The Sandman: All episodes reviewed and explained

Episode Seven: “The Doll’s House”

Now that Dream has his totems of power back, we move on to the next story arc of the show, which adapts the second volume of the graphic novel, “The Doll’s House.”

Episode 7, “The Doll’s House,” begins with Rose Walker (Kyo Ra) with her family in Cape Kennedy, Florida. In a flashback to 2015, we see her and her brother Jed (Eddie Karanja). She clearly loves her brother. But due to issues in their parent’s relationship, the two are split up.

When we next catch up with Rose, it’s 2021, and she now lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In the time that passed, Rose’s mother died and left her an apartment. Turns out Jed has been missing for years. Rose won’t give up the hunt for him. She’s attempting to hire private investigators and get herself a job so she can fund her search.

While living with her friend Lyta Hal (Razane Jammal), Rose is mysteriously invited to England. We’re left in the dark as to why exactly she needs to be in London. At this point, all the audience knows is that a foundation is paying for her to be there for a family history interview. That’s pretty easy money if you ask me. I find it quite strange how neither Rose nor Lyta discusses how weird it is that she’s being paid to fly to London.

Upon arriving in London, they are taken to a huge stately home where they are greeted by none other than Unity Kinkaid. She was the lady way back in the premiere who fell ill under the “sleepy sickness” while Dream was imprisoned by Roderick Burgess. While asleep for all those decades, she dreamt that she fell in love and had a baby. However, upon waking, she realized that the baby she dreamed of was real. And that baby was Rose’s grandmother, which makes Unity Kinkaid Rose Walker’s great-grandmother.

As much as The Sandman is the type of show in which each episode tells a very self-contained story, this is one of the plot points that began in the premiere and doesn’t become relevant until later on in the series. It can be easily forgotten about, which is probably why we see a few flashbacks to earlier episodes.

Desire and Despair

We get our first look at Despair in this episode, the twin sibling of Desire. Unlike the comics, Despair is clothed. She even wears crocs, which is a weird move, but I dig it. She’s every bit the brooding, melancholy character we know from the comic. And she still frequently mutilates herself with her sigil, a hook. Compared to Desire, she doesn’t really play much into the plot. She’s just here to provide background. A little more character development would’ve been welcomed, but hopefully the show can get to that in future seasons.

Desire, meanwhile, is the most scheming of all the Endless. After realizing that Dream has escaped his imprisonment, they plan to prove to him that his realm is no more important than their own. With news that there is a new Dream Vortex — a mortal with immense power who can cause great harm to The Dreaming — Desire hatches a plan. While Despair isn’t exactly keen on the idea, she goes along with it, perhaps out of fear of what Desire will do if she doesn’t.

Of course, The Sandman isn’t short of villains. We’ve got the Corinthian, John Dee and Lucifer. But Desire is easily the slimiest of them all.

The Dreaming

We catch up with the goings-on in The Dreaming, where Lucienne doing a census of all the entities that live inside the realm. We see her visit Abel, who has a very cute Goldie on his shoulder. When she completes the census, we learn that there are three missing residents: Gault, the Corinthian, and Fiddler’s Green. Dream realizes that there is indeed a Dream Vortex in the Waking World, and is monitoring her dreams.

I must say, some of the VFX we see inside Dream’s palace are superb. It’s definitely some of the best visual work we’ve seen this season. We also get our first look at Mark Hamill as Mervyn Pumpkinhead, the resident janitor of Dream’s palace. It’s terrific voice work as always from Hamill. And some of the arguments we get between Matthew and Merv are TV gold!

Rose is a Dream Vortex: What is that?

Rose Walker is a vortex, a super rare phenomenon linked to dreams. This means she has the ability to bring down the walls between dreamers, narrow the gap between dreaming and waking, and perhaps even cause a threat to Dream himself. A vortex is extremely dangerous and the only way to protect the Dreaming may be to kill Rose.

Rose moves back to Florida

After dropping the bombshell that she is Rose’s great-grandmother, Unity implored Rose to return to the United States so she can continue the search for Jed. Rose and Lyra rent in a room in Florida in a house full of interesting characters:

• Hal, the landlord and a charming drag queen named Dolly
• Barbie and Ken, a white bread couple
• Zelda and Chantal, friendly collectors of dead spiders
• Gilbert, the strange British man who lives upstairs

Of all these people, Rose gets on with Hal the most, partly because Hal is the most outgoing. We see him perform in drag later in the episode, which is super fun.

One of the most important parts of the episode comes when Rose meets with a foster agent who refuses to tell her who Jed’s faster parents are. She’s told that, as his sister, she has no legal claim to him. Naturally, it turns out that Jed’s foster parents are horrible folks, but more on that in the next episode.

The Corinthian

The Corinthian is basically a celebrity among serial killers, a group of whom gather in a diner to discuss their upcoming “Cereal Convention,” which is really just a convention for serial killers to hang out. They are desperate for a special guest star after their previous heavy hitter, the “Family Man,” dropped out. Who better than the Corinthian? They try and get the Corinthian’s attention by copying his signature: killing people and removing their eyes.

Of course, the Corinthian is about as elusive as they get. In fact, the serial killers believe that there is more than one Corinthian and the name has been passed down over the years.

This was a fun, very dark little sequence. All this happens while the Corinthian is searching for Rose Walker. He’s desperate to release himself from the restraints of The Dreaming, and the Vortex may be his ticket.