Rose choose to follow Dream or Corinthian?
Like an angel and devil on either shoulder, Rose finds herself torn between the Corinthian and Dream, who both try to convince the Vortex to do what they feel is right. Given she has to choose one of them, Rose decides to raise the walls for now and choose her own path. Eventually Dream un-creates The Corinthian, destroying him and taking his skull. Dream promises the other Killers that their dream is over and from this moment onwards they will all feel the pain of those they’ve slaughtered, as well as grief for the fallen. Some killers call themselves into the authorities, while others commit suicide. One thing’s for sure though – the Serial Convention is over. With Rose and Jed leaving, en-route to the hospital, Lyta goes into labour. The whole family are there, minus Gilbert who claims he had to “go home”. Rose is still concerned though and believes that Dream is going to kill him. Lyta encourages her to take control and suggests killing Dream in order to do so.
What happens to Fiddler’s Green?
That night, Rose ends up dreaming again but in doing so, a massive vortex opens and everyone she cares about ends up sucking inside. Dream shows up though and implores her to rationalize, pointing out that she’s caused a great deal of damage – but not anything he can’t solve. However, in order to fix this, Rose needs to die. Or at least the Vortex anyway. Fiddler’s Green shows and stands by Dream’s side. He encourages Rose to walk and visit him, as he embraces his true calling. Disappearing into a flurry of leaves and petals, he transcends this wasteland into a lush, beautiful backdrop of fields and meadows.
How is Rose saved? What does Unity do?
Unity Kincaid suddenly appears though, deciding to take the Vortex herself. After belittling Dream, she wants to take the power for herself, which appears in the form of a giant ruby heart. With Unity now the rightful Vortex, Unity embraces her calling – sleeping peacefully in her bed but sacrificing herself so Rose can live. Unity believes she should have died a long time ago when Rose tries to argue against this. Before she dies, Unity points out that the father of her child had golden eyes. Golden eyes belonging to Desire. With Rose still alive and choosing to live with Jed and the others, Dream visits Desire in their chambers. Dream berates his sibling and their cunning plan, but Desire bites back, promising that next time they’ll draw blood.
How does The Sandman Season 1 end?
Back in his kingdom, Lucienne approaches Dream with big news. There’s a new book that’s appeared in the library written by Rose Walker. Her life is back on track. As for Dream, he’s changed and decided on a new age of Dreaming, including giving Gault wings and her true desire (no pun intended). He’s allowed her to become a Dream just like she wanted, rather than a nightmare. While Dream works, he tasks Lucienne with looking after the Dreaming for the time being. As the episode closes out, we jump back to Hell, where Lucifer is approached by Lord Azazel. The armies of Hell are at Lucifer’s bidding if they choose to attack the Dreaming. Then, by extension, the Waking World. With the Generals demanding action, Lucifer decides to act and do something to bring Morpheus to his knees and make God mad.
The Episode Review
With only the first two volumes of The Sandman adapted, it’ll be interesting to see what the future of this franchise looks like. Some of the changes made to the source material are going to divide opinion and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this split right down the middle between those who love and those who really dislike this. Personally, I’m leaning more toward the former, with the story faithfully adapting and embracing what The Sandman is really about. Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky at times and not all episodes have worked – namely the change from John Constantine to Johanna Constantine across both the past and present. On the whole though, The Sandman has been an enjoyable watch and you can tell there’s been a considerable amount of care put into this project to at least remain faithful to the original vision of this story. That is, of course, helped by Neil Gaiman being part of this project. Given the star power involved and the amount of source material still be to be adapted, it’ll be interesting to see what the fate of this show is. For now though, The Sandman bows out on a high, with plenty left on the table for the future.
