The Sandman: All episodes reviewed and explained

Episode Nine: “Collectors”

“Collectors” is one of the most iconic issues from the entire run of the comic. And after watching this episode, I think it’s going to be one of the most, if not the most popular episode of the series. It’s dark, brutal, funny, heartfelt…a little bit of everything.

So Rose’s presence in Lyta’s dreams has somehow gotten Lyta pregnant with a baby conceived in the Dreaming. That’s potentially bad news. When Dream learns of this, he’s going to be forced to take action. As a vortex, Rose is bridging the gap between the Waking World and dreams. They’re bleeding into each other, which could be catastrophic for both realms.

Lucienne refuses to help Dream with the issues surrounding his realm. Dream is determined to deal with the vortex and the missing Arcana on his own. This tiff between them isn’t part of the comic, but it does help humanize both characters a bit.

The Corinthian

The Corinthian is a charming villain. He acts like a father figure to Jed, looking after him and buying him ice cream. He tells Jed that he’s taking her to his sister, Rose. Of course, Jed is too young and innocent to understand what’s going on, despite the Corinthian dropping hints.

The Corinthian is keeping Jed as leverage so he can get to Rose. He gives her a call and sets up a meeting place: the Empire Hotel in Georgia, where they’er holding a Cereal Convention.

Rose Walker and Gilbert

Gilbert (Stephen Fry) offers to drive Rose to the Empire Hotel, which is about three hours away. I like Gilbert, he’s got some funny dialogue. And I like how different he is compared to everyone else, being a British gentleman with a swordstick (even though he doesn’t seem like he could harm anyone).

During their journey, Gilbert shares his views about the world, seeming like he knows everything about humanity and nothing at all. There is a reason for this, which we’ll get to soon.

Lyta and Hector

After deciding to live with Hector in their dream world, Lyta begins to notice strange things in their new home; earthquakes are frequent, and the ground is splitting apart. The seismic waves are ravaging Dream’s palace, too. According to Lucienne, it’s all happening because of the Vortex, because of Rose.

Dream travels to see Lyta and Hector, telling them that they cannot live out their fantasies in The Dreaming because it has real-world consequences. Dream has no choice but to kill Hector before his relationship with Lyra can do anymore damange. But that’s not all: he also tells Lyta that one day he will come for her baby: a child conceived in The Dreaming belongs to him. Fans of the comic will know this is a huge storyline going forward. What he’s doing sounds horrific, but from Dream’s point of view, he’s doing everything he can to protect his realm.

The Cereal Convention

The serial killer convention is everything you’d imagine it to be. I absolutely love some of the wacky names the serial killers (sorry, collectors) go by, as well as the hilarious double entendres we hear as the Corinthian and Jed walk around the convention. The show’s dark humor reaches its peak here.

The convention is hosted by organizer Nimrod, who’s got a really awkward, creepy way about him. I like it when he announced the Corinthian as the guest of honor. He’s treated like a god and has a lot of fans wanting to talk to him, one of whom goes by the name of the Boogieman. However, the Corinthian knows this isn’t the real real Boogieman and shares this information with Nimrod and The Good Doctor, or offer to let the Corinthian to “collect” the interloper — he’s actually a journalist trying to get the inside scoop on the convention — while they watch. It wouldn’t be a serial killer convention without a murder or two, right?

Meanwhile, Rose and Gilbert infiltrate the convention in search of Jed. You’ve got to laugh at Gilbert’s reaction as he slowly but surely realizes that this is not a convention for cereal, but for serial killers. That was one of my favorite parts of the episode.

I remember Neil Gaiman mentioning that a lot of the vulgarity and violence of The Sandman happens in our heads. That’s definitely of the cereal convention. One example is the serial killer Fun Land, a child molester; we don’t see him ply his trade, but his fond remembrances of his “hunting grounds” are more than disturbing enough.

While this is going on, there’s a brief moment when the Corinthian and Gilbert cross paths and stare at each other. As creatures of the Dreaming, they appear to know each other; Gilbert is actually Fiddler’s Green, one of the Arcana that went rogue while Dream was imprisoned. He returns to the Dreaming to report what he’s found, leaving Rose and Jed there alone. They both find themselves running away from Fun Land, who is killed by the Corinthian. This is a dangerous hotel, but at least Dream now knows exactly where they are.

Bullet points:

• We get some spectacular exterior shots of Dream’s palace in this episode; something I think has been lacking throughout the series. From these shots, we can see that the palace has been fully rebuilt.