Our score: 8/10
Synopsis: Do not read if you don’t want to read any spoilers.
Possible triggers have been highlighted.
Dream of the Endless (Morpheus) leaves his realm to pursue a nightmare (Corinthian) who is killing people in the mortal realm. Dr Hathaway and Roderick Burgess attempts to summon and imprison Death to negotiate with her to resurrect their dead sons. Instead, they summon Dream.
Dream warns them that by apprehending him, they are causing harm to themselves and others, such as sleepers who will not awaken. Dream tries to persuade them that if they do not let him go, the damage to their realm and his dream world will be severe. Nearly 1 million people would fall asleep, not wake up, and suffer from sleepy sickness in every town and village around the world. The Corinthian instructs Dr. Hathaway and Burgess on how to confine Dream. They steal his tools, which include the ruby, mask, and sand. Burgess gains youth and prosperity from the ruby, but the rest of the world suffers.
Alex, Burgess’s son, is determined to set Dream free and continues to pay him visits. Alex is repeatedly told by his father to kill Dream’s raven, Jessamy, which he does 10 years later, in front of Dream by shooting it with a shotgun (a bit graphic and a possible trigger for animal lovers) and damning himself in the process. Dreams are becoming darker in the real world. Some people can’t sleep, while others sleep on. Alex also has a physical altercation with his father, killing him inadvertently.
Prior to his death, Burgess had a relationship with Ethel Cribbs. He orders her to abort the child when she becomes pregnant. To protect her son, she steals Dream’s tools, the ruby, mask, and talisman (sand), flees, and gives birth to a boy.
Following Burgess’ death, Alex asks Dream if he can forgive him for killing his raven, to which Dream simply glares at him. Alex abandons him there, desperate to be free of him but afraid of retaliation. (Alex’s sexual orientation could be a potential trigger for viewers, but the show’s producers do not show anything that could be considered offensive for people who would might see this as a trigger).
Almost a century after his imprisonment, Dream finally escapes through one of the guards’ dreams.
“I was imprisoned in a cage for over a century,” he says. “The mortal world has been greatly harmed”.
As a punishment, he decides to bestow the gift of eternal sleep on Alex. Dream recognizes that nightmares and dreams have been around for more than a century. The entire dream world has gone wrong. During his absence, Lucienne, his librarian, remained loyal and remained in the Dream realm.
