“The Sandman” ends on a sorry note

The lord of dreams is very sorry to have put a woman through hell. We’re not talking about a figurative Hell, either. Dream, the eternally brooding namesake hero of “The Sandman” (portrayed by Tom Sturridge), condemned his great love Nada (Umulisa Gahiga) to the Infernal plane out of spite.

Nada may have been queen of a great and ancient African civilization, but Dream is one of the Endless. From her perspective, all-powerful cosmic beings have no business wifing up with mortals. A random asteroid wiping out her kingdom soon after she accepts Dream’s marriage proposal only proves her point.

But instead of giving grace to the woman he loves, Dream takes such offense at the thought that Nada would choose Hell over an eternity at his side that he sends her straight to the hot place, and not for days or months. She’s trapped there for millennia.

Regrets? Ten thousand years later, Dream has a few. When he finally comes face to face with Nada again, the most he can offer his ex, at first, is, “I think perhaps I should apologize.”

There’s a cheesy old movie quote declaring that love means never having to say you’re sorry. Mealymouthed half-measures like Dream’s show us why that’s a lie. Condemning someone to starve, burn, freeze and ache for ages out of arrogance deserves a definitive “sorry” that should kick off a penance marathon. Hence, we get why the lady finds her ex’s gesture a tad underwhelming. Nada reminds Dream that she endured nonstop torture and wept and waited, all because of him. “And you think, perhaps, you should apologize,” she retorts.

Dream, an all-powerful being who can shape reality to his will, has a real problem with admitting wrongdoing. When he deceives his sister Delirium (Esmé Creed-Miles), he’d rather keep the resulting rift open than go after her and apologize. When he brings death to another god’s door, any attempts at making amends are weak or simply too late.

“I will live with eternal regret for what I did to you,” he assures Nada, as if an all-powerful being’s regret has value next to more than 100 human lifetimes of torment.

Dream excels at trapping his adversaries. Because of this, he sharply resents falling into traps himself, especially the ones he should have easily seen coming. Some of “The Sandman”‘s viewers have an idea as to what that feels like, especially after the many sexual abuse and assault allegations brought against its creator, Neil Gaiman, by multiple women became public last year.

The first round of exposure came via “Master,” a seven-episode podcast series from Tortoise Media released in the summer of 2024. New York Magazine followed it up in January 2025 with “There Is No Safe Word,” an exposé by Lila Shapiro, that included new accusations from other women, along with a few damning insights from other former associates of Gaiman and his ex-wife Amanda Palmer.

In February, Scarlett Pavlovich, Gaiman and Palmer’s former nanny and the main subject of Shapiro’s report, filed a civil suit in New York’s U.S. district court alleging that Gaiman and Palmer “knowingly recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, and/or obtained Scarlett for labor or services while knowing she would be forced to engage in sexual acts as a condition of receiving the pay and housing they promised her. ” The suit is seeking damages in excess of $1 million.

Gaiman, who has consistently insisted that the described encounters were consensual, filed a demand for arbitration in March, stating that another accuser, Caroline Wallner, breached their non-disclosure agreement by sharing her account with the media. He’s seeking more than $500,000 from Wallner. As for Pavlovich’s claim, Gaiman’s lawyers also filed a motion to dismiss in March, arguing that the case should be heard in New Zealand, where the alleged abuse took place.

But as tends to happen with situations like this, these misconduct allegations cast a pall of gruesomeness over everything Gaiman has done and will do. In September, the New York Times reported that Disney paused production on its adaptation of Gaiman’s young adult novel “The Graveyard Book.” That decision followed Netflix’s decision not to renew “Dead Boy Detectives,” its spinoff of “The Sandman.”

In orchestrating Netflix’s adaptation of “The Sandman,” Gaiman celebrated casting women to play powerful roles originally drawn as men. Watching Gwendoline Christie play Lucifer Morningstar and Vivienne Acheampong embody The Dreaming’s librarian, Lucienne, ended much of the relatively limited fuss over those choices.

Producers also circumvented hardened fanboys’ attachment to John Constantine by making the scruffy warlock into a refined woman named Johanna Constantine and tapping “Doctor Who” alumnus Jenna Coleman to bring the character to life for TV.

Gaiman, one of our most successful living authors, has long taken pride in catering to his female readership. In that way, he’s similar to Joss Whedon, another auteur revealed to have exploited his reputation for writing strong women to mistreat a few who worked for him, including “Angel” star Charisma Carpenter and, much later, Gal Gadot on the set of DC’s “Justice League” movie.

The accusations that led to Whedon’s career retreat differ from those Gaiman is facing, which involve allegations of sexual assault that, again, he denies. But the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator’s missteps are worth bringing up because we’ve been through this before, and likely will again, and to remind us of how tough it is to sniff out the allies from the wolves hiding in similar clothing.

Netflix sagely announced that “The Sandman” would end after Season 2. After watching the first six episodes of its full 12, you may thank the Universe that there aren’t more rounds in the hopper.

The second season’s opening episodes drag like an inescapable, non-refreshing REM state. That would be the case regardless of whether Gaiman’s predatory false feminism had been exposed. But I’ve said this before about other works saddled with problematic creators and/or scandals: Legitimate excellence can withstand most related odiousness, although horrible behavior in the name of art is never excusable.

The sexual abuses, manipulations and misconduct to which Gaiman is alleged to have subjected his accusers occurred apart from the production of “The Sandman.” The second season began filming in November 2023 and is based on source material that was written long before that. As such, by the time the scandal broke wide, the season was pretty much set. That its plot reminds us why Gaiman’s alleged actions represent a broader betrayal of his fans is an uncomfortable coincidence.

It’s often observed that Gaiman’s sartorial style and soft-spoken demeanor are similar to that of Dream. Between these recent revelations and the themes embedded in the source material, we’re presented with an artist who’s been telling on himself all along.

Among the revelations Shapiro cites in her New York Magazine story are the unsettling similarities between Gaiman and his character Richard Madoc, a blocked novelist who imprisons the muse Calliope and rapes her to unleash his creativity.

“Calliope,” the surprise bonus episode released after Season 1 concluded, now reads like a veiled confession. In that story, it is Dream who rescues Calliope (played by Melissanthi Mahut) and punishes Madoc for his crime by short-circuiting his brain with a tsunami of creative inspiration, too much for one mere human to process.

We might have forgotten that Calliope was another woman Dream betrayed if she didn’t turn up in Season 2 to remind viewers that Dream and Calliope were once married and produced a son, Orpheus (Ruairi O’Connor).

If you recall the myth, you may be able to guess that he’s another loved one Dream condemns to suffering, obligating the supreme being to apologize yet again.

“Calliope” succeeds because Gaiman handed the reins to women to script and direct. At the time, that seemed smart and self-aware of him. Now it smacks of the kind of false feminist posturing he allegedly wielded to prey on trusting women.

After reading their accounts, you can help notice odd qualities Gaiman weaves throughout his realms. Dream’s psychologically fragile little sister, Delirium, was once known as Delight, until some awful, unspecified trauma twisted her beyond repair.

Nada has to suffer for thousands of years for rebuffing Dream before he reaches an epiphany that he might indeed be the devil in this story. This only happens after he’s restored himself to power and realizes perhaps he should be sorry about a thing or five.

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As I wrote when “Calliope” premiered in 2022, “Finding out the truth of who these men are constitutes a bone-deep betrayal for some fans who believed in the false image they cultivated. This is especially true of the ones who, as Richard tells Calliope, designed their art to inspire people (women, specifically) instead of simply entertaining the public.”

To this, let’s add the cast of actors who own their roles and deserve better than to be associated with a tainted project, especially Christie and Kirby (the actor formerly credited as Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who enjoyably plays Death, Dream’s sister.

“The Sandman” also developed outstanding parts for trans performers like Mason Alexander Park, who slips seamlessly into Desire’s skin, and Indya Moore, who has a lovely second-season arc as a woman who travels with Dream for a short while. With time, we may better appreciate those contributions; with the release of more episodes, we may yet see the final season of “The Sandman” improve.

That might not matter. The comic book series begins with Dream’s breaking free of a 106-year imprisonment by a cheap magician who separated him from his symbols of power. The TV series closes with a legacy shackled to its creator’s alleged misconduct. Longtime fans placed their faith in Gaiman and his stories. It’s a shame to think all these were illusions covering up nightmares the author is said to have visited on the unwilling.

Six second-season episodes of “The Sandman” premiere Thursday, July 3. Episodes 7 through 11 premiere on Thursday, July 24. Episode 12 premieres on Thursday, July 31.