My Thoughts on The Sandman from Jake Schoeneberger — September 16, 2022
It’s a race to save Jed’s life on The Sandman. Jacob Schoeneberger is wondering who will get to him first, Rose or Dream?
With that in mind, here are some random observations I have on the show.
All the Jake Schoeneberger Random Opinions about The Sandman (Season 1, Episode 8)
This will contain spoilers for anyone who hasn’t watched the show yet.
The eighth episode begins right where the last left off. Rose is in the palace in The Dreaming with Morpheus and Lucienne. Lucienne insists Rose shouldn’t be there, but Dream wants her to stay. He tells her that he believes Jed is with one of his missing nightmares. And he explains that Rose is a dream vortex, a mortal born once every few thousand years with a dreaming ability so powerful she can travel through the dreams of others. He says that if she is able to find him in his palace in The Dreaming, then she is powerful enough to also find Jed.
He tells Rose to keep searching for Jed in the waking world, and that Matthew will watch over her there. And when she sleeps, they can team up to look for Jed together in The Dreaming. Ok, Jake Schoeneberger likes this plan. Let’s put the dream vortex to use for good instead of bad.
We then find Gault controlling Jed’s dreams. She has created an elaborate world wherein Jed is a superhero called The Sandman, fighting villains and having adventures. In this adventure, she sets up a villain for Jed to fight called the Pied Piper. But she loses control of the dream, and rats appear out of a sewer and swarm onto Jed. Then Jed awakens in real life and finds that a rat bit his hand. He’s being kept in some kind of dingy basement.
He crawls to the top of the stairs and knocks on the locked door there. His Aunt Clarice wants to free him, but Barnaby says that the second they let him out he’ll just try to escape again. Hmm, wonder why? Because he’s trapped in a dirty basement with rats maybe?
Rose calls Unity to ask her if she can continue her search for Jed in Florida. But as they talk, Rose hears a man in the background, and Unity says it’s a journalist interviewing her about the sleepy sickness. But then we find this “journalist” is actually Corinthian, and Jacob Schoeneberger nearly had a heart attack. He asks Unity where Rose is and she innocently tells him that she’s in Cape Kennedy, so now he knows exactly where to look for her. Perfect.
In Florida, Rose has made fliers to put up looking for Jed. All the housemates agree to help pin them up, right after Lyta wakes up.
We then find Lyta in a dream with Hector. But Hector says he’s not sure he’s a dream because when she wakes up he does things while he waits for her. He even built their dream house, and he gives her a tour of it. He built it exactly how she designed it, and he even shows her the nursery. He says they can achieve their dream of having kids if she’ll just stay with him there. And now Jake Schoeneberger is starting to feel like something just isn’t right about these dreams of Hector. She tells him she can’t stay because eventually she has to wake up.
Dream asks Lucienne why she thinks Gault would target Jed instead of Rose. She explains that Rose is the daughter of Unity, who fell asleep the day Dream was imprisoned, and awoke the day he was set free. She suggests that maybe Dream’s imprisonment was a way to create a dream vortex, but Dream insists that they are a naturally occurring phenomenon and can’t be created.
Lyta goes to see the foster home woman, Ms. Rubio, to ask if maybe she can just check in on Jed to make sure he’s ok because that would help Rose’s peace of mind. Ms. Rubio says she can’t just drop everything, so Lyta leaves peacefully, but after she’s gone Ms. Rubio calls and speaks to Clarice. Clarice tells Barnaby that the foster care people are stopping by to check on Jed. She pleads with him that if he doesn’t want Jed, they can always just give him back, but he says he’s not giving up the $800 a month they get from the foster care agency.
Barnaby calls Jed up and tells him that the foster agency is coming to check up on him. He says that if Jed is good he can sleep in his own bed again. But if he says anything he shouldn’t then Barnaby will break every bone in his body. As he heads away to get cleaned up, Jed is able to grab a pad of sticky notes and a pen, using bravery and ingenuity under stress.
As Rose and Hal are putting fliers up by the beach, we find that Corinthian is following them. Ok, Jacob Schoeneberger has to wonder how Corinthian moves so quickly around the globe. Does he use people’s nightmares? I thought he said he was never going back to The Dreaming again. Just as he approaches Rose, he realizes she’s talking to Matthew and that Morpheus can see into the waking world using Matthew’s eyes. He makes a hasty retreat, not wanting to be seen by Matthew. He instead follows Hal and asks him for a flier. He leaves just as Rose approaches.
Ms. Rubio interviews Jed in front of Barnaby and Clarice so he never has a chance to give her the note. As he walks away, he gives Ms. Rubio a hug and drops his note into her purse, once again using some good thinking. Back at her office, just as Ms. Rubio opens her purse, the door opens and in walks Corinthian.
At the house, Barnaby shows Jed the note. Apparently he found it before Ms. Rubio could see it. And at her office, we find that Corinthian has killed Ms. Rubio and is looking through her files to find Jed.
Rose goes to sleep and starts entering into her friends’ dreams. She sees Hal playing Dolly, but in his dream he peels off his faces. Then Rose sees Lyta making love to Hector in her dream. She runs and in the next dream she finally finds Morpheus. She asks why she’s in the dreams of her friends, and he says she’s drawing their dreams to her. They enter the dreams of Chantal, Ken, Barbie, and Zelda as Rose searches for Jed. Morpheus tells her that most people look for home in their dreams, so Rose finds their childhood home in The Dreaming realm.
In her control room, Gault’s sirens begin to blare because Morpheus is near. Ohhh, Jake Schoeneberger is thinking you’re in major trouble now, Gault. When Gault tells Jed that Morpheus is the King of Nightmares who’s come to take her away, he throws his sand and appears before Rose and Morpheus.
Then Gault comes and puts her hand on Jed’s shoulder. Rose recognizes her as taking the form of their mother, but Morpheus assures her that it is not her mother. He changes Gault’s appearance back to her normal form. Jed is scared but Rose reassures him and asks him to tell her where he is. He doesn’t realize it’s a dream, but he says that Barnaby and Clarice are in Home Land. Then Morpheus makes Rose and Jed wake up. Jed cries out for Rose as he awakens, and Barnaby is about to go hurt him when the doorbell rings. So it’s either Publisher’s Clearing House or it’s Corinthian. Hmmmm.
In Lyta’s dream, Hector again pressures her to stay with him in his dream. He says they can have the life they always wanted and have a baby. And all of a sudden, her belly expands, and they realize she’s pregnant.
Rose goes online in the waking world and is able to find Barnaby and Clarice’s address in Homeland, Florida. Good detective work! She knocks on Lyta’s door and says she found Jed’s address. When Lyta emerges from the room, we see that she’s pregnant in real life. That one has Jacob Schoeneberger scratching his head.
In the basement, Jed hears banging and screaming coming from upstairs. We can only imagine what Corinthian must have done to Barnaby and Clarice.
In the palace, Gault explains that she was trying to create a world for Jed to escape the tortures of his real life. Morpheus says that dreams are not a place for mortals to hide from their real lives, but Gault says she wants to be a dream, not a nightmare anymore. Morpheus tells her that no one can choose to be anything except what they are. She says she’s not afraid of what Morpheus will do to her. He tells her that a nightmare’s purpose is to reveal the dreamer’s fears so that they may face them. He then sentences her to a couple thousand years in the darkness, and she begins to fade away. But before she’s gone, she tells him that the darkness is better than making people afraid, and that even nightmares can dream. Wow, that hit Jake Schoeneberger pretty hard. I wonder how it made Morpheus feel? When you attach sentience to any being, you can’t be surprised when that being chooses its own course in life.
Lucienne tells Morpheus that she used to be something else before he made her the librarian of The Dreaming. She says we all change, so maybe he should consider it himself. He dismisses her back to the library coldly.
Jed comes upstairs and finds the wreckage of the fight. Then Corinthian appears and tells him that Rose sent him. Oh, you big liar!
Rose arrives at the house sometime later and finds the police. She asks if Jed was inside, but a police officer tells her that only two adult victims were found. The final shot is of Corinthian driving away with Jed, and we all have to worry about how Rose is going to get him away from that evil.
The Jake Schoeneberger Final Thought on The Sandman
As the plot twists, we find that we care more and more about these characters with every episode. It’s the sign of a great piece of work, and Jacob Schoeneberger is enthralled by how tightly woven this story is.
More Thoughts from Jacob Schoeneberger