The Sandman: A Hope in Hell Books Included

August 10, 2022 8:38 AM - Season 1, Episode 4

Lucifer Morningstar -- A Game of Wits -- Night Passage -- Why do you lie?
posted by gauche (44 comments total)

I presume that while Etrigan made the post for episode 3, trademark issues prevented him from posting this one.
posted by kyrademon at 8:41 AM on August 10, 2022 [19 favorites]

This was one of my favorite stories in the comic . They did pretty well by it. The scene with Nada ("I still love you, but I have not forgiven you") was brutal. It's been a while, but didn't the demon fight his own battle in the book? I guess bringing Lucifer more front and center makes sense. I could have gone for a bit more eye-popping detail in the every-demon-in-one-place shots, as there was in the book.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:48 AM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

THEY FUCKING WROTE ME OUT THE SUNSABITCHES
posted by Etrigan at 8:55 AM on August 10, 2022 [58 favorites]

It's been a while, but didn't the demon fight his own battle in the book?

Yes. One of the best bits of art that Sam Kieth did before he left the series was Choronzon's face dropping as he realized he's been bested. And honestly, it's better that they allow for the choice of champions for Lucifer's anger at Dream -- in the books, it was a petulant sort of "Oh, fine, you won, but what if I kick your ass anyway?" from Lucifer, who should have just been amused or maybe mildly annoyed that an underling got stomped on.

Which brings me to my one quibble with this episode: Dream should have known where he was going all along. Matthew (who hadn't appeared at this point in the books) shouldn't've provided a raven's balls' worth of assistance. I loved the choice to make it more of a physically taxing fight for the participants, but they could have had Dream picking himself up off the canvas on his own and dropping "I am hope." in a way that made it obvious he'd known this would be his last move from the moment the game was set.

But, as I say, goddamn did they nail the fight. One of the best early sequences from the comics popped off the screen just as much as it had off the page.
posted by Etrigan at 9:06 AM on August 10, 2022 [15 favorites]

> "THEY FUCKING WROTE ME OUT THE SUNSABITCHES"

I join your rage, and curse with all my might.
You'd think Netflix.com, with all their riches,
Could spare some to obtain the copyright.
posted by kyrademon at 9:10 AM on August 10, 2022 [14 favorites]

Yes, Choronzon fights Dream in the comics. I think the show's decision was a good one -- Choronzon'll never be seen again most likely, so who cares about him? Lucifer Morningstar, on the other hand, is clearly being set up as a Big Ol' Antagonist, which I am here for.

Episode MVP is the rather Etrigannish Squatterbloat, though. "Yes, my clown" is iconic, the line delivery is perfect, and Dream just has to stand there and take it. Appearing to abandon Dream and Matthew in the Wood is also nicely-calculated (and thematically-appropriate) passive aggression. I'm sure they didn't have the heart to write Mazikeen out, but... leaving aside her popularity as a character, they could have replaced her in this episode with Squatterbloat and that would have been fine by me.

The Corinthian has a fine grasp of minimum necessary interventions, I'll sure give him that.

Rosemary lives!!!!!!! I was cringing throughout that set of (extremely scary, highly disturbing, extremely well-acted) sequences, waiting for the comics outcome. I am hugely, hugely relieved and grateful that didn't happen, and intrigued by what did -- if Sandman gets more seasons, will they return to Rosemary and her amulet? I'd be here for it.

Okay. Now. My huge issue with this ep is Lucifer's look.

Gwendoline Christie herself: Easy A. Oh my gosh, the gorgeous gorgeous hands. And I absolutely adore Lucifer towering unapologetically over Dream. Hell (so to speak) yes.

Wings: A+. They look great however Lucifer holds them, and they're used well as a clue to what's going through the Morningstar's head.

Wigs: C. Lucifer is beautiful, but "cherubic" was... the wrong direction to take that.

Costumes: F minus for the white and red getups, a grudging C for the black one. What the heck. They're terrible. Textureless (when Hell itself has a lot of texture), not really androgynous-reading, stiff in the wrong places, drape weirdly when they drape at all, wrinkle uglily (look at the long shots), and Lucifer freakin' Morningstar does not wear red bathrobes, not ever, what was WITH that shawl collar?!

I have to think the intent of the costume shapes, especially in the shoulders, was to bulk Gwendoline Christie up, but look, Christie does not need that, it makes her head look weirdly small, and anyway the wings do all the bulking-up necessary. I'm baffled how those costumes were allowed to be so bad.
posted by humbug at 9:17 AM on August 10, 2022 [12 favorites]

Aw, I liked the wig! For that matter, I like what they've done with Matthew although every time I hear Patton Oswalt all I can think is "they should have gotten Wallace Shawn". I feel like this show is at its best when it doesn't take itself too seriously. Sure, yes, by all means please lean into The Gothestness Of It All, but it sometimes needs to step back and remember that the premise is fundamentally a bit silly.
posted by phooky at 9:37 AM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh, on reading a bit about the production I see what happened. Christie's partner got to design the Lucifer costumes. I guess they felt they couldn't push back. What a shame.

There are moments Matthew is a little TOO As-You-Know-Bob (they couldn't rewrite the line about demons being former angels? because wow, that line was not good and Oswalt could not make it work), but other than that, I'm happy with Matthew and with Oswalt's voice performance. I feared it would be way too PATTON OSWALT, if you know what I mean, but it's fine.
posted by humbug at 12:18 PM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

I really liked Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, especially the little face twitches after the battle, when Morpheus mentions Heaven.
I also really liked Dee giving the amulet to Rosemary, so she wouldn't have to be scared anymore. It made sense for this version of him, since he's trying to be good, in his own messed up way.
posted by Spike Glee at 12:35 PM on August 10, 2022 [12 favorites]

Oh wow.

For reasons I cannot reveal without also dropping some spoilers Lucifer's entire arc in the Sandman comics was really important to my development as a person (less so in his eponymous comic, which was also mostly excellent). I had some concerns going into this episode but they more or less nailed it. The line about everyone having to carry their own fire into Hell hit me like a truck.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:03 PM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]

I know the Lucifer fight is the attention grabby part of this episode and a big part of the story, and it was pretty cool, but for me this show clicked with John and Rosemary taking a ride in the car together. I already knew I liked Sarah Niles as an actor; I didn't think I especially liked David Thewlis, but he really makes that character work and the slow build of tension between the two of them was super enjoyable.
posted by jameaterblues at 3:39 PM on August 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

The animation and modeling on Matthew is quite good; having a live raven to match against almost certainly helped but it's nice to see a CGI bird where the animators actually like, looked at a bird rather than winging it from memory. He even blinks the right way, which is a nice detail.

I feel like Lucifer shouldn't have just accepted defeat when Morpheus pulled out "hope" to defeat "the anti life" (entropy?). Sorry but you can't just hope your way out of the second law of thermodynamics! But both Morpheus and Lucifer are clearly amateurs at this game since neither pulled out "anti hope" or "God" or "ultra god infinity plus infinity". They'd get utterly destroyed by the first ten year old they meet who plays "two of whatever you say".
posted by Pyry at 6:07 PM on August 10, 2022 [13 favorites]

Sorry but you can't just hope your way out of the second law of thermodynamics!

I hope you’re wrong.
posted by Etrigan at 6:14 PM on August 10, 2022 [10 favorites]

I thought “hope” worked because it specifically cut at Lucifer in the deepest way, because even Lucifer has hope of a return to heaven. So it was seeing right through Lucifer and calling out their deepest shame I imagine. Something core to who they are. So they had no rebuttal.
posted by Emily's Fist at 10:22 PM on August 10, 2022 [27 favorites]

I suspect they can't invoke the names of the Endless either. Despair kills hope pretty comprehensively, but you probably don't want her showing up.

Though "my dainty Party City wig" would have put Dream in his grave.
posted by Jilder at 2:14 AM on August 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

I also really liked Dee giving the amulet to Rosemary, so she wouldn't have to be scared anymore. It made sense for this version of him, since he's trying to be good, in his own messed up way.

Yeah, I watched the entire first season within the first day or so of its release. Thewlis’ interpretation of Dee is the most arresting part of the show so far. And the differing fate of Rosemary is a big part of that.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:20 AM on August 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

The visual design is shaping up to be my favorite thing about the show; the whole sequence of ringing the doorbell to hell was imaginative and beautifully done.
posted by ook at 6:45 AM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

neither pulled out "anti hope" or "God"

But, I'll turn into God Himself,
and then you'll come to me.
Well I will not believe in you,
and then where will you be?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:08 AM on August 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

I had to stop watching this episode because I wasn't feeling up to watching what would happen with Rosemary. I just couldn't bear it. When I finally did, I enjoyed the hell bits as a reprieve from the mounting tension and fear and hope between John and Rosemary, which says something.

I enjoyed seeing the challenge have actual effects on Lucifer and Dream. Gwendoline Christie is a fine actor and made a good show in that role, but she's not Lucifer. It's not the gender swap, it's just... nope. Didn't work for me. If they had her as one of the other angels later in Season of Mists, that would have been great! Also hated Matthew's pep talk to Dream, and I always - even as a teen reading these with only an echo of the experience with depression that I now have - felt that Dream's final comeback was not as undefeatable as it turned out to be. But I guess he was fighting Lucifer, not my depression (which would just laugh at 'I am hope') and for Lucifer, hope really was the winning play because Lucifer couldn't give up hope.

But getting back to John an be Rosemary. I am so, so relieved they didn't stick to the comic for that one. And David Thewlis is an amazing actor. Just transformed how I see the character of John Dee completely. It also made me think it might be ok to watch the next episode after all! But no spoilers.
posted by Athanassiel at 7:40 AM on August 11, 2022 [11 favorites]

I was really happy that Rosemary survived. I wonder if it was asking to protect Suzie that did it, or that John internalized her argument that people act out when scared, and, since he’s no longer scared (because he has the ruby), maybe he wants her to be free from fear, too? And it kind of parallels the Hell part, since Lucifer is also terrified of the thing that she could have if she just asked for it, but the asking would be the end of her.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:24 PM on August 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

All I could think about during the fight was the same fight scene from sword In the stone, the wizards duel
posted by one4themoment at 4:34 PM on August 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

Gwendoline Christie is a fine actor and made a good show in that role, but she's not Lucifer. It's not the gender swap, it's just... nope. Didn't work for me.

I think she's great too, but unfortunately I just kept thinking about how Tilda Swinton did a better version of an androgynous angel, Gabriel, in the Keanu Reeves Constantine.

Maybe it was too similar in some way? I can't put my finger on it. I think Swinton did the arrogance better?
posted by Fleebnork at 5:13 AM on August 12, 2022 [9 favorites]

I dunno, I felt like Christie was kind of channeling Swinton-as-Gabriel, but her face at the end of the fight, where “hope” wins the battle, is really good, because that answer, as pointed out above, doesn’t really end the fight (in theory), but it ends Lucifer because she can’t counter hope (this, I will admit, is probably a Lutheran answer, but I am a minister’s son, what can I say?). And her face when Dream beats her again to leave is also great, a blank polite facade hiding rage and grief. That’s a face that promises payback. So I’m pretty satisfied with Christie (she also had a great physical presence, which is nice amidst the CGI.)
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:48 AM on August 12, 2022 [12 favorites]

I am so here for Christie as Lucifer.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:59 PM on August 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

I think, and unfortunately it would be a spoiler to say why, that Christie is very intentionally and consciously projecting ennui. Lucifer is SO OVER Hell.
posted by humbug at 4:02 PM on August 12, 2022 [7 favorites]

I thought Sandman's use of "Hope" was also a reference to Nada. She's been in Hell for ten thousand years and hasn't given up hope. "I will not give up hope! I will never give up!"
posted by straight at 12:02 AM on August 13, 2022 [6 favorites]

I'm coming to the show, having never read the comics. I've watched the first four episodes and... I'm really wondering why everyone seems to be loving this show? So much exposition. So dour. And what exactly are the dramatic stakes? Dream is looking for his stuff because his realm has died causing the plague of whatever on earth, but since the world seems to still be turning and no one on earth is really talking about the problem, what's the problem? If the show is saying a lack of dreaming really fucked up the Human 20th Century, I need to understand what the alternative is.

I enjoyed Jenna Coleman's Constantine because a female version of that character - and that character type - is refreshing. But I'm just not compelled by any of the other characters or stories.

And Patton Oswalt as a talking raven? Feels like an idea that would work great in a comic, but in live action it's just incredibly stupid.
posted by crossoverman at 6:42 AM on August 13, 2022

I think there are plenty of comments right here in these threads to explain why people are loving the show. Or even just liking it, with some reservations. But if the tone isn't working for you, I'd imagine that all by itself would be reason to move on to something you'd like better. Because "Sandman", in all it's incarnations...comics, audio dramas, this current TV production...is Goth as fuck. Notoriously so. I'd go far as to suggest that, although Neil Gaiman didn't have anything to do with the inception of "Goth" as a subcultural, "Sandman" absolutely helped give that subculture a longer lifespan that it would have had otherwise.

In terms of the "stakes"...as someone either in this thread or some other has pointed out, "sleeping sickness" was a real thing that started being noticed in 1919 or thereabouts. Gaiman folded that into his plot to create some sense of external stakes, but the actual stakes are more personal, i.e.: Morpheus' personal sense of honor. Dude generally has a HUGE board up his ass about something or other. The narrative very much counts on you finding Morpheus to be entertaining company to work.

I disagree with you about Oswalt's performance, but maybe there's a better way to frame your thought than calling it "stupid"? That doesn't tell us much about why you feel that way. I suspect, though I may well be wrong, that you just don't care for fantasy as a genre?
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:53 AM on August 13, 2022 [6 favorites]

Oh the Dee / Rosemary scene was fantastic. David Thewlis is bringing a lot to this role, as is the writing. Enjoying it thoroughly, particularly the mundanity of it.

I also found Patton Oswalt giving Dream the answer to the last part of The Game was pretty underwhelming. Dream is a badass and should be figuring things out himself, not with his crow lackey. Also as straight says he even got the answer from Nada earlier when she talked about her hope (an addition to the comic). I fear the TV writers were afraid the viewers wouldn't quite understand what was going on, it does get a little woolly.

Thanks for your comments, crossoverman. I have other friends who don't know the comics who are enjoying the show. But I'm so personally invested in my memory of having my mind blown by these comics in the early 90s I can't really answer your question directly. I will say that many Sandman fans, including myself, feel these first comic books are the least good of the run. I don't love the stories so far, it takes awhile to get going. And yeah, it is dour. I hope you stick with it for a few more episodes though, the stories really pick up, at least in the comics.
posted by Nelson at 3:10 PM on August 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Because "Sandman", in all it's incarnations...comics, audio dramas, this current TV production...is Goth as fuck. Notoriously so. I'd go far as to suggest that, although Neil Gaiman didn't have anything to do with the inception of "Goth" as a subcultural, "Sandman" absolutely helped give that subculture a longer lifespan that it would have had otherwise.

Sad Teenage Baby Jilder entirely discovered goth via Sandman - out in my sad Australian suburbs I discovered the spinoff Death: High Cost of Living and immediately started emulating Death's look, or at least the parts of it I could do with a budget in the single digits and very conservative parents. My part of the world had no visible goth goths and it took till I made it to university for the rest of them to find me, but it worked.
posted by Jilder at 4:35 PM on August 13, 2022 [6 favorites]

I disagree with you about Oswalt's performance, but maybe there's a better way to frame your thought than calling it "stupid"? That doesn't tell us much about why you feel that way. I suspect, though I may well be wrong, that you just don't care for fantasy as a genre?

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't so articulate late last night after watching the first four episodes in a row with friends who had varying knowledge of The Sandman and me, who basically knew nothing.

I can understand giving The Sandman a sidekick for his adventures. I imagine that working great in a comic book. I think Oswalt's delivery seems really hammy as contrast with everyone else who are taking things Very. Seriously. He's the comic relief, but also he's exposition and in some cases moves the plot along and none of that is endearing me to the concept of him let alone the character itself.

Is fantasy my favourite genre? No. But there's no reason why this show couldn't work for me if I understood why I should care about these characters or the situation.

The narrative very much counts on you finding Morpheus to be entertaining company to work.

The show hasn't made him entertaining, at least to me. I cared that he was trapped for a century but then the first thing he does is kill a cute gargoyle to resurrect his realm and I'm all like - there's a reason there's a screenwriting trope about saving the cat and not killing it. Or kicking the puppy as the sign of a villain.

I will say that many Sandman fans, including myself, feel these first comic books are the least good of the run.

I'm hearing this a lot - fans are both loving the adaptation but also saying these aren't the best Sandman stories. Feels like a weird way into a show, but I guess Gaiman is in charge and this is his beginning so they are sticking to it.
posted by crossoverman at 10:39 PM on August 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

So, I'll go against the grain a bit and say that The Duel between Lucifer & Dream did NOT work for me. I think it is something that works way better on the page than when performed. I think the implied "reality" of seeing humanoid people partaking in this contest kind of highlights its absurdity- it's basically just Goth Calvinball. The opening move is totally arbitrary; there seems to be no set rule about how big of a "jump" you can make between moves (bacteria < planet < nova < universe is a pretty fucking huge series of leaps); and ultimately it is a game that could only ever be played once, because no matter where you start, you could eventually get to "universe < anti-life < Hope!" On the page, it comes across as much more symbolic or metaphorical, or something like that, and it works for me in a way that it doesn't on screen.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:17 PM on August 14, 2022 [11 favorites]

I can understand giving The Sandman a sidekick for his adventures.

Matthew the Raven is way more of a sidekick/comic relief/expostioner in the show than he is in the books, for whatever that's worth.

I'm hearing this a lot - fans are both loving the adaptation but also saying these aren't the best Sandman stories. Feels like a weird way into a show, but I guess Gaiman is in charge and this is his beginning so they are sticking to it.

Hmmm. The thing is, part of the reason (IMO) people say these aren't the best Sandman stories is kinda the very reason they actually make a good first season - it's a basic Quest Story, which pretty much everyone understands, whether they know the source material or not. Protagonist has 3 things stolen from him, goes on a series of journeys & adventures to retrieve them.

People are comparing this early storyline to the later issues where Gaiman and company did some really inventive and complex things with themes and concepts and plots, especially in the context of comics/graphic novels in the late 80's/early 90's. So by that reasoning they're (understandably) "not the best" Sandman stories - they're pretty basic compared to what comes later. But if you're not liking the show now I doubt you'll find the later material more compelling.

Dream is looking for his stuff because his realm has died causing the plague of whatever on earth, but since the world seems to still be turning and no one on earth is really talking about the problem, what's the problem?

I gotta say this smacks of not really paying attention to the show - we've seen The Corinthian (a nightmare literally come to life) gleefully murder and terrorize, we've seen what happened to Constantine's ex under the influence of Morpheus' sand, and while it's the next episode that focuses on the ruby, we've seen the cruelty, machinations, and betrayals that humans will commit to get their hands on the tools of Dream and other magical items that shouldn't be loose in the world of mortals. There's clearly a lot more at stake than ending a vague mini-plague of "sleeping sickness."
posted by soundguy99 at 8:37 PM on August 14, 2022 [6 favorites]

it's basically just Goth Calvinball. The opening move is totally arbitrary; there seems to be no set rule about how big of a "jump" you can make between moves (bacteria < planet < nova < universe is a pretty fucking huge series of leaps); and ultimately it is a game that could only ever be played once, because no matter where you start, you could eventually get to "universe < anti-life < Hope!" On the page, it comes across as much more symbolic or metaphorical, or something like that, and it works for me in a way that it doesn't on screen.

I thought it came across as mystical and metaphorical. They weren't actually shapeshifting but they also weren't just playing a word game. It seemed more like each Noun symbolized the amount and character of the power they were exerting. Each move was an escalation, but according to some rules that made it more important to strike in the right way than simply striking harder. "Hope" was not just The Noun That Is Bigger Than Anti-Life, but a spiritual/psychological blow to Satan in particular.

I think in any of these shows about comic-book magical (or mental/spiritual) combat, it's better to just assume that what we see is merely the fraction that a mortal mind can comprehend of some deeper, weirder multi-dimensional struggle. But it definitely helps when it's staged more like this than grimacing and shooting different-colored beams of CG at each other.
posted by straight at 5:14 PM on August 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

I thought “hope” worked because it specifically cut at Lucifer in the deepest way, because even Lucifer has hope of a return to heaven.

In Satan's first speech to the fallen in Paradise Lost:

We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal Warr
Irreconcileable, to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav’n.

Whether Satan is lying to himself and/or them, consciously or unconsciously is left as an exercise for the theologically inclined.

"Hope" was not just The Noun That Is Bigger Than Anti-Life, but a spiritual/psychological blow to Satan in particular.

In some ways, hope is so inextricably tied to Lucifer that to name its counter would be to hand over to Dream the thing that could hurt Lucifer most - usually an unwise move in a duel.

Checkmate, Satan!
posted by Sparx at 11:03 PM on August 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

straight: i get what you're saying, I'm just saying it doesn't work on screen for me the same way it does on the page.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:47 PM on August 16, 2022 [2 favorites]

I gotta say this smacks of not really paying attention to the show

I guess I was just focused on the "wrong" things. Hard to know whether to worry about a sleeping sickness that stretched over a century or some artefacts that can do some real damage - but nothing compared to a sleeping sickness that lasted a century and then was never mentioned again.

I think the word game between Morpheus and Lucifer is a really great example of an interesting idea that is dramatically inert. If you keep upping the stakes, it ends up being hot air. You can't relate to it. I think that's why I'm having trouble with the first four episodes - lots of interesting ideas, big swings, but dramatically inert. Yeah, people could do some bad stuff with sand but this fictional world has already had worse stuff happen in it. Morpheus' destroyed kingdom is vast and overwhelming - and yet I was more affected by the gargoyle's death than anything.

Oh well, perhaps it's not for me.
posted by crossoverman at 6:06 PM on August 16, 2022

The "sleeping sickness"-as-stakes thing is a little weird, because again: that is a thing that actually did happen here in the real world that we live in. The show mentions it by name: encephalitis lethargica. Gaiman threw in a mythological/folktale type explanation for the 20th-Century phenomenon as both a fun little bit of world-building and an early tip-of-the-hat to the fact that Dream is in some ways a mythological being, not a person. To begin with, at least. And, the real world did in fact "continue to turn" after that form of encephalitis had begun to affect people. Weird, huh?

But that one detail of world building is not the conflict that the story is built on. I think that's typically what's meant when people talk about "stakes", yes? Or at least related to it? And I don't see a show that's being real subtle about the conflicts it's made up of.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:51 AM on August 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

I feel like Lucifer shouldn't have just accepted defeat when Morpheus pulled out "hope"

Nothing is easier to defeat than hope. Small as I am, I myself have defeated hope and tried living without it.

There are a thousand forms of hopelessness Lucifer could have taken on, but she knows a pyrrhic victory when she sees one.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:20 PM on August 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

Lucifer could have said “I am despair, the destroyer of hope,” but then Dream would have just said “I am Despair’s big brother and I give you a noogie,” and Lucifer knows they would have never been able to issue another order in Hell.
posted by Etrigan at 5:56 AM on August 18, 2022 [17 favorites]

I'm just so glad Susie wasn't hurt!
posted by randomnity at 2:00 PM on August 22, 2022 [4 favorites]

I'm hearing this a lot - fans are both loving the adaptation but also saying these aren't the best Sandman stories. Feels like a weird way into a show, but I guess Gaiman is in charge and this is his beginning so they are sticking to it.

It's 100% true. I read it in the ten-volume graphic novel set, and the first two volumes (which make up this first season) are easily the weakest part of the overarching story (with some high points here and there). The first volume is basically "sullen dude goes to find his lost stuff."

The problem is, there are also things that happen in these two stories that are absolutely vital to what comes later, and the introductory stuff sets up the rules of this universe. Morpheus has to be imprisoned and then mope around for a bit in order for the remaining story to have resonance.

I think Gaiman and his adapters realize this, and have made the best adaptation possible of this part of the story - excising unnecessary DC crossovers, dialing down the gore, quickening the pace a bit. I acknowledge that it is a bit of a cop-out to tell someone "the story gets so much better later!" but it's true, and I only hope that enough people are intrigued by the beginning to ensure that they're able to tell the rest of the story. It's worth it.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:41 AM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh, wow. Rosemary lives! She gets the amulet! I'm so touched and relived, I can't even say.

I was good with GC's Lucifer, albeit I'm not sure if she's supposed to be a man or not? Her reaction to being called honorable was "awww" to me as well. Very sweet, of all things.

I do not look forward to A Certain Episode, though. That one's next, right? (sigh)
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:48 PM on September 5, 2022

Oh, yeah, and Nada, the 10,000 year old ex he consigned to hell. God, that never fails to be awful.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:53 PM on September 5, 2022