As a storytelling enthusiast, I know that narrative climaxes are vital and that all good stories need a spike in tension and a release that brings change with it. They just don’t have the same punch without it and fall hollow and flat. As someone who gets too attached to fictional characters and places, though, these moments can be some of my most hated.
So you can imagine the kind of stress I was under when I sat down to watch “Long Live the King,” the second to last episode of the second season of The Sandman, and one of the first things I had to see were the Kindly Ones, led by Lyta Hall, entering the Dreaming and killing Fiddler’s Green, Abel, and Merv one after the other.
They were able to enter because Dream was called away to Faerie by Queen Titania, who used the pendant that was always going to be used this way ever since it first appeared on the screen. Thanks, Titania. Now the Dreaming is destroyed, and while it’s not all your fault, you certainly did kind of have a hand in it.
I have to say, I have contrasting feelings about the Kindly Ones in this episode. From a purely narrative point of view, I understand how this “evil” face they show, where they just plow through the Dreaming and its inhabitants, is powered by Lyta’s grief and pain. And that them trying to keep her with them is part of that. Still, I found it over the top in some ways for goddesses that aren’t cruel, just bound by ancient laws that they have to respect. But I have a lot of doubts on this episode in general, to be honest, which begin with Merv saying “a pumpkin with a gun” in a complete tonal shift from the rest of the episode, and that continues until the end—but more on that later.
As the Kindly Ones advance, though, Dreams manages to return to the Dreaming and face them head-on once and for all. He makes sure his remaining subjects—Lucienne, Cain, the Corinthian, baby Daniel—are safe and then he walks towards his destiny, seemingly ready to face it. So ready, in fact, that Death shows up. Their final conversation is the undisputed emotional heart of this episode, again one that centers family, a brother and a sister talking about all they have seen and how it has affected them. I did find it dragging a bit, again because of the same pacing problems that the rest of the season has, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Even though it left me wondering—is Dream really dead, then? Is this how it ends? Was it he, the king who was going to forsake his kingdom?
What I really did like about this episode is, once again, how it revolves around family. It’s a mother’s grief for her child in Lyta, a brother and a sister in Dream and Death but also in Cluracan and Nuala, found family in the subjects of the Dreaming. Family and the bonds that tie it together is what powers everything, even what brought this reckoning on Dream and his kingdom. It’s a very powerful theme to hinge story on and one that, I think, was overall well-delivered—even though it could have been ever better.
And then, of course, there’s that final scene. I’m not ashamed to say I screamed—I always do when Jacob Anderson is on screen. It’s a case of too much Interview with the Vampire on the brain. Honestly, before he showed up—a grown-up version of Daniel, magically morphed from baby to King of Dreams—I was ready to say that Jack Gleeson had to be the best casting choice made this season, but now I’m not sure. His title might be stolen by another Game of Thrones alumnus. I guess we’ll have to see what happens in the next and final episode, even though the combination of adult Daniel, the title of the episode, and Dream’s words doesn’t fill me with too many hopes about his future.
Episode Grade: B+
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