REVIEW: ‘The Sandman’ Season 2 Is Beautiful

The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 is once again a triumphant series with beautiful set pieces, deep, cutting relationships, and excellent acting. If anything, Neil Gaiman’s reprehensible allegations overshadow the series’ strength, and it may not reach the audience it deserves. Despite its high caliber of acting and compelling story from showrunner Allan Heinberg, the series is in a bad spot, canceled too soon. 

Now that that is out of the way, The Sandman Season 2 Part 1, when judged on its own merit, is just great television. As was the first season of the series, and Dead Boy Detectives. This begins with the strength of the series’ visuals and production design but continues with how artfully the story weaves through timelines, through loves, and ultimately brings the Endless siblings to Destruction.

In The Sandman Season 2, it all begins with a gathering. The Endless have been called by their brother Destiny to the Dreaming, to sit and discuss an important matter that he has not yet shared. Dream (Tom Sturridge), Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), Delirium (Esme Creed-Miles), and Despair join Destiny, with only Destruction left out of the family gathering. Having been visited by the Grey Ladies, Destiny called them to the table for an important moment that will alter the Endless and the world.

The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 excels when judged on its own merit.

What starts as a frustrating talk between siblings ends with Dream’s past mistakes coming back to haunt him. You see, Dream once loved and married the Queen of the First Man. Only, when she was given the choice between him and Hell, she chose the latter. After dooming her to an eternity of torment, Dream’s siblings place the blame squarely where it belongs, with Dream.

While Desire does this to goad their brother into an outburst, Death stands by his side and reasons with him. Yes, he loved her, but yes, he also doomed her to Hell out of selfishness. But it’s how Death approaches Dream that makes the difference. The two of them don’t just love each other as siblings; they respect each other, and that goes a long way.

This leads to the first narrative element of The Sandman Season 2: Hell. When Dream confronts Lucifer, he finds them abdicating the throne. Leaving Hell, requesting their wings to be clipped, and ultimately gifting the key and its future to Dream, with the demons of the underworld all returned to the Earth. This latter part is the only real plot hole this season. Where Dream was concerned with the world of Mortals in Season 1, here, it just doesn’t seem to matter. Instead, this is a story about the Endless, and gods, and the ways in which they love and hate.

This season, audiences are on three journeys through Dream’s regret.

The first major conflict of Sandman Season 2 Volume 1  is the quest that every god endures to be gifted the key. Susano-o-no-Mokito (Kristofer Kamiyasu), Odin (Clive Russell) and his sons Thor (Laurence O’Fuarain) and Loki (Freddie Fox), the Demon Prince Azazel (Wil Coban), a little clown of Chaos, and more all come to try and win the key. And then there are the Fae, who have come simply to stop the tithing required of them to Hell, and to keep Dream from giving the key to someone new.

What unfolds is an interesting squabble and politicking that winds up being the least interesting part of The Sandman Season 2 Part 1. It isn’t bad. In fact, for an episode dedicated to a lot of talking, the world of Sandman begins to become larger, with even Angels making an appearance. But Hell is just the first difficulty that Dream faces this season, even when he handles it with grace.

The next large narrative point is that Dream attempts to help his sister, Delirium, find their brother, Destruction. While the brother made it clear that he didn’t want to be found or even sought, Delirium just wants to show him that they still love him. They are the Endless, but their familial relationships are just as emotionally driven as any human’s, and that’s what makes them so compelling.

Esme Creed-Miles as Delirium is an expert addition to the cast for The Sandman Season 2.

Played by Esme Creed-Miles, Delirium is a gorgeous addition to the season. Her hope and her chaos work together to paint the portrait of a god who cares deeply, deals intensely, and in the end thinks outside of any box, even if the others around her belittle her for it. As they embark on a personal quest against the wishes of their siblings, The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 finds itself looped back around to love.

Where Dream needed to free his once-lover from Hell in the first section of the season, in the second section, he attempts to pick up the broken pieces of relationships. Only, he isn’t pure in his attempt to help his sister. Instead, he’s selfishly using her for his own gains, that is, until danger erupts, destroying one of Desire’s temples and killing Wanda (Indya Moore), a character I fell in love with but was gone too soon.

It’s here where The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 ventures into real-world commentary about belonging. Played by trans actress Indya Moore, Wanda is a phenomenal character. She’s powerful and resolute, but then she dies. As Dream mourns her, we see him confront her aunt and deal with the way that Wanda’s memory has been changed to suit her family.

One of the season’s smallest characters steals the show.

In the comics, this was just handled as fact, and not viewed with remorse or even pointed out for the harm it causes and the disrespect it represents. Her family has removed her identity and even deadnaming her on her headstone, which Dream corrects. “A Game of You,” the story that Wanda is featured in initially, was left behind, and that was for the better, given its attempt at its subject matter. But Wanda, she is here. 

While the circumstances of the funeral remain the same, the change in Wanda’s character is in the peace and agency she is given. More importantly, Dream’s empathy and correcting of the headstone speak volumes. But more importantly, it’s Wanda’s conversation with Death. 

What could be a moment of pushback on how families refuse to recognize trans people, even in death, Wanda has a conversation with Death that puts things into perspective. As she waits to be collected, she tells Death that she always hated Kansas, but now, it’s beautiful. When Death apologizes for what she experienced, Wanda responds, telling her that the funeral wasn’t for her, and that it was never the clothes nor the hair that made her, well, her.

Indya Moore shines brightly in her role as Wanda.

It was the love she felt and the life she lived for herself. It’s an affirmation of trans identity that goes beyond just what others say and do, but looks inward. While Indya Moore has consistently proven herself a fantastic actress from Pose and the other character roles she’s had, in The Sandman Season 2, she shines brightly—the single strongest character who isn’t a god.

And that leads the audience to the final section of The Sandman Season 2 Part 1: Dream’s son. After deciding to take Delirium’s request seriously and mending bridges with the most fragile of the Engless, he and Delirium go to the one place Destruction knew they would not go to—the place where Dream’s son, Orpheus (Ruairi O’Connor), still lives. The last bit of The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 reaches far into the past, where the Endless were Greek gods.

Here, we get the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and where the family’s destruction began. Orpheus’ wife was killed, and when he went to the underworld to retrieve her, he was granted his wish, only under the condition that he did not look back until the sun touched them both. Of course, in The Sandman’s tragic style, he looks back and she is gone to him forever.

The Sandman Season 2 embraces Greek mythology and shows the audience how long the Endless have been around.

Only to go to the Underworld after Dream denied his son’s request for help, Death had to make Orpheus immortal. Despite his many attempts to die, and now just a head, Orpheus remained, with a cult of followers around him, entrusted by his father to keep him alive.

After finding Destruction, speaking with him, and deciding to stop letting his grief and selfishness drive him, Dream ends the season with yet another world-shaking decision. He gives Orpheus his wish, and he kills him.

The only problem is that the Fates do not care if Orpheus begged for death, only that the one rule was broken. An Endless has spilled family blood, and now Dream and his realm, The Dreaming, are under threat. But ending here is perhaps The Sandman Season 2 Part 1’s largest mistake. It’s a cliffhanger, sure, but it also stops the six-episode Volume 1 just as it began to ramp up to the scale of danger that Destiny foretold.

While the season is too short, I can’t help but be excited for what’s next. 

Despite large movements in Hell, Destruction leaving the family entirely, and Desire getting their wish and making Dream spill family blood, the season’s pacing still felt slow. While this wouldn’t be a critique if the series had released all Season 2 episodes, here, the ramping up of the pace is important.

There are big, heartfelt, and somber moments throughout The Sandman Season 2 Part 1, but their build-up is ultimately left hanging, a thread for Part 2 to latch onto and unravel. Still, the tenderness in the performances, and the power in them too, make for an unforgettable season, even if its wide take on the world is at times too broad and at others not enough.

The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 is a heartfelt exploration of love and relationships, both romantic and platonic. We see how love builds us up, how it breaks us, and ultimately how inescapable a force it is. However, seeing a fight for The Dreaming is something I have been waiting for and will keep me engaged until the series’ conclusion. The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 is decadent, violent, dreamy, and exactly what you want from prestige television.

The Sandman Season 2 Volume 1 is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix, with Part 2 streaming in August 2025.