In the penultimate episode of The Sandman, any relief that Jed was saved from his uncle’s abuse by the Corinthian has long since faded. Not surprisingly, to be fair. It was always a short-term solution to an immediate problem. Rose is on his tail, bringing herself closer to danger, as well. And as for Dream, well…he really needs to work on his timing.
Serial Con
Can we just take a moment to acknowledge the massive amounts of therapy Jed is going to need if he makes it out of the finale alive? First he was abused by his uncle for god knows how long. Then he was “saved” by a living Nightmare. Taken to a serial killer convention. He witnessed his supposed savior and two others murder a man. Was nearly captured by a murdering pedophile. Witnessed said pedophile’s death. And is back in the clutches of the living Nightmare again.
All I’m saying is, Jed’s seen some shit. At this point, he’s probably going to need massive amounts of therapy to find the courage to ever leave the house again. Actually, they can probably go all-in on family therapy and get a discount, because it’s not like Rose or even great-grandma Unity are getting out of this unscathed. I mean, finding out you’re a (possible) world-destroying vortex that can stroll through your friends’ dreams and cause them to get impregnated with dream babies can’t be the easiest thing ever to bear. And while Unity is handling things like a champ, I’m still scarred enough from watching Awakenings when I was younger to underestimate the impact of waking up to find you’ve dreamed your entire life – and slept your life away.
Boat loads of therapy. For everyone. Including Dream, while we’re at it. He may have problems most mortals couldn’t understand. But surely Lucifer could spare Linda (Rachael Harris) for a little Endless-therapist chat.
Toil and Trouble
While Jed is strolling through every parent’s nightmare, Dream’s hard at work doing…such things as Endless beings do. Tracking down his errant Dreams and Nightmares. Restoring his kingdom. Being more than a little hard-headed at the absolute worst time. You know. The usual.
As much as Dream has grown this season – and he assuredly has – he’s still has a way to go before he reaches Death’s level of self-awareness. Which I suppose makes sense. It’s only been a little over a century, after all. And after however many eons of playing Lord of the Manor in the Dreaming, it probably would be hard to let go.
Which doesn’t make his lack of mercy toward Gault in the previous episode terribly admirable. Nor his somewhat pointed dismissal of Lucienne. She did keep things running in his absence, after all. True, the two were going to have to come to a meeting of the minds eventually. Particularly after Merv Pumpkinhead (Nicholas Anscombe) commented that she really runs the place and she failed to object. A kingdom can’t have two separate rulers. Not without leading to eventual confusion over who was in charge. And Dream doesn’t seem the type to abdicate his throne.
So, yes, eventually he and Lucienne were going to have to address the fact that she ruled the Dreaming in his absence. For a century. Granted, that’s probably not much time in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to warrant a conversation.
But that also means it was enough that he should have been a little less dismissive of her insight and efforts. A lesson he came to learn in this episode, even going so far as to kinda-sorta apologize and even to ask her input about the earthquakes endangering the Dreaming. Something that he apparently wouldn’t have done previously.
Maybe there’s hope for him yet. With a lot more work put in, given the way he completely whiffed the Lyta/Hector/Rose situation.
Living the Dream
As I said above, Dream really should have shown Lucienne a bit more respect and appreciation for her efforts in his absence. If for no other reason than because he desperately needs someone to smack him upside the head before he does something disastrous. Like how he handles the whole Dream Baby situation.
Okay, sure, having a ghost and one of the living just chilling in the Dreaming was causing massive problems. There’s no debating that. And the Dreaming has enough issues at the moment. It didn’t need one more.
But damn if Dream couldn’t have handled that whole situation with an iota more of finesse. A touch more compassion. An ounce of mercy. A thirty second explanation, even. He needed to get everyone where they belong. But I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that pissing off and alienating the dream vortex capable of destroying everything around them was probably not the best way to go about it. Just guessing.
In all fairness, there’s a good chance Rose’s love for her friend would always have gotten the better of her. But he could have taken a few seconds to try to better explain the direness of the situation, at least. The impact the destruction of the Dreaming would have on her world. (And that Hector and Lyta would die if the Dreaming ripped apart.) He could have given them a few more seconds to say goodbye, at least.
Instead, he handled the situation with prejudice and then told a pregnant woman he was going to steal her baby one day. Dream has many strengths, but tact and diplomacy clearly aren’t on that list. So now he’s got a pissed off dream vortex, a dream baby in the real world, and a librarian that’s still incredibly miffed at him.
Oh, and as it turns out, he’ll probably have to kill said dream vortex if he wants to save his world. A king’s work is never done.
The Sandman is streaming now on Netflix.