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00:00It's been three years since the Sandman graced our screens and considering the
00:09direction many Netflix productions tend to take we have to confess we were a
00:13little worried but now that we've seen part 1 of season 2 we realize that our
00:18worries were unfounded because the quality of the show remains top-notch.
00:22In season 1 Dream found himself reconnecting with the realm he lost
00:26control of when he was imprisoned. In season 2 part 1 he continues to find
00:30himself only this time his journey takes him inward more than it does outward.
00:35What do we mean by that? Well let's talk about all that and more. This is the
00:40Sandman season 2 part 1's ending explained and spoiler warning because there will
00:45be a lot of those in this video. Before we go into our explanation we have a very
00:49small request. If you like our content please support us by subscribing to our
00:54channel. This is a small click for you but for us it means a lot. Thank you let's
01:00begin.
01:06A journey to hell. The first episode of the Sandman ends with Morpheus using his
01:10cool little sand flick to summon a traveling sandstorm and go back to hell
01:15wearing his awesome Cthulhu mask. So how did we get here? Well for that we need to
01:20take a look at the episode's title which is Season of Mists. That's the title of
01:25the fourth collection of Neil Gaiman's original Sandman graphic novels and its
01:29theme is a meeting of all the endless minus destruction. In season 1
01:34destruction decided he had had enough with well destroying things and he
01:38abdicated his place in the endless. That's important to remember because it
01:42will come up again by the end of this video. Episode 1 opens with Destiny the
01:46oldest of the endless calling all his siblings to attend a family meeting. The
01:50first in a very very long time. See Destiny got a little visit from the three
01:55grey ladies. The fates, the oracles, call them what you will. They told him that he
02:00needed to call this meeting because it involved the fate of the universe and
02:04could possibly lead to the final battle occurring once again. So Destiny opened his
02:09book, saw that they were right and called up all the endless again minus
02:14destruction. The sequence where each endless enters their throne room is one
02:18of the best things about this episode as is the meeting. Desire instantly targets
02:22Morpheus and ignites him by mentioning how hypocritical he's been of late. And
02:27Desire is right of course because on one hand Morpheus professes to be dedicated to
02:32his duty but on the other hand he compels mortals to fall in love with him and
02:36then condemns them to literal hell when they reject him. All the endless miss their
02:40sibling destruction but they ask Destiny if they should go after him and he
02:44shuts that down. This meeting is the most important thing in this moment and
02:49he believes the outcome will lead to something insanely tragic. He's right of
02:53course because a conversation with his best sister Death makes Morpheus realize
02:57what he did to Nader was wrong. He thought he gave her a choice but what he
03:01really did was tell her to be his queen or else be condemned to hell. Him being as
03:05arrogant as he is it's a miracle Death even got through to him but once she did
03:10Dream did the most dream thing and took drastic action. He handed over the
03:14responsibility of rebuilding the dreaming to his subordinates and sent Cain as an
03:18emissary to Lucifer. The devil accepted Morpheus's arrival with malevolent intent
03:23because she has not forgotten the insult he laid upon her doorstep the last time he
03:28was in hell. But if you thought that Lucifer was going to attack Morpheus with the
03:32million-strong army of hell then you're wrong because I can give you this.
03:38A trick and a key. The next episode opened up with Morpheus meeting Lucifer and he
03:45noticed something peculiar about what was supposed to be hostile environment. Hell
03:49was suspiciously empty and what was even more suspicious was the fact that Lucifer
03:54seemed to be in a decent mood. Morpheus had been led to believe that a war was to
03:58be expected so to see the exact opposite gave him pause and when Lucifer pledged to
04:03not harm him within the bounds of hell he agreed to take off his Cthulhu helm and to
04:08talk with her. What followed was perhaps the devil's greatest deception because
04:12under the guise of retirement she took away what Dream sought most Nada. Nada was
04:17the mortal woman Morpheus had condemned to hell when she refused to become his
04:21queen. He gave her an impossible choice. When her realm was destroyed by an
04:26asteroid Morpheus told her that she could be ruler of beings that still lived instead
04:30of mourning those who did not. But Nada knew it was her fault. She was swayed by
04:35her love for Morpheus and her momentary absence caused a friggin extinction level
04:39event. She refused him and he condemned her to hell based on her own admission.
04:43Lucifer knew that he was coming back to hell to right that wrong so she decided to set
04:48everyone in hell free and had Morpheus help her seal up the last entry into her
04:52former domain. Her revenge on him was cursing him with the duty of ruling hell
04:57because as the man who helped her seal it he gained possession of the key that
05:01would unseal it. Lucifer wasn't kidding about retirement. She had Dream cut off
05:05her wings to show how serious she was but she also scattered Nada to the wind in
05:10the hope that finding her would be an eternal torture for him. Unfortunately she
05:14underestimated the insubordination of her own subordinates because at the end of
05:18the episode Nada is brought to dream. Word of Lucifer's abdication spreads like
05:24wildfire throughout the divine realms. Many gods show up to the dreaming to
05:28obtain the key from Morpheus and he knows that he can't enforce the decision with
05:32force so he decides to play host to them while keeping an eye on them from a
05:36distance. Several of his guests try to persuade him into giving them the key. The
05:40Lords of Order try bribing him with the dream essence of the recently deceased but
05:45Morpheus refuses them because as the lord of dreams he could have had those
05:49essences if he wanted them. Susanoo tries to play the reformation card saying that
05:53his time in the Shinto underworld had made him wise and benevolent enough to do the
05:58same for the denizens of hell. Odin admits that he wants hell to prevent the
06:02destruction of his people but cites rumors about destruction's location as a
06:06deal sweetener and the chaos gods straight-up threaten Morpheus for the key.
06:09But the person whose personal interactions with the dream lord are most
06:13intriguing is Azazel. The demon Azazel arrives in the dreaming in a foul mood for
06:19Lucifer's betrayal of his subjects but at the end of the episode he admits that
06:23he was just projecting that anger upon Morpheus. Azazel actually does a pretty
06:27level-headed job of coming to a common understanding with dream making it look
06:31like he's being diplomatic but his diplomacy is revealed to be threat in the
06:35final scene of the episode. Throughout the ruler of hell we see Azazel and his
06:40subordinates Merkin and Choronzon acting rather suspiciously. Merkin instigates a
06:44fight with the Norse god Thor although to be fair to her he did act like a total
06:49strap-on the whole time he was in the dreaming. Choronzon who attacked dream
06:53during his previous visit to hell was acting way too cool about things and
06:57Merkin pulled him aside for a mid-banquet hook-up but then she encased him in her
07:01webs telling him that he was a gift for Morpheus. Azazel presented Choronzon to dream
07:06in the final sequence of the episode and urged him to take his revenge but when
07:10he refused he ate his own subordinate and then revealed that Narda was inside of
07:15him. He told dream that if he didn't get the key the next morning he'd take as
07:18much pleasure in devouring Narda as he did Choronzon and with that the episode
07:22comes to an end. So what happens does Azazel eat Narda with his many mouths or
07:27does dream give in to sentiment and hand him the key to hell? Well the two most
07:37qualified candidates. Morpheus finds the answer to his quandary by remembering a
07:42play he once put on for the king and queen of the fairy. Once dream spent a
07:46long time in their realm taking in entertainment from their best elves and
07:50troublemakers getting to see puck himself in action but his attraction to
07:54Titania nearly caused an incident almost as bad as condemning Narda to hell so
07:59he banished the fairy from the human world and forbade them to return but as
08:03the years melted in the heat of time dream found himself wanting to make
08:07amends so he inspired William Shakespeare yes that Shakespeare to create a
08:13Midsummer Night's Dream. Once the play was finished he invited Oberon and Titania
08:18for a private viewing and in doing so he reassured them that they would be
08:22immortalized in the minds of all humans. That day he achieved something that was
08:27thought to be impossible so the fairies envoy Nula thanks him for his
08:31magnanimity and reminds him of the words he ended up attributing to Shakespeare
08:35but was spoken by him. Filled with this renewed sense of purpose dream announces
08:39the next morning his decision about who would take the key to hell. He notes that
08:43hell is a reflection of heaven and as such closer to the creator than any other
08:48deity present in his halls. This is a philosophy he picked up from his
08:52conversation with Lucifer whom he visits at the end of the episode. Thus does he
08:56entrust the key to Remiel and Duma two angels who had arrived at his banquet to
09:01observe the decision he made. By returning the key of hell to God's angels
09:05Morpheus ensured that only justice will be served to the souls bound for that
09:09place because even he wasn't blinded by emotion the way Azazel was. The demon Lord
09:14reminded Morpheus of the deal they discussed and Morpheus reminded him
09:18that guest right extends to all those who are present in his castle including
09:22the ones that were brought there without his knowledge. Azazel knows that he can't
09:26do anything to Nader now so he brings her out to the surface. This is different
09:31from the comics where Dream actually goes inside of him to retrieve his lady
09:35love but the moment Nader is free Azazel makes the mistake of attacking Dream. We
09:40call this a mistake because an endless is strongest in their own domain and now
09:44Azazel exists within a glass bottle condemned to be a prisoner until he
09:48atones for his sins. The next day all the gods and envoys that had hoped to
09:52receive hell leave Dream's halls and thank him for his wisdom in choosing the
09:57two angels whom he'd identified as potential replacements in the previous
10:01episode. They also thank him for his hospitality and only two of Dream's
10:05visitors remain beside him. The first is Nula the envoy from the fairy realm to
10:09came to his with her brother. Unbeknownst to her she had been promised to
10:13Dream as a gift and once he accepted that gift Nula could drop the pretensions
10:18imposed upon her by Titania. The second was Loki who assumed the form of
10:22Susanoo and tried sneaking out of Dream's back door. When the Aesir delegation was
10:26leaving Dream noticed that Thor had Loki bound up and ready to be returned to
10:31torment but being the Lord of Dreams he also knew that that wasn't Loki. When the
10:35trickster was caught Dream offered to let him go and even create a hyper realistic
10:40dream construct of him to keep Odin at bay. In return all he asked for was a
10:45favour which he could cash in at any given time. Loki knowing he'd been
10:48checkmated agreed to his terms and left. The final sequence of this episode saw
10:53Dream coming to terms with the consequences of his actions. When Narda
10:57woke up she refused to see him but after his repeated urging she agreed. Dream
11:02attempted to apologise to her but that sent her into a rage. She slapped him angering him in the process
11:08but she was in the right to do so and even Dream realised that. He calmed himself down
11:13and instead of saying he thought he should apologise to her, he did apologise to her.
11:17But Narda made him realise that that was too little, too late. No apology could make up for the
11:23millennia of torment she endured in hell so she asked him for a boon instead. At the end of the
11:28episode Narda returns to the waking world and she tells Dream that she does not love him and he does
11:33not love her. What he describes as love is nothing but desire and she warns him to not come looking for
11:39her. The mention of desire causes something to flare up in Dream's mind because throughout this
11:44whole ordeal he's been suspicious of his eponymous sibling and the next episode proves that he was
11:49right to be wary. The search for a missing brother. Episode 4 ends with Dream and his younger sister
12:00Delirium surviving an explosion in a strip club. Now we know what you're going to ask, how did they end
12:06up there in the first place? So let's go back to the beginning for a bit shall we? Episode 4 opens with
12:12the Dreaming being blanketed in rain, a reflection of Dream's sadness at Narda's decision. He doesn't admit
12:18it but he does ask his trusted assistant Lucienne if he's incapable of love. He's hurting and he
12:24doesn't even realize it properly but he's shaken out of his pain by his sister's unexpected arrival.
12:30Delirium shows up to his realm unannounced because she has a request she knows her siblings won't grant
12:36through conventional means. She wishes to look for their brother destruction and initially Morpheus
12:41refuses her just like desire and despair but after making an apology to his sister for being dismissive
12:46of her he agrees to go to the waking world with her giving the impression that he genuinely wants to
12:51help her in her search for destruction but his first act on earth makes it very clear that he
12:55wasn't there on a brother hunt. He was there to look for Nader. Delirium has a list of three entities
13:01she knows were definitely friends of destructions. One's a lawyer, another one is a minor goddess and the
13:06third is a mythical figure. Dream tells her he's impressed but he's just lying to her. That lie comes back to
13:12haunt him almost immediately though because as soon as he reaches the doorstep of the lawyer's home
13:17it's revealed that he's been killed in a construction accident. Thinking that this was no coincidence
13:22Dream tells Delirium they should abandon their search but she remains insistent so he continues
13:27to look for the minor goddess who now works as a dancer in a strip club. Along the way he has a
13:32conversation with Wanda, a transgender liaison given to him by a Mr. Farrell, a facilitator of traveling for
13:39the divine. Dream wonders how Wanda would react if her parents came to see her unannounced considering
13:44the trouble they gave her over her transition and Wanda tells him that she'd be happy but she'd
13:49only ask them to visit her not to live with her. In the end she is who she is and she loves herself
13:54for it. When they reach the minor goddess's domain it's revealed that she was actually destruction's
13:59ex and that Dream was the one who caused their breakup. Dream tells her to be wary because the last
14:04man they tried to meet died almost instantly. The goddess tells him he signed her death sentence.
14:10Then, and for once, Dream doesn't lie. She proceeds to put on her final dance performance in Life and
14:16Afterlife and the episode ends when a gas leak blows up her place of work. The explosion takes Wanda with
14:22it and for the first time we see Dream feeling conflicted over a mortal's death. Desire visits both
14:28him and Delirium and reveals Dream's true agenda to their youngest sister. That he was only there to
14:34find Nada and he had no intention of finding destruction. This causes Delirium to banish them
14:40both from her realm and leaves Dream in a state of confusion. He's not confused because he can't
14:45feel things or because he deceived his sister to achieve his own ends. He's confused precisely
14:51because he can feel and he feels terrible about having treated his family so dishonorably. So in the
14:56next episode he endeavours to fix all of that which is a massive step in and of itself for him.
15:02You came. I would not miss my son's wedding day. A lost son and dreams that haunt him. The fifth
15:09episode of season two part one is mostly a flashback sequence and with good reason. Dream has to do
15:15something he never thought he'd do in his wildest dreams. He has to put an end to his son's life.
15:20At the beginning of the episode we see Morpheus attending Wanda's funeral. He asks her aunt to give
15:26him a copy of one of the Wizard of Oz books because that was the story that shaped Wanda's life.
15:31After hearing how her family members still viewed her as Alvin, Dream speaks with his dear sister
15:37Death and comes to the conclusion that he has been doing his other sister Delirium a disservice by being
15:42dishonest. He places the book at Wanda's tombstone, changes its name from Alvin to Wanda and goes to
15:48Delirium's realm through a portal opened by Death. Delirium tests Dream's intentions by conjuring up
15:55a vision of a rave. In this rave Nada is present, partying hard with the other ravers. She sneaks up
16:01on Dream and he nearly gives in to this vision but then he catches himself and goes to see his sister
16:06instead. Once he finds Delirium he apologizes to her from the bottom of his heart, a genuine apology
16:12with the intent to not seek forgiveness. He knows that had one of their siblings lied to him the way
16:17he lied to her, he wouldn't be able to forgive them, which is amazing clarity for one so clouded
16:22by their own visions. He then tells her that they need to pay Destiny a visit, but of course Destiny
16:28already knows about it. He's seen it in his little book so he prepares to give Dream an answer he knows
16:33is far too complicated to simplify and Dream knows that the true answer lies in what his eldest brother
16:39neglects to say, so he goes to see him anyway. Destiny, as Dream guessed, doesn't have the answers
16:45he seeks, but he does mention that an oracle that shares their family's blood might. This shocks Dream
16:51into realizing that he needs to visit Orpheus, the son he condemned to a life of loneliness for the
16:57crime of disobeying his father. A flashback begins then that lasts for most of the episode. We see Orpheus's
17:03most famous myth play out in front of our eyes. We see the snake bite his wife, see him visit the
17:09underworld and make the furies cry with his music and see him strike a bargain with Hades to reclaim
17:15Eurydice. We see him break that bargain a little earlier than he does in the myths, for he looks
17:20back at his wife shortly before he emerges in the upper world. Orpheus's body is torn limb from limb
17:26by cultists of his former patron Dionysus for his defiance and when his severed head washes up on a
17:32beach his father abandons him too. Morpheus had warned his son to not make any rash attempt to get his
17:38wife back but Orpheus's defiance left him no choice in his mind. He set up a priestly order to protect
17:44his head and abandoned him for thousands of years but now he was the only way to get back destruction
17:50from wherever he was. So at the end of episode 5 we see Dream and Delirium leave Destiny's garden
17:56intent on gaining Orpheus's knowledge in exchange for a boon and that boon is how this series will
18:01come to an end. A son, a brother, a promise and an end. In the final episode of part one of the
18:12Sandman's second and final season we meet Johanna Constantine, an ancestor of John Constantine. Johanna
18:19probably began her bloodlines obsession with occultism because we see her penning three books
18:24on that very topic in this episode. A long time ago she found Dream in a bar and confused him with
18:30Lucifer because she thought the devil was the answer to her occult questions. She wasn't but Dream helped
18:36her out some and they came to a mutual understanding that she would help him at a later point in time.
18:41That point in time came when he realized that Maximilian Robespierre had stolen his son's head.
18:47Dream sent Johanna to retrieve his son and return him to his priestly abode and though any man in
18:52Orpheus's position would have been filled with despair and bitterness. Johanna found him to instead
18:58be full of life. She fell for him and when Dream told her that she could escape Robespierre if she
19:03asked his son to sing she does exactly that. Orpheus refuses her request to visit him annually but Dream
19:09allows her to spend more time with his son and we see Johanna's tombstone outside of Orpheus's shrine
19:15when he and Delirium arrive to confer with the lad. Orpheus reveals that destruction, the brother they're
19:21looking for resides on the island just beside his. Orpheus has the power of prophecy you see because
19:26he foretold his wife's death without even knowing it. By the time episode 6 rolled around he'd had
19:32centuries of practice and so Dream and Delirium go to meet the brother who doesn't want to be found.
19:37Destruction is happy to see them both and even happier to notice that Morpheus has grown immeasurably.
19:43A few centuries ago he'd have called the deaths of the people who died in his search for destruction,
19:48the passing of mere mortals. Now he referred to them as innocent souls and was ready to throw down
19:54with the destruction itself over a matter of principle. Destruction revealed that he won't
19:58be coming back to the endless no matter what they say because he has decided to forsake his cosmic role
20:04and he says that he has done this out of love for mankind. Destruction spent his entire life being the
20:11reason humans destroyed things but the creation of the atomic bomb was it for him. He knew that now they
20:16could destroy each other whenever they wished and do so utterly. He did not wish for them to annihilate
20:22themselves so he gave up his seat and now that he's had a final word with his favorite sister and
20:27his most improved brother he decides to move on to some other plane of existence taking only his sword
20:33with him. He gifts Barnabas, his talking dog, to Delirium as a companion and tells Dream to remember
20:38what he said about loving mortals being the path to redemption. Shortly after speaking with their brother,
20:44Dream and Delirium return to Orpheus's shrine and Dream grants his son the boon he's been seeking
20:49for eons. He kills the offspring of an endless. As the two gods return to their own realms, Dream asks
20:55Lucienne to take care of things for the day because he wishes to come back to his duty on the morrow.
21:00When he retires to his chambers, he fills a bowl with water and tries washing his son's blood off his
21:05hands but fails and breaks down crying. Dream, an entity that thought itself above mortal concerns and
21:11emotions sheds a tear for the son he had to kill because he failed to explain to him thoroughly
21:17how dangerous his blind love for Eurydice was. He finally understands human loss and pain but in
21:23doing so he has broken a key tenet of the endless's existence and that is that family does not spill the
21:29blood of family. Killing his son was something Destiny warned him against because Destiny knew what
21:34would come next. The final scene of part one shows the three grey ladies in a cozy living room doing
21:40whatever fates do when one of them repeats the prophecy of the end of the world from the first
21:44episode. The eldest fate tells the middle one to stop her knitting and hold out the yarn she was
21:50using at the moment. She then cuts it with a pair of scissors in the same manner in which the ancient
21:55Greeks thought their fates decide to end a life. It's heavily implied that the yarn that she cut belonged
22:01to Dream and so now in part two the king of dreams must contend with fate itself. Will he decide to fight
22:07against the burgeoning humanity within him or will he allow it to play out its natural course finding
22:13the sort of meaning he's been unconsciously searching for for eons? We know the answer but
22:18we've spoiled enough of season two already so for now this is where we leave you but trust us if you
22:24haven't watched this show yet you really should because there's truly nothing else like it.
22:29Marvelous Verdict
22:30And that's it for this one. If you liked this breakdown and analysis video do leave a like on
22:35the video, share it with your fellow gaming heads and subscribe to Marvelous Videos. Let us know your
22:41thoughts in the comments below and we will see you guys again real soon. Until then keep hoping and
22:47most importantly keep dreaming dreamers.
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