The Sandman reportedly casting Hades, Persephone and Eurydice for season 2

Rejoice! After a long period of inactivity brought on by the writers and actors strikes in Hollywood, things are moving again on The Sandman, Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s seminal comic book.

Things aren’t back up to full speed yet — while the writers strike may be over, the actors strike continues — but we’re getting promising signs. Neil Gaiman recently sounded hopeful about filming getting back on track, and now What’s On Netflix reports that the show is planning to cast the roles of Hades, Persephone, and Eurydice for the second season.

If you know your Greek myth (or you saw Hadestown on Broadway), you’ll recognize those names. Hades is the god of the underworld, Persephone is his wife, and Eurydice is the wife of the musician Orpheus, who is so distraught after she dies that he travels to the underworld to try and convince Hades to set her free. And he actually succeeds, moving the god of the dead with his beautiful music. But there’s a condition: Eurydice can follow Orpheus out of the underworld, but if he looks behind himself at any point to see if she’s there, the deal is off and she must remain. Spoilers for a thousands-years-old myth: Orpheus is a dingus.

The Sandman season 2 goes Greek

This myth is retold pretty much beat for beat in the pages of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, only in this version Orpheus is the son of lead character Dream, aka Morpheus. (He really stretched himself when naming his son, huh?) We’ve already seen Dream actor Tom Sturridge filming scenes with Orpheus, who is played by Ruairi O’Connor.

That was during the brief two weeks when the show was filming its second season before the writers went on strike. Things have been dark since then. But with the writers strike over and hope high that the actors strike will be resolved soon, I think it’s okay to get excited. The first season of The Sandman was great and I can’t wait to see more.

We don’t know when The Sandman season 2 might debut on Netflix, except that it’ll be later than it would have been had production not shut down. I’ll hold out hope for 2024.

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