All 11 episodes of The Sandman, ranked worst to best

Episode 5: “24/7”

“24/7” is one of the best-known issues of The Sandman. It revolves around John Dee, who’s been knocking around for a few episodes but whom I haven’t really touched on yet. Played with skin-crawling banality by David Thewlis, he’s the son of Roderick Burgess, the occultist from the premiere, and Ethel Cripps, Burgess’ mistress. When Cripps became pregnant with John, Roderick wanted her to get an abortion. Rather than do that, she stole Dream’s totems of power from Roderick and split. Later, John got ahold of Dream’s ruby, modified it, and used it to terrorize people by forcing them to face their darkest dreams.

That’s a lot of setup for what is essentially a bottle episode. Almost the entirety of “24/7” takes place in a diner where John is stopping before conquering the world. The best thing about the episode is its restraint. “24/7” takes its time introducing us to every person in the diner, so we’re properly horrified when John starts tearing down the walls of their reality and forcing them to commit atrocities…or did John just take away their pretenses and let them act as they already wanted to? John sees it one way, Dream another.

The climax, where Dream confronts John and finally gets back his power, is probably the biggest fist pump moment of the season, and this after what is easily the most memorably horrific episode. But far from being satisfied to mine that vein, The Sandman shifts gears once again for its finest moment: