I am going to get a few things out of the way before I even start. I am not a reader of the Sandman comics. I have read Lucifer (comes from Sandman) so that is the only character I will mention any accuracy on. (Spoiler alert, the guy that wrote the character and helped with the show did great)
Another thing I will not get involved with is “woke politics” if you have read Neil Gaimans work you knew what you were getting into. This was his stuff before being “woke” was a thing.
Also it’s Constantine as in TINE/ WINE not Teen. Him and his comics said so.
Ok now that we have that out of the way,on with the show. It all starts out pretty trippy as you would expect with a series about an entity known as an Endless, Sandman (also called Morpheus) and his family exist to rule over certain things, Death,Desire etc. Sandman attempts to find an escaped nightmare and Magus who is upset over the loss of his favorite son casts a spell to trap Death and instead catches Sandman.
This is actually only the first episode and encompasses about 100 years of his imprisonment where is mostly stripped of his tools and powers. The rest are locked away with him inside of a magical seal which he can’t really escape.
This does an excellent job setting up future episodes, done as chapters, by letting us know the Endless are all extremely powerful but are not gods. They make mistakes,they change and grow as living things and most importantly you should not piss them off.
The show can’t go on without his escape which does eventually happen much to the regret of his captors. This will bring us on a journey to gather his tools back which includes sand, a mask and a sort of amulet. This brings me to my first issue.
Going into this we saw all sorts of previews and posters discussing Lucifer ( Gwendolin Christie) and Johanna Constantine ( Jenna Coleman) both only appear in a very limited capacity. (In fact Jenna technically only appears once as 2 different characters with the same name) and this really seems almost like a bait and switch. Clearly the show is about Sandman ( Tom Sturridge) but to make them seem like costars only to have them barely be guest appearances at best seems a little dishonest.
That aside, every character is played amazingly. At first I was a bit worried about John Constantine being done away with completely but him being gone may actually be an improvement. ( The John Constantine character could not be used for legal reasons so he was replaced with Johanna,another character in his family from the comics)
Before I get more off track however, finding his tools is how he meets Johanna and later Lucifer.Johanna happens to now own his sand which she happily returns, if by happily we can say as happy as anyone would like to visit an ex-girlfriend that left without any notice or phone call. And Lucifer, well Lucifer is the devil. Her and Sandman basically kick the crap out of each other and he gets his mask back as Lucifer swears to see him later.
I won’t go further into the story because I don’t want to ruin it, but for something that is only 10 episodes I was hooked from start to finish. It is absolutely worth checking out, just don’t go into this expecting anything other than a dark (and I mean morbid) story. Morpheus is not a hero, or even a villain. He simply exists as a force of nature in control of a realm. He isn’t Batman or the Joker or anything in between. He is just there to do a job,and sometimes people get in the way, other times he can help. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
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