The Doll’s House – As the seventh episode of The Sandman begins, Dream (Tom Sturridge) picks up a book with the name Rose Walker on the front. In Cape Kennedy, Florida in 2015, Rose (Vanesu Samunyai) and her brother prepare to move to New Jersey even though their dad doesn’t want them to go. Miranda Walker (Andi Osho) enters to tell Jed (Aryel Tsoto) that it might be better for her and Rose to get settled in New Brunswick before bringing him out. Rose doesn’t want to leave him, but Miranda says their dad changed his mind. Rose believes he is doing this out of spite since there was supposed to be shared custody. Miranda makes her daughter say goodbye to Jed. Desire (Mason Alexander Park) asks if the Queen of Despair (Donna Preston) is going to talk to her. Desire has news about Dream and not the prodigal. He has freed himself. Desire would like to snare him again even though Despair believes he has suffered enough.

Desire doesn’t like the fact that Dream still believes his realm is superior to theirs. She argues it is time he learned that dreams are merely echoes of desire and despair. Despair doesn’t think the new plan will work. Desire says Roderick Burgess was a diversion, but things have changed now. She goes on to say there is a dream vortex and it is a woman this time. Although the girl has no idea what she is, she is already doing what vortexes do. Desire reveals Rose Walker is the name of the woman who will be Dream’s undoing. Rose tells Lyta Hall (Razane Jammal) that she has found a new picture of Jed. It is 2021 in New Brunswick as Rose calls Miss Bloom and introduces herself. Lyta steps inside and learns that Carl (Ben Wiggins) is going to housesit while they’re gone. Rose tells Bloom that the picture is old, but you can see Jed’s face clearly in it.

When the foster agent wouldn’t tell them where Jed was placed, Bloom said they should hire a private investigator. She thought her mom’s estate would cover the cost. Rose insists she fully intends to pay her bill as soon as she finds a job. After the call, Rose tells Lyta and Carl that there is no money left because mom spent it all on the apartment. Rose doesn’t know how she can leave the country when she doesn’t have a job. Lyta says people are paying her to be there so she has a job. They’re paying her a per diem of 250 pounds a day to fly to London in exchange for one family history interview. After they board the airplane, Rose says the foundation wanted to meet her mom who was looking forward to this. Rose wants to make sure it gets easier and that Lyta doesn’t think about Hector every second of every day. Abel (Asim Chaudhry) talks to Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong) about the vortex.

Lucienne doesn’t want to hear about it because she is there conducting a census for Lord Morpheus. She wants a complete list of all entities living there. Abel tells her about the nasty thing in the basement and Goldie among others. When he asks if Morpheus knows about the vortex, Lucienne ensures him Morpheus has better things to do than listen to foolish rumors. Lyta admits Rose hasn’t been sleeping because she has been busy with the estate and trying to find her brother. They discuss the impact of her mom’s death before Lyta admits she doesn’t think she is okay either. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be on this plane talking to her dead husband. A stewardess wakes Lyta to ask her to put on her seatbelt. Vivienne returns to Morpheus to say she has accounted for 11,062 of them. Matthew the Raven (Patton Oswalt) listens as she says three of the Major Arcana are gone. They include Gault, Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), and Fiddler’s Green.

Dream finds the last one strange because he is a vavasor of his own dominion and always reliable. He blames himself for not being here, but Lucienne doesn’t think so. She tells him about the vortex. Dream confirms there is a vortex and it is a true annulet. Dream shows her a picture of Rose before admitting the endless are forbidden from taking action against any mortal who is not an active threat. If the threat becomes active, one of their problems may become a solution for the other three. As a vortex, she will eventually draw the stray dreams to her. Lucienne suggests that is dangerous since she could destroy the dreaming and the waking world.

Matthew offers to watch her in the waking world since Dream can only watch her dreams. Dream quickly agrees before Lyta wakes Rose once they reach their destination. Rose tells her she just had the weirdest dream before they get out. They’re greeted by the solicitor Mr. Holdaway (Peter De Jersey). They learn his client is a resident of the private care home for the elderly in front of them. Rose asks what an annulet is before Holdaway tells her it is a type of ring. Seconds later, they’re introduced to Unity Kincaid (Sandra James-Young) who shows them the dollhouse she had when she was a girl. It looks brand-new because she never got a chance to play with it even though it was a gift for her 12th birthday. The doctor told her she fell ill that night with encephalitis lethargica. She fell asleep and didn’t wake up until eight months ago. She had a glorious life in the dreams such as taking over her father’s business. She met a met with golden eyes and they had a baby.

When she woke up, she found out that the baby was the only thing that was real. Mr. Holdaway found out that the baby was adopted by a fine family and she grew up to have a daughter of her own. Her name was Miranda Walker. Unity calls herself Rose’s great-grandmother. In Huntsville, Alabama, the co-chairs of the planning committee try to find a suitable replacement for the Family Man. They need a marquee player because people have already bought tickets. They all agree they’d pay to see the Corinthian. They believe there have been multiple people called Corinthian over the years, but the current one does exquisite work. To get his attention, they’ll have to think and act like him. They have more than a hundred serial killers coming to this thing so they have to do something. The older man refuses to go along with that. When the woman goes to the restaurant, Fun Land wonders if the Corinthian has a type.

The Corinthian arrives at Rose’s flat where he encounters Carl. He claims he is a type of headhunter there to offer Rose a job so Carl offers to give her a message. Although she’ll be gone for about a week, Carl tells him he can come in and wait. When the female chair returns, she says the waiter isn’t coming back before showing her friends the man’s eyeballs. Rose leaves the room and begins hearing the Fates calling her name. She opens a good and finds herself face to face with Fate Mother (Nina Wadia), Fate Crone (Souad Faress), and Fate Maiden (Dinita Gohil). They tell her she is at a crossroads. They can only caution her and cannot protect her from life or the things that hover beyond life. The Fates tells her to beware of dreams and houses. If she had asked the right question, they could’ve warned her against the Corinthian. They could’ve told her about Jed and Morpheus. When Lyta opens the door and turns on the light, Rose finds herself in an empty room.

They return to Unity who learns that Lyta and her husband adopted Rose when her mom got sick. Unity offers to send a ticket to Hector only to learn he was killed in an accident when someone ran a red light. Unity thinks they’ve all had their lives terribly interrupted. When United mentions Rose’s brother, Rose admits she was going to hire a private investigator or travel to Cape Kennedy to look for him. Rose can’t do that until she has a job so Unity offers to employ her to locate her great-grandson. She can pay for everything because her family owned Kincaid Sugar. Unity wants Rose to have the ring her parents gave her a long time ago. Rose remembers having a dream in the car about an annulet. Corinthian finishes having sex with Carl before looking at a picture of Rose. He talks about reading people. He claims he left his old job to be independent and thinks he can put his old boss out of business with Rose by his side.

Corinthian checks his phone and learns about the copycat killing at the local diner. Carl tries to get one more round with him, but Corinthian refuses and tells him to ask Rose to call. Lucienne researches Rose and tells Matthew about her parents. When Merv Pumpkinhead (Mark Hamill) joins them, he learns the plans for the new celestarium have indeed been approved. He is more concerned about the vortex and insists Morpheus better be monitoring her dreams. They give Matthew advice on what to look for when stalking Rose. In particular, she should look for signs of shock, trauma, or things that could trigger her into killing all of them. Merv wants him to tell Lucienne first because everyone knows she secretly runs this place. Hal welcomes Rose when she arrives in Cape Kennedy. Hal (John Cameron Mitchell) introduces himself to Lyta. Hal owns the bread and breakfast.

They met on the phone when Rose made the reservation and disclosed their life stories over the phone. They’re quickly introduced to Ken and Barbie who are going to be their downstairs neighbors. Once they go inside, Chantal and Zelda give them their condolences. Hal confirms he invited Gilbert by slipping a note under his door. Once they leave, Hal admits nobody knows if they’re sister or lovers but knowing might ruin it. Gilbert lives in the attic room. They don’t see him much because he sits up there and reads. Matthew watches them from outside. When Rose and Lyta meet with the woman in charge of the adoption, she refuses to give them any information. Eleanor Rubio (Shelley Williams) wants to know what happens if Jed wants to live with Rose. She asks if she is ready to raise a 12-year-old boy. Jed’s fosters were friends of your dad’s. They took him in, applied to be his fosters, and now receive 800 a month so Jed is doing okay.

When they get back, Ken and Barbie want to take them out so they can learn about everything. They go to the club where Hal is on stage performing for everyone. Rose gets a call from Unity so she goes into the alleyway to talk to her, but Unity isn’t there. Two men approach her with the intention of robbing her until Gilbert (Stephen Fry) interrupts to stop them. She attacks one before he scares off the other. They learn they’re living at the same place and he is the Gilbert Hal was talking about. Matthew watches them before he returns to Lucienne to tell her about the attack. Lucienne is surprised when she can’t find Jed either. He is missing from the Dreaming world. Nimrod (Kerry Shale) and the others carry out two more copycat murders to try to get Corinthian’s attention. Corinthian interrupts to tell them the trick is to use your thumbs.

Fun Land, The Good Doctor, and Nimrod are surprised to see him. Corinthian wants to know why he shouldn’t kill them. The Doctor admits they want him to be their guest of honor at our annual gathering of collectors. He learns that they do not think he is the current Corinthian. He wonders if he can bring a guest who will take their shared dreams to a whole new level. They call her the vortex where he comes from. Rose wakes up and hears someone talking so she decides to look around. Dream admits Jed is in the realm of the living, but he can’t find him. It would require knowledge and power to break his connection to the Dreaming. The last nightmare Jed had before his disappearance was of Gault who might’ve severed him from the dreaming. After all, he is Rose Walker’s brother. Rose approaches them and introduces herself.

She asks what they know about her brother Jed. In a flashback, Jed is shown running down the road and stopping a car for help. Aunt Clarice (Lisa O’Hare) learns that he ran away because Uncle Barnaby (Sam Hazeldine) threatened to lock him in the cellar. Jed says he hates him and they should go anywhere. Before they can get away, Barnaby pulls up in his car to see what is going on. He makes Jed come with him and forces him to ride in the trunk.

 

The Sandman Review

It is beginning to look like The Sandman is trying too hard to cover as much subject material as possible since each episode is adding so many characters and new stories. Since the beginning, there hasn’t been a lot of time dedicated to letting the characters truly develop. Most of the characters introduced in the first two episodes are gone. There is no real protagonist or at the very least a weak one considering some episodes rarely focus on Dream.

Boyd Holbrook is probably the standout as Corinthian, but his exploits have been put on the back burner in the last few episodes. The Doll’s House brought him back and added a whole new story arc with the introduction of Rose and Jed Walker. It looks like the vortex or Rose can eliminate Dream or solve all his problems. I think the series would’ve been more successful had the episode count been dropped to at least 8 or even 6 and ended the season with the conclusion of John Dee’s story.

Viewers are being bombarded with countless new characters in this episode so it may feel overwhelming when they try to figure out who is who and what exactly is going on. Obviously, fans of the comic won’t have this issue but may find it a bit quick. Some of the performances in the seventh episode weren’t as good as the performances from the previous episodes and certain casting choices cracked the believability of the story a bit.

The episode was just okay so it scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of The Sandman can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our site here.