We open with Dream and his new raven the only raven that matters now so please shut up about it, Dream, heading into hell. Give it up to the hair and makeup team and the costume design guys on this show, because every time I see Dream full-on with his black coat and black boots, and he’s approximately the width of two of my fingers, I’m like, yeah, I recognize him. This is the sulky fuckboy with near-infinite power that I remember from the comics.
What you don’t realize about is that this is secretly an episode of The Amazing Race, a television program I have never seen but I’m pretty confident this joke works. Our teams are competing to find and retrieve the final tool that was taken from Dream during his captivity, a ruby of unknowable power. Last time Dream had it, he got captured by penny-ante magicians! Last time John Dee had it, he killed a whole bunch of people! Whatever the outcome of this thrilling race against time, you can be sure that the person who triumphs is going to use their winnings to really thrive.
Let’s meet our first team! As you remember, John Dee has recently escaped from Arkham Asylum, splatting at least three people in the process. He looks terribly forlorn and pitiful in his asylum clothes, and a kindly woman—after hitting him with her car—offers him a ride. She is played by Sarah Niles, who you remember as the inexplicably chilly and hostile therapist from Ted Lasso. They bond over both having terrible mothers, and you can almost, sort of, slightly feel like John Dee might be okay, until he starts talking about the people he’s killed. At that point you just know that John Dee is going to kill very nice Rosemary and her very nice Rottweiler, so it’s stressful. I was so worried about Rosemary that I looked up whether she was going to survive, because this character is a sweet dear in the comics too and John Dee very much kills her. (TV Rosemary does survive. THANK GOD.)
Our second team are Dream and the raven he doesn’t want, whose name is Matthew and who is voiced by Patton Oswalt. In order to find the ruby, they first have to get Dream’s helmet back from the demon who has it, so they’re heading down to hell for some exposition, as if we the viewers don’t already know the backstory on Lucifer. I could have done with slightly more images of the things being done to the tortured souls of hell, but the visuals we do get, of humans half-transformed into cave walls and trees, writhing in agony, are quite creepy and awful. It’s nasty. I loved it. Dream explains to Matthew that Lucifer is miles more powerful than he, Dream, is, and that Dream isn’t an honored guest the way he was the last time he was here. I guess because of not having his helmet?
Their guide takes them on a path that Dream isn’t as familiar with, and things take a real turn when one of the tortured souls of Hell recognizes Dream. She’s a young Black woman called Nada, and when she speaks to Dream, he appears as a young Black man, which is a good echo of the comics that ???hopefully???? will make the optics of the Nada storyline less horrifying. Anyway, Nada is here in Hell, she’s being tortured, and only Dream’s forgiveness can free her. He admits that he still loves her, but he has not forgiven her. My fuckboy dial spun round and round at top speed, became a blur, and then broke off with a loud twanging noise. Dream is the worst, and after the last episode’s batch o’ violent deaths for characters of color, I was in no mood for this.
And yes! Since you ask! They did indeed walk past Nada on purpose! Lucifer wanted to fuck with Dream. I had mixed feelings because on one hand, hate this for Nada, but on the other hand, I’m incapable of not being delighted when someone fucks with Dream.
I can’t decide how I feel about Gwendolen Christie’s performance as Lucifer. I enjoyed her time with Dream, but more because of the way Dream is responding to her than anything she herself is doing. It’s a real “is she good or is she just tall” moment. What does come through is that Lucifer and Dream kinda like each other, or at least enjoy butting heads, but that’s not going to stop Dream from being autocratic, or Lucifer from fucking with Dream to the limits of her power. Dream doesn’t know the name of the demon that has his helmet, so Lucifer summons every demon.
She thinks this is very clever, but perhaps not to my surprise, Dream is unfoiled. He pours out some of his sand, which will bring “that which is mine in Hell” to him. Choronzon, Duke of Hell, shows up with spiky purple hair and Dream’s helmet, and he is not prepared to give the helmet back without a fight. Cool! Dream is going to fight on his own behalf, but Choronzon asks Lucifer to be his representative in the fight. If I were the ruler of all hell, I would probably not agree to fight on behalf of my lowly demon subjects, even to fuck with a self-serious member of the Endless, but of course Lucifer probably gets bored and needs to liven things up. She’s excited to fight Dream, and Dream gets a face on him like: This is bloody typical. See! This is how you make Dream relatable! Not by having him keep giving too many damns about his damn raven!
The fight between Dream and Lucifer is a) too faithful to the comics and b) way the fuck too slow. The genre of fight is that they’re transforming into things and trying to defeat each other as those things. Ultimately Lucifer says that she’s the end of all life, and Dream says he’s hope, and that’s the battle won. It is pretty anticlimactic considering all the writhing, tormented bodies Dream walked past to get here. I have also long been of the opinion that we’ve already seen the best version of this type of duel, and it was the duel Merlin had with the magnificent marvelous mad mad mad mad Madam Mim. It’s done! It’s over! The apex of this art form has been achieved! Other media should just admit defeat and go home.
(Matthew gives Dream a pep talk in the middle of this speech, but I thought that was really stupid so I refuse to say more about it.)
Dream walks away from Lucifer in slow motion with triumphant music playing behind him. It is just a little bit too much. That Tom Sturridge has resting Blue Steel face is good most of the time and is certainly in keeping with the character. But in this moment, with the slow-mo and the soundtrack trying to hype him up, I was forced to say aloud in the quiet of my own home: “The files are in the computer,” just to remind Dream that he’s not all that.
With the helmet in hand, Dream’s able to find his way to the ruby. It’s a real good news / bad news situation: Yeah, he gets to the ruby first and you think he’s won the Amazing Race, but, downside, John Dee was telling the truth last time: He changed the ruby so only he can use it, so the ruby knocks Dream out. John Dee strolls in, still looking as waifishly ill as ever, and picks the ruby up. When he goes back outside, he finds that Rosemary is still there, waiting to offer him a ride, and he gives her his amulet of protection to Rosemary. We all breathe a sigh of relief when the credits roll, because it means that Rosemary and her very good dog are going to live. Good luck, Rosemary and Susie!
How I’d fix this episode: Cut the exposition by two thirds and make the fight more exciting! For God’s sake! I have never seen a high-stakes fight that proceeded so slowly. Also, I would have liked to see more torments for the souls in hell. If the writers couldn’t think of any themselves, they were perfectly able to steal the ones that Dante talks about in Inferno. It is out of copyright.
Number of things Dream cares about in this episode, other than his duty: None. It’s literally just his duty all episode long. When Matthew gives him his pep talk (I’m not discussing it), the whole contents of the pep talk are just, You have a duty to me, your raven and your subject, and Dream’s like, oh yeah, good point, and gathers his shit together to win the fight.
Does Dream do a sulk? Sooooooort of. Like, the aftermath of his relationship with Nada is one giant sulk, and you see the traces of it as he’s walking away from where she’s imprisoned. But I think that’s not enough of a standalone sulk, so I’m going to say, no.
Fuckboy energy: Fuckin… twelve zillion out of ten. His fuckboy energy when he’s talking to Nada, and then talking to Matthew about Nada, is through the roof. Dream is a total crapsack. I do very much like the actor who plays the version of Dream Nada sees. His name’s Ernest Kingsley Jr., and he’s starring as the title character in a forthcoming Hulu adaptation of Washington Black. Can’t wait! Cheekbones!