Lucienne completes a census of the Dreaming and finds three of the "major arcana" still unaccounted for: the Corinthian, another nightmare called Gault, and an entity called Fiddler's Green. She also hears rumors of a Dream Vortex forming, with the potential to do great damage to both the Dreaming and the waking world. Morpheus is already aware of the Vortex, embodied in a young woman named Rose Walker, and proposes to keep an eye on her and only act if the Vortex reaches a critical level — hoping that in the meantime the Vortex will draw the three missing entities out of hiding.
Rose is an orphan whose only living relative is her brother Jed, who she hasn't seen or heard from since their parents split up years ago. She travels to England with her friend Lyta after receiving an invitation to meet a mysterious woman, who she learns is her great-grandmother, Unity Kincaid. Unity fell into a coma when Morpheus was captured in 1916 and only awoke a few months ago when he escaped. While she was in the coma, she was raped and gave birth to a daughter, Rose's grandmother, and is now seeking to reconnect with her surviving descendants. She offers to cover Rose's expenses while she goes in search of Jed.
Rose and Lyta head to Florida, and book into a B&B with a variety of eccentric occupants while Rose attempts to get some answers out of the foster care bureaucracy about where Jed went after his father died. Lucienne decides to locate Jed through his dreams and makes the disquieting discovery that he's missing in the Dreaming as well, apparently as a result of action taken by the missing nightmare Gault.
Meanwhile, Dream's siblings Desire and Despair plot to use the Vortex against him, to show him that his domain is not more powerful than theirs, and the Corinthian is trying to track Rose down so he can use the Vortex for his own ends, but is side-tracked by a group of self-described "collectors" who want to invite him as the guest of honor to their annual convention.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Jed is forced to live apart from his sister, just because his divorced father wants to Kick the Dog with his ex. Then he's adopted by a foster father who has no problem locking him in the basement or the trunk of his car.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In the comic, Despair is obese, has fangs, and her skin has an inhuman pallor. In the TV series, she's completely human-looking, and just a
Hollywood Homely version of an overweight woman in unflattering clothes. - Adaptational Backstory Change: Lyta and her late husband Hector are architects. In the comic, they were former superheroes; Lyta was the daughter of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, and Hector was the son of Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
- Adaptational Friendship: Rose Walker and Lyta Hall know each other and are established to be good friends from the start whereas their comic book counterparts met much later and were merely babysitter and employer.
- Adaptational Modesty: The TV version of Despair wears a dowdy outfit with much more coverage than her comic book counterpart, who generally (and specifically in the scene adapted in this episode) didn't bother getting dressed at all.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In the comic, Rose was a lot more stand-offish to the people she was living with, and their introductions that was from her letter to Unity had a feel of "look at the freaks that surround me" to it.
- Adaptational Timespan Change: In the comic, Rose spends around a week at Hal's boarding house before getting a lead on Jed's location and heading out to fetch him, and it's most of the week before she goes to see Hal's drag show and meets Gilbert. In the series, she goes to see the drag show on her first night in the house, and it's only a couple of days total before she finds out where Jed is.
- Adapted Out:
- In the comics, Jed went to live with his paternal grandfather for a while after his father died, before his grandfather died and he ended up with Barnaby and Clarice. In the series, Barnaby and Clarice got custody after his father died and his grandfather is not mentioned.
- In the comics, Jed is mentioned to have a foster cousin named Barnaby Jr, who is Barnaby and Clarice's biological son. This is not the case in the series.
- Alone with the Psycho: Carl has a fling with the Corinthian in a scene laden with Dramatic Irony. He ultimately never realizes how close he came to dying.
- Bury Your Gays: Averted; Corinthian doesn't kill Carl, the gay man house-sitting Rose's apartment, because he needs him alive to let him know when Rose returns. Taking Carl's eyes would only tell him what he's already found out.
- Captain Obvious: Matthew is not impressed when he's told to look out for anything unusual (said the Pumpkin Man to the talking bird) or anything that might shock or kill Rose (which is anything in the Waking World).
- Chekhov's Gun: The emphasis laid on the fact that Matthew is new to the Dreaming and doesn't really know what to look for while he's watching Rose means that in dramatic terms it's inevitable he's going to overlook something important. (Which he does, in this episode, but it's not until a couple of episodes later in "Collectors" that it becomes apparent what.)
- Composite Character: Lyta's role in this episode is taking the place of Rose's mother, who in the comic was still alive and was the one who accompanied Rose to England.
- Continuity Nod:
- During the conversation between Desire and Despair, Dream's relationship with Nada and his capture by Roderick Burgess are referred to as the results of earlier plots against him by Desire.
- When the Corinthian is in Rose's apartment, he casually looks at a framed picture of Judy from "24/7".
- Damsel out of Distress: A couple of muggers try to steal Rose's phone and annulet, but she uses a bottle to knock the knife out of the hand of one, while Gilbert deters the other with his Sword Cane.
- Daydream Surprise: During the transatlantic flight, Lyta strikes up a conversation with the man seated across the aisle. It's framed as an ordinary scene, but then Lyta remembers that the man — her late husband — couldn't actually be there, and then she's woken up by a flight attendant.
- Dead Person Conversation: Lyta falls asleep during the transatlantic flight and dreams of a conversation with her late husband about how she's holding up.
- Death by Adaptation: Rose Walker's mother, Miranda, is still alive in the comic, and accompanies Rose to England, staying there with Unity while Rose goes in search of Jed. In the series, she has recently died.
- Department of Child Disservices: Jed's foster care caseworker refuses to give his sister any information on where he is or his well-being; while she does have some points in that it would be very difficult for Rose to take care of him if he wanted to leave with her (Unity hasn't yet offered to have Rose and Jed come live with her), she clearly hasn't bothered to check in on him either. Additionally, even blood relatives have to prove their fitness; Jed asking for Rose to be his guardian wouldn't immediately make it happen, so it's not as if he would be automatically catapulted into an unprepared twenty-something's care just by her being allowed to visit him.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Lyta reminds Rose that the offer from London includes a "per diem of two hundred fifty pounds a day". "Per diem" means "each day".
- Dramatic Irony: Rose's gay housesitter Carl has a fling with the Corinthian while the nightmare is searching for Rose. He's Alone with the Psycho without realizing his danger. As the Corinthian is about to leave, Carl tries to convince him to stay, and the Corinthian visibly waffles over whether to stay and kill Carl, but he ultimately leaves. Carl is disappointed, not realizing how close he came to dying.
- Dream Walker: Rose walks in on Dream and Lucienne in their palace, discussing her brother.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Unity gave birth while unconscious in the hospital. It's not the fact that she was (as far as she knew, since she had no way to know that the child was from the consensual romance she had in her dreams) raped while comatose that bothers her, but the fact that her dream life never happened and she has a real family she's never met.
- Foreshadowing: As a gift to mark their family connection, Unity gives Rose an old ring that she refers to as an "annulet", surprising Rose, who recently heard the word for the first time when she dream-eavesdropped on Lucienne and Morpheus talking about the Dream Vortex. The coincidence foreshadows the revelation, a few episodes later, that Rose's role as the Vortex is a consequence of her family connection to Unity.
- In Rose's brief encounter with the Three Who Are One, they tell her that she wouldn't want to meet them as the Kindly Ones. This is a reference to a future storyline.
- Forgot About His Powers: While Unity hasn't yet offered to have Rose and Jed live with her, "I've recently reconnected with my filthy rich great-grandmother, who's paying me to find my little brother so she can meet him" would still be a great bargaining chip, but Rose doesn't mention Unity to the social worker at all.
- Jack the Ripoff: Fun Land, Nimrod and the Good Doctor do copycat killings of the Corinthian's work (in fairness, they think he's a Legacy Character copying or continuing the work of the original Corinthian) to gain his attention so he'll make contact. Rather than take offense and kill them, the Corinthian is pleased to hear of a conference of serial killers inspired by his murders, and decides to work them into his Evil Plan for Rose.
- Idiot Ball: While the Corinthian may be The Charmer, Carl (Rose's house sitter) is still incredibly foolish for inviting him into the apartment and having a fling with him. The only reason he's not Too Dumb to Live is because the Corinthian decides against killing him.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: The "cereal" convention in the comics was the first (and last) of its kind. Here, Fun Land, Nimrod, and the Good Doctor are organizing the latest one, meaning the "cereal" convention has been going on for years without any of the "collectors" getting caught. Naturally, the reason this year's convention features in the story is that this is the year when the warranty runs out.
- Mythology Gag: The restaurant where the "collectors" meet is called Mike's Drinks & Burgers as a shout-out to Mike Dringenberg, the original artist on the comic.
- Perky Goth: Chantal and Zelda, two of Hal's lodgers. Though Chantal is the chattier of the pair, they are both very friendly to Rose and the other lodgers.
- Portal Picture: When Matthew is sent to keep an eye on Rose in the waking world, he flies up to the ceiling, which is painted to resemble the sky — then into the painting, which gradually becomes a real sky from which he descends into Florida.
- Pumpkin Person: Merv Pumpkinhead, the handyman of Dream's palace, is an animated scarecrow with a carved pumpkin for a head.
- Related Differently in the Adaptation: In the comic, Unity is Rose's mother's mother. In the TV series, due to the extra decades added to Dream's imprisonment, she's Rose's mother's mother's mother.
- Refuge in Audacity: Organizing a "Cereal Convention" in broad daylight (and hiding under that lame pun of an event name) has to fall under here.
- Rule of Three: Dream finds out from Lucienne that 3 major arcana of the Dreaming are missing: Gault, the Corinthian, and Fiddler's Green.
- Sword Cane: Gilbert wields one when he comes to Rose's aid against the muggers.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Fun Land, Nimrod and the Good Doctor don't look like stereotypical serial killers at all.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: In the comic, Aunt Clarice is a cousin of Jed's father, and gets custody of Jed as his nearest surviving relative on that side of the family. In the series, Clarice and Barnaby are friends of Jed's father but not relatives.
- Voice for the Voiceless: Zelda never speaks audibly; when she has something to say she whispers it in Chantal's ear, and Chantal repeats it out loud.
- Wasteful Wishing: When Rose encounters the Fates, she's entirely unprepared and doesn't know the rule that each supplicant gets only three questions, so she blows two questions straight off by asking who they are and how they know her name, and when they explain that they've come to warn her she messes up the third question by asking a vague "What do you mean?" instead of a more focussed question like "What, exactly, am I in danger from?"
