"I know who you are... Dream of The Endless."
"What's the good of a god who governs dreams?"
— Roderick Burgess
In 1916, occultist Roderick Burgess performs a ritual intended to capture Death and compel the return of his elder son, who was killed in the Great War. Instead, the ritual captures Death's brother, Dream. Burgess keeps Dream captive, hoping to gain some favour from him; following his death, his younger son continues to keep Dream captive for fear of what reprisal he will take once he's free. Dream finally escapes in 2021, and sets out to reclaim his tools (stolen from him by Burgess and from Burgess by one of his followers, Ethel Cripps) and to repair the damage caused to his realm, the Dreaming, by his prolonged absence.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Roderick Burgess wasn't the most loving father in the comic. Here, he's openly abusive towards Alex.
- Actionized Adaptation: The adaptation adds some action to scenes that were less dramatic in the comic, including: Roderick Burgess being killed in a violent altercation (instead of just clutching his chest and keeling over), Jessamy's rescue attempt (which has no equivalent in the comic), and Dream tricking the guards into shooting at him and breaking the glass cage (in the comic, he tricks them into opening the cage using the old Sick Captive Scam).
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Roderick Burgess looked immediately menacing in the original comics, sporting a bald head and a Sinister Schnoz. In the show, he's played by Charles Dance, sporting a full head of hair and looking much more refined than his almost thuggish comic counterpart.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- The Corinthian shows up in the very first episode. In the comic The Sandman, he didn't appear until the second story arc (corresponding to episode 7 of the series). His first scene in this episode is adapted from a scene in the prequel comic The Sandman: Overture, but his next few scenes are new for the TV series.
- Mervyn Pumpkinhead and Martin Tenbones make brief appearances in the opening montage of the Dreaming. In the comic, Mervyn made his first silent cameo in issue #5 (in a scene adapted out of episode 4), and Martin Tenbones first appeared in issue #15 (in a scene that appears in episode 8).
- Dream's raven Jessamy plays an important role in the first episode. In the comic, Dream's ravens aren't introduced until issue #11 (equivalent to episode 7), and Jessamy specifically first appears in a flashback in issue #29.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Alex sympathizes with Dream, since he feels just as trapped by his father's disregard, and claims that he'd let him out if he could. While he backs down when given the opportunity to do so immediately after he accidentally kills Roderick, he later offers to release Dream, and unlike the comic doesn't ask for wealth or immortality, but simply for Dream to leave him and Paul alone and not hurt them.
- In the original comic, Alex's boyfriend Paul is a self-serving man who doesn't care about anything except himself and possibly Alex. In this adaptation, he's significantly nicer, genuinely affectionate to Alex, and plays a role in Dream's escape. In the original comic, Paul accidentally smudges the markings warding Dream's cell without noticing or realizing what he's done; in this adaptation, he's shown noticing what he's done and shooting Dream a look that says he's deliberately giving him a way out.
- In the comic book, Ruthven Sykes was very much The Starscream to Roderick Burgess, seducing Ethel Cripps and stealing the contents of Roderick's safe before going on the run, even selling Dream's helm to a demon in exchange for a protective talisman that could protect him from Roderick's vengeance (which works up until Ethel steals it from him). In the show, Sykes apparently remains a loyal member of Roderick's cult, and the theft of Dream's equipment is carried out by Ethel - Sykes last being sent out to hunt her down.
- Adaptational Sympathy:
- Roderick Burgess is given a more sympathetic motivation; the comic version of Burgess seeks to capture Death out of nothing but a desire for immortality, money, and power, while this one is at least partially motivated by hoping that his dead son can be brought back to life. The Netflix version also doesn't show Burgess engaging in the various other crimes of the comic version, who liberally used blackmail, murder, and magical assassinations to his advantage. However, the show also goes to lengths to add or explicitly show Kick the Dog moments of his that were either not present or only implied in the comics, especially with regards to showing his abuse of his second son, Alex. He's also quick to drop all of his more sympathetic motivations once he begins using Dream's tools for material gain.
- In the comics, Alex Burgess is mostly just A Lighter Shade of Black compared to his father; while he stops the worst practices of his father's cult after taking over, he still demands the same things his father did from Dream. This version is shown from his early days as an abused child desperate for his father's approval, and repeatedly shows sympathy for Dream. After the death of his father, Alex doesn't demand immortality or power, only a promise that Dream not harm him or his lover Paul. Unfortunately this version of Alex did kill Dream's raven Jessamy right in front of Dream under pressure from his father, so Dream is not inclined to forgive and forget.
- Adaptational Timespan Change:
- The episode overall takes place over a longer timespan than the comic, specifically in that Morpheus's imprisonment lasts an extra three decades, so that the rest of the series can take place in the present day (as opposed to in what was the present day when the comic was published three decades ago) while keeping the start date of his imprisonment the same.
- In the comic, Ethel runs away in 1930 and then Roderick Burgess holds out until 1947 before dying of old age. In the episode, he dies almost immediately after Ethel's departure so that the characters don't have to be significantly aged up from the preceding scenes.
- Adaptation Amalgamation: In the original comic book version of "Sleep of the Just", Dream makes his first appearance when summoned by Burgess. The two earlier Morpheus scenes in this episode (the conversation with Lucienne in the throne room and the confrontation with the Corinthian) are adapted from scenes in the prequel comic The Sandman: Overture.
- Adaptation Distillation: Several sideplots from the comic book story are left out of the episode to focus on the main plot, including the fates of the man who supplied Burgess with the grimoire and of Burgess's assistant Mr Sykes, and has Unity Kincaid as the sole sleepy sickness case study instead of the four in the comic.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Ethel has blonde hair in the series; she had dark hair in the comic.
- Adaptation Name Change: In the comic, the guard whose dream of Majorca provides the key to Morpheus' escape is named Frederick; in the episode, his name is Frank.
- Adapted Out:
- In the comic, a butler named Compton shows Dr Hathaway into the house and brings the tea to his meeting with Roderick Burgess. He is absent from the episode, with his actions being given to Alex.
- In the comic, there are four of the victims of the sleepy sickness whose stories are told. In the episode, only Unity appears, and the other three are not mentioned.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Alex's mother is not around and no explanation is given as to why.
- And Starring: The cast roll of the first episode ends with "and Charles Dance".
- Artifact Title: In the comic, the "sleep of the just" was slept by Wesley Dodds after a night of fighting crime, since doing so meant he no longer dreamt of Morpheus. Dodds was Adapted Out along with most of the DC stuff, but the title remains.
- Been There, Shaped History: The imprisonment of Morpheus causes a worldwide pandemic of sleeping sickness.
- Both Sides Have a Point:
- After his father dies, Alex refuses to release Dream, because Dream won't promise not to harm Alex or his lover Paul if he's set free. Alex knows Dream is powerful and very, very angry. Alex was not the mastermind of his captivity and just wants to survive.
- Dream refuses to make any promises to Alex since he's already been betrayed twice — including Alex killing his raven Jessamy. He refuses to put his faith in Alex a third time or promise anything that might limit his ability to escape in the future.
- Candlelit Ritual: Roderick Burgess performs the summoning ritual in a cellar lit by dozens upon dozens of large candles, which blow out in a Dramatic Wind and reignite themselves when Morpheus appears. They could merely be set dressing, as he's described as a charlatan who lucked into a piece of genuine magic.
- Character Narrator: Morpheus narrates parts of the episode, mainly describing things that happen during his imprisonment.
- Compartment Shot: Used with Burgess's safe, when Sykes discovers that Ethel raided it when she left.
- Death by Falling Over: During an argument between Roderick and Alex, Alex pushes his father, who falls backward and whacks his head on Dream's prison. He dies from the head injury shortly afterward.
- Demoted to Extra: Though never a major character, Burgess' assistant Sykes did play a more significant role in the comic; he and Ethel ran off together with Dream's tools, and it was Sykes who traded the helm for the amulet of protection (before Ethel stole the amulet and took off on her own, leaving him to be killed by a curse from Burgess). In the episode, he's just kind of there; Ethel steals the tools from Burgess and leaves on her own.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation:
- Roderick Burgess, in the comic, simply died of old age. Here, he's Hoist by His Own Petard to a bigger degree, as he's inadvertently killed by Alex when Alex tries to defend himself against his father's violent abuse.
- Jessamy the raven, Matthew's predecessor. In the comic, we don't know why she's no longer around or what happened to her. Here, she's killed on-screen, shot dead by Alex while trying to free Dream from his prison.
- Dramatic Thunder: A flash of lightning and a roll of thunder underscores Ethel's declaration that from now on she's going to make her own destiny, and nobody's going to stand in her way.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The opening montage of the Dreaming includes brief glimpses of several characters, including Gregory the Gargoyle, Mervyn Pumpkinhead and Martin Tenbones, who will be properly introduced in later episodes.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Dream, a mysterious and powerful member of the Endless, is depicted with pale skin and black hair, and the bright light above him in his fishbowl only makes him look paler.
- Fisher King: Lucienne tells Morpheus that his realm the Dreaming, formerly a bright and colorful realm, decayed in his absence, because Morpheus and the realm are intimately connected.
- Foreshadowing: When Alex shoots Jessamy dead in front of the glass prison, Roderick scolds him, since the glass could have been cracked by the shot. Decades later, Frank, the guard who falls asleep after the binding circle is broken, is tricked by Morpheus into shooting at the glass prison and breaking it, allowing Morpheus to put him and his coworker to sleep while escaping.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Frank the guard falls asleep and drops his newspaper, a headline about the Kincaid family is briefly visible on an inner page.
- Gender Flip:
- The librarian of the Dreaming, Lucien, is male in the comic. In this series she's female and renamed Lucienne.
- One of Dream's two guards at the time of his escape is female. In the comic, both guards are male.
- Honor Before Reason: Dream is acutely aware of the damage being done as long as he's imprisoned, but refuses to barter with mortals demanding things that aren't his to give. This morphs into Revenge Before Reason after Jessamy is killed by Alex, to the point that Dream won't even accept an offer to simply spare Alex and Paul in return for his freedom.
- Hope Spot:
- Dream's raven Jessamy manages to sneak into Burgess' mansion, distract the guards, and reach Dream's prison. Just as it seems she might be able to break him out, she's killed by Alex Burgess in an attempt to prove his worth to his father.
- After Roderick Burgess' death, Alex comes within an inch of letting Dream free then and there before succumbing to his fears and leaving him imprisoned.
- Imperfect Ritual: Roderick intended to summon Death, but either through inexperience or happenstance, Dream is the one grabbed because he was on Earth at the time. Dream even describes him as an amateur, suggesting he could have summoned Death if he knew what he was doing.
- Internal Homage: Several shots in the episode, including the overhead shot of Dream unconscious in the summoning circle at the end of the ritual and the shot of Dream being drawn up into a bright light after his escape, are recreations of famous images from the original comic.
- Meaningful Look: After Paul breaks the lines of the magic circle imprisoning Dream, he looks back to make sure Dream is aware of what he's done and appears to be giving Dream a silent apology.
- Mistaken for Undead: One of the guards hired to look after Dream in his cell theorizes that Dream is a "Dracula".
- Mr. Exposition: The Corinthian plays this role for a scene. Wanting to keep Dream occupied, he visits Burgess and gives him advice about how to keep Dream imprisoned, in the process delivering a bunch of exposition about who Dream and the Endless are.
- Mythology Gag: When a freed Dream appears to Alex in his dream, his eyes are dark, but have an eerie glow to them, not unlike how his eyes were in the comic; pitch black, but twinkling like stars.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: At one point during her infiltration of Burgess' house, Dream's raven avoids Burgess' notice by standing still and pretending to be one of the many taxidermied animals scattered around the place.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- Dream enters the Waking with the intention of hunting down a rogue Nightmare who is murdering humans, only to find himself imprisoned by the very people he's trying to protect.
- Paul doesn't raise the alarm when he accidentally breaks the binding circle around Dream, and deliberately meets Dream's eye before leaving, implying that he's encouraging him to finally escape his prison. Before he leaves for the Dreaming, Dream condemns Alex to an eternal (and presumably torturous) sleep, and Paul is last seen begging for his partner to wake up.
- Object-Tracking Shot: The Dreaming is introduced with a long tracking shot that follows Jessamy as she flies from the waking world to the Dreaming, through the great gates, to Dream's palace, and through the palace to the throne room.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Roderick enters the cellar just in time to hear Alex tell Dream that he would set him free if he could, and immediately leaps to the conclusion that the two are conspiring together — unaware that Alex said that while pleading with Dream to give Roderick what he wants.
- Outliving One's Offspring:
- Roderick lost his oldest son Randall in the Great War.
- Dr. Hathaway also lost his son Edmund in the same war, which motivates him to give Roderick the Magdalene Grimoire despite having initially decided not to.
- Passive Rescue: Not wanting to directly contradict his lover's edicts, Paul helps Dream escape by breaking the line of the magical sigil that had been suppressing Dream's powers. This allows Morpheus to reach into the guard's dream and trigger the panic that leads to the guard shattering Dream's Glassy Prison, releasing Morpheus to return to the Dreaming.
- Race Lift:
- Unity Kincaid, and the rest of the Kincaid family, were white in the comic but black in the series, as is Lucienne.
- Paul is a blond white man in the comic, but is played by a Desi actor in the series.
- Real Event, Fictional Cause: The 1916 - 1926 Encephalitis lethargica pandemic is here caused by Dream's capture.
- Revenge Before Reason: Morpheus has the chance to escape his imprisonment, but is unwilling to forgive Alex for killing his raven. As a result, he's imprisoned for many more years and his realm falls into even greater decay in his absence.
- Scenery Censor: Morpheus is stripped of all his clothes when he is imprisoned, and is still naked during his breakout. In one shot that can't avoid showing him full-length from the front, when he's scooping up a handful of sand to use against his captors, his other hand just happens to be positioned in a way that blocks the audience's view of his genital area.
- Setting Update: The comic ran from the very late 80s to the mid 90s, and the main story was set during that time. The series moves the main story to the 2020s, with Morpheus remarking that his imprisonment has lasted over a century since it began in 1916.
- Shout-Out: The guard who thinks Dream is "one of them draculas" is reading a Stephen King novel.
- Silent Treatment: For over 100 years, Dream staunchly refuses to say a single word to any of his captors. He barely even makes enough eye contact to acknowledge that he can see and hear them, much to their supreme irritation.
- Sleepwalking: Dream induces this in Frank, forcing him to experience a waking nightmare so Frank will try to kill Dream, and in the process shatter his cell.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- There's no mention of Doctor Hathaway being Driven to Suicide by the shame of helping Roderick and giving him access to pillage rare artifacts from his museum. Granted, he's already an old man and the episode spans a century, so he's definitely still dead, but he might have lived long enough to die of old age in this version.
- In this version Ruthven Sykes does not betray Burgess (and Burgess seemingly has little or no actual magical skill bar the one semi-successful summoning ritual), so Sykes was presumably not magically murdered. Again, the timescale and his age means he's likely still dead by the end of the episode, but may have managed to die of old age.
- Summoning Ritual: Roderick Burgess's magical ritual involving artifacts, special ingredients, and chanting to summon and entrap Death. He gets Dream instead.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Furious over Alex killing Jessamy, Dream refuses to promise Paul and Alex's safety in exchange for his release, even though it means being held captive for 90 additional years. The first thing Dream does upon his release is confront Alex and punish him with Eternal Sleep.
- The Un-Favourite: Roderick prefers his elder son Randall, who died in the Great War, and treats Alex like an afterthought, to the point that another character is surprised to learn that he even has a second son. Alex makes several unwise decisions over the course of the episode in a futile attempt to gain his father's esteem.
- Ungrateful Bastard:
- Alex kills Jessamy like his father demanded, but all his father cares about is that he could have shot Dream's glass prison by accident.
- Even after Paul unconditionally frees him, Dream still takes his revenge on Alex and forces him into eternal sleep, despite knowing that they are romantically involved.
