The Sandman stars tease “season 2” and explain deleted scene

The Sandman was one of Netflix’s biggest releases of 2022. The show will return for more episodes, although the specifics are still being worked out. The streamer was careful in how it worded the renewal announcement; it ordered “new episodes,” but not “season 2.”

It sounds like the show will move forward with staggered, batched releases of episodes. That could be a good fit, as anyone who’s read Neil Gaiman’s original comic will tell you that the tone of the story changes drastically and frequently. Maybe this format will allow fans to digest each storyline without the swings feeling too jarring.

“It’s such a unique thing anyway, Sandman,” Vivienne Acheampong (Lucienne) told Collider. “So to call it Season 2, I think that’s not what it is because there are just more stories to tell.”

Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Death) agrees that labeled the batch of episodes “season 2” wouldn’t feel quite right:

"Well, I would say, I think part of the hesitance probably to call it Season 2 is that one of the things about Sandman, and one of the things about Neil, is Neil loves his fans and I think there is the understanding that we told some of the stories and there’s more to tell. So it’s much more to it. And if you are a fan of the comic books, you know how many stories. It’s just that once you put that into a TV format, it’s broken up."

Don’t expect to see The Sandman back on our screens anytime soon. The cast has no better idea when the new episodes might arrive than the fans do. “Honestly, we don’t know,” Acheampong said. “We’ve just had a conversation that there were going to be more stories, and that’s all we know. So in a way, because we’re fans, as well, if you can say that about your own work, but we are fans of Neil. We love this. This is such a beautiful project to be a part of. So we are kind of waiting and excited, as well, just like everyone else because we don’t know when we’re going back to work.”

Watch a deleted scene from The Sandman season 1

Netflix has already released one deleted scene from The Sandman. It takes place inside Fawny Rigg while Dream is imprisoned in Episode 1, “Sleep of the Just.” The scene features narration from Lucienne. Take a look:

There’s plenty more where that came from, but Netflix isn’t keen to release any more scenes just yet… at least to the general public. There is another one floating around that was shown exclusively to audiences at CCXP. The scene in question is set during “The Sound of Her Wings,” where Death talks to Dream about the time she spent as a mortal to better understand her role as one of the Endless.

This is how Kirby Howell-Baptiste describes it: “So, the scene that was shown here that was deleted – which by the way, I had kind of forgotten about because it was such a long time ago, so it was really nice for me to see it and it felt brand new again – But it was a scene where it’s a continuation of myself and Dream walking and talking through London and he’s going about. He’s with me on a day of work. He’s like, ‘Bring your kid to work day.'”

"In that scene, what we talk about is Death goes through her job, and she expects… What she does, obviously, gets resistance. So what she talks about is, she decided to experience what she does. So she lived for a day and then met herself. She was taking it, she had her amount of time."

The scene seems to reference The Sandman spinoff comic The High Cost of Living, which follows Death as she steps back from her duties for a day to live as a mortal. Perhaps we’ll see that storyline play out on the show one day.

The new episodes of The Sandman have not started filming yet, nor is there a release date. It will no doubt begin filming sometime next year, so we can assume that they will drop sometime in 2024. Hurry up, Netflix!

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