The Sandman Season 1 Ending Explained: Even The Endless Are Human
Season 1 of Netflix’s The Sandman proved to be as big as anything we could ever imagine, as it was able to showcase a storyline that’s true to the events of the comic book series created by Neil Gaiman. Of course, there were a lot of things that we saw in the first season as we got to know more about the King of Dreams himself, Morpheus, whose imprisonment at the beginning of the storyline led to the rise of the conflicts throughout the series.
Of course, there were many different events that led to the conclusion of season 1 of The Sandman, as we saw Dream hating humanity for what Roderick Burgess did to him and due to the things that John Dee did when he was in possession of the Dreamstone. This all leads to Dream’s encounters with Rose Walker and the ending of the first season. As such, let’s look at how the first season of The Sandman ended.
Dream And His Nightmares And Dreams
A good part of the first half of The Sandman introduced Dream, who is also called Morpheus. He is the King of Dreams and is the ruler of a dimension called the Dreaming, which is where people go whenever they sleep. The Dreaming is an important aspect of the universe because this is where people are allowed to manifest their innermost thoughts and emotions and where they are allowed to basically dream of what they want in the future.
The first scenes of The Sandman allowed us to see Morpheus confronting the Corinthian, who is a Nightmare that he created. Before he could undo the Corinthian, Dream was imprisoned by Roderick Burgess, who wanted to trap Death instead because he wanted to bring back his dead son. However, he decided to keep Dream instead and tried to force him to cut a deal with him.
Dream of the Endless, however, stayed silent throughout the decades he spent as Roderick Burgess’s prisoner and even after Alex inherited the Burgess estate. Meanwhile, during his imprisonment, Dream’s tools, which contained huge aspects of his powers, were stolen from Roderick Burgess and ended up in possession of different people and entities.
Eventually, Morpheus was able to take back his tools, starting with his sand, which he was able to take back with the help of Johanna Constantine. Meanwhile, he had to fight Lucifer in a duel of transformation in Hell itself so that he could take back his helmet, which was in possession of one of the dukes of Hell. Then, after a confrontation with John Dee, who held the Dreamstone, Morpheus was able to take back all of his powers and was now more powerful than he was before he was imprisoned.
Still, as the first season went by, it was clear that Dream had a lot of things left to do, especially because of the fact that some of his Dreams and Nightmares never returned to the Dreaming even after he was able to repair it using his regained powers. Three members of the Major Arcana did not return, as Gault, the Corinthian, and Fiddler’s Green stayed in the Waking World.
During Dream’s absence, the missing Nightmares and Dreams went on to explore so that they could achieve the freedom they never had when they were still in the Dreaming. And all three of them had their own unique reasons for wanting to stay in the Waking World.
For example, Gault actually spent her time creating her own Dreaming with Jed Walker, a child that was abused by her step-father. When Dream caught her, she told him that she wanted to live her life as a Dream instead of as a Nightmare. Nevertheless, Morpheus sent her to the Eternal Darkness as her punishment.
Of course, there was the Corinthian, who is the personification of all of the things that are wrong with humanity. He was supposed to be Dream’s masterpiece as far as the Nightmares were concerned. But he performed his job flawlessly to the point that he went to the Waking World to terrorize people as a serial killer for over 100 years. Dream had to unmake him due to the fact that he wanted to influence Rose Walker, the Human Vortex, to destroy Morpheus and create her own Dreaming where the dreams of people coincide with reality.
Finally, there was Fiddler’s Green, who is actually a Dream and is the vavasor of his own dominion within the Dreaming. However, he was hiding in the Waking World as a friendly old man named Gilbert that was able to become good friends with Rose. He traveled the Waking World because he wanted to experience what it was like to be human because, in the Dreaming, he was an entire realm and had no human form.
Fiddler’s Green was one of the people who convinced Dream to spare Rose’s life, as he believed that the Vortexes existed to remind the Endless that they exist because humanity wanted them to exist. After that, he manifested into the literal form of Fiddler’s Green within the Dreaming itself. This allowed the Dreaming to become full once again, as Morpheus was left to wonder what he needed to do with Rose Walker.
But as Lucienne found out in one of the books in Dream’s library, Rose Walker’s great-grandmother, Unity Kincaid, was supposed to be the Vortex of this generation but was unable to become so after she fell into a coma during Dream’s imprisonment. The role of the Vortex was passed down to the next generations in her line until Rose became the Vortex. That was when Unity asked Rose to give her powers back to her so that Dream could now keep Unity and the Vortex in the Dreaming and leave Rose to live her life in the Waking World.
What’s Next For Dream?
During the scene where Dream was about to keep Unity in the Dreaming, the Human Vortex mentioned something about getting impregnated in her dreams by a man with golden eyes. This was the reason why Unity was able to give birth to children while she was in a coma. And Morpheus realized that this man with golden eyes could only be his younger brother named Desire.
Desire was portrayed to be quite the mischievous being because, as Death mentioned, he always tried to find ways to quarrel with Dream. This was one of his latest attempts to start another family feud with Dream, as he was the one who fathered a child with Unity so that he could give his older brother a problem in the form of a Vortex.
Nevertheless, when Morpheus went to Desire’s chambers, he threatened his younger sibling to never meddle in his affairs again, or he would end up facing the wrath of Dream, Death, and Destiny, who are all presumed to be the three strongest and oldest of the Endless. Desire, understanding that neither he nor the four other siblings were powerful enough to stand against their older siblings, decided not to escalate the problem any further but still believed that he would soon draw blood in the future.
Dream, meanwhile, returned to his domain and started creating new Dreams and Nightmares. The first was Gault, who he recreated as a Dream because that was what she always wanted to be. Dream told Lucienne to settle all of the affairs in the Dreaming while he was busy creating new Dreams and Nightmares.
These actions were signs that Dream himself was starting to become human in terms of his personality and character development. Throughout his entire life, he was portrayed to be selfish and quite dismissive of the importance of humans in the grander scheme of things. His experience with Roderick Burgess had a lot to do with how he viewed humanity. And when he escaped from Burgess, he was also dismissive of the importance of the people around him because he didn’t see Lucienne as anything more than a librarian and was not even willing to reconsider Gault’s request of becoming a Dream instead of a Nightmare.
However, Dream’s experiences with the likes of Rose Walker and his talks with his older sister Death allowed him to reconsider how he viewed humanity and the people around him. Fiddler’s Green made him understand how important humans are during the entire Rose Walker incident. On top of what Fiddler’s Green told him, he was also reminded of what Death said when she told him that he was never alone in his responsibilities.
These incidents allowed Morpheus to develop into a more human character that now understood what it meant to be human and how important humanity is to the existence and responsibilities of the Endless. That was why he was willing to change for the better when he allowed Gault to become a Dream and when he was willing enough to increase Lucienne’s responsibilities within the Dreaming.
What Happened To Rose Walker?
Rose Walker was the Human Vortex capable of immense power that she could remove the borders between dreams and reality. Vortexes are so powerful that, as Dream mentioned, he lost an entire universe to one in the past because he failed to stop it.
That said, the original plan was for Dream to kill Rose Walker before she could do more damage to both the Dreaming and the Waking World. However, after the Corinthian tried to manipulate her into taking over the Dreaming and allowing dreams and reality to become one, she realized that she had to confront Morpheus.
Rose allowed her friends to dream their best lives while they were in the Dreaming, but she still realized that she needed to confront Dream, who thought that she needed to die. Fiddler’s Green, however, convinced him to spare Rose, and that was when Dream decided to keep her in the Dreaming forever so that she wouldn’t be able to thin the borders between the Dreaming and the Waking World.
That was when Unity Kincaid revealed that she was supposed to be the Vortex of this generation. As such, she sacrificed herself for the sake of her great-granddaughter because she wanted her to have a long life. Rose lost her powers as the Vortex and ended up waking up in the Waking World, where she decided to live her life together with her younger brother.
In the comics, Rose still has a long story ahead of her because she lost the ability to love when she gave her “heart” up to Unity after relieving herself of her powers as the Vortex. We don’t know if season 2 of The Sandman will tell this story but there is a good chance that Rose will return in the future.
A Hellish Sequel Season?
As mentioned, Morpheus humiliated and defeated Lucifer in a battle of transformation in Hell and right in front of the demons that the Morningstar ruled. Of course, the demons don’t like to be humiliated right in their own backyard.
In the final scenes of season 1 of The Sandman, Mazikeen told Lucifer that Azazel and the other Lords of Hell wanted to wage war against the Dreaming so that they could expand their borders all the way to the Waking World and even the Silver City. They simply wanted to take revenge on Dream for the humiliation he caused Lucifer and the demons when he visited Hell.
To that, Lucifer told the generals of Hell that they were going to take action. Nevertheless, the ruler of Hell never mentioned the action that they wanted to take. All that Lucifer said was that they were going to do something that would anger the Creator.
We all know that, in the comics, Lucifer eventually left his post as the ruler of Hell so that he could live his life on Earth. He ended up giving control over Hell to Dream after he released all of the demons. And this is what led to the Lucifer series, which was eventually taken over by Netflix after three seasons under Fox.
Of course, there are reasons why Tom Ellis wasn’t chosen to play the part of Lucifer in The Sandman, as it is quite possible that The Sandman series and the Lucifer series belong to different universes. That means that we are unsure whether or not The Sandman will follow the flow of the comics in the sense that Lucifer will indeed retire and live as a human being.
But there is also a possibility that Lucifer’s actions will be different in The Sandman series so that fans will understand that this series is different from the Lucifer series. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that a Hellish second season is on the way, especially with Lucifer and the rest of the demons looking to make things more interesting not only for Dream of the Endless but also for the Creator.