All 11 episodes of The Sandman, ranked worst to best

Episode 2: “Imperfect Hosts”

I’ll be honest: for the first two episodes of the show, I was kind of afraid that The Sandman was going to suck. Episode 2 ditches the hand-holding of the premiere, but it’s a rather slow affair. We get some important information about the nature of Dream and the Dreaming, but not much happens.

Dream returns to the Dreaming after his imprisonment and finds it in ruins; his faithful librarian Lucien is one of the few dream folk to have stuck around to keep watch while he was away. Repairs must be made, but to do that, Dream will need a trio of tools that were taken from him while he was locked up: his pouch of sand, his helm and his magical ruby.

A large chunk of the episode is spent visiting Cain and Abel, the Biblical brothers who now live as neighbors in the Dreaming. Also they’re friends with a sentient gargoyle named Gregory; the Dreaming is just that kind of place. In a plot added for the show, Dream must reabsorb Gregory, who he created long ago, in order to get some of his power back. Only then can he call on the Fates, who can point him in the direction of his missing items.

You see the problem here? We know what Dream has to do pretty much from the start, but by the end he’s only just gotten to the starting point. The bit with Gregory seems especially odd; I suspect it was added as an excuse to introduce Cain and Abel, who will pop up from time to time throughout the story. The show does a decent job with their funny fratricide dynamic, to be fair. And it does a great job with the Fates, who are as mysterious and frightening as in the comic.

There were things I liked about this episode, I just wish it moved faster. Happily, the show was pretty much clear sailing for me from here on out.