Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Sandman season 2’s special episode!It wouldn’t be a season of The Sandman if Death didn’t get the final word in before we say goodbye. The last, and very special, episode of the fantasy TV show, “Death: The High Cost of Living,” brings back the structure of one of the best installments of season 1, “The Sound of Her Wings,” which saw Morpheus spend time with his sister, who quickly became a standout character of the series. In the latest exploration of what life is like for the embodiment of its end, Kirby Howell-Baptiste is at her best as Death.
“Death: The High Cost of Living” feels like a cool, calm salve after an action-packed season that raced to pack in all of the comic’s biggest takeaways and emotional moments. After The Sandman season 2, volume 1 and season 2, volume 2, the big narrative arc surrounding Dream and his inevitable fate has ended, but Death’s job is never done. However, the audience is lucky enough to spend time with her while she’s on a brief vacation, and she gets to be surprised and delighted once again by the way humans work.
There’s Nothing The Sandman Loves More Than Reminding Us Why Life Is Worth Living
The Cost Of Living Might Be High, But The Sandman’s Characters Are Happy To Be Paying It
The first thing viewers will notice about this season’s bonus installment is how remarkably ordinary it is for almost the entire runtime. Whereas season 1’s “Dream of a Thousand Cats; Calliope” played with form and storytelling through animation and brought myths to life, this story is all about what makes the simple act of being alive an adventure in and of itself. However, this episode only further cements how well The Sandman works when it switches up its structure, in whatever shape that takes.
Colin Morgan stars in the episode alongside Howell-Baptiste as Sexton, a journalist who encounters Death on her one day off every hundred years when she enters a mortal body and lives as a human. While Death is keen to enjoy her day and remember why she loves humans so desperately, it wouldn’t be The Sandman if there wasn’t plenty of bitter with the sweet. Sexton meets Death when he’s on the verge of committing suicide, and his admiration for humanity is at an all-time low.
The story is markedly different from the source material. Fortunately, the changes made give Howell-Baptiste’s Death even more agency and long-lasting influence by decreasing the romantic angle between Sexton and Death. While there’s still love and connection, it becomes more profound because Sexton chooses to live outside the bounds of his romantic attachments to other people. He realizes there’s still excitement out there and undiscovered reasons why every day is a gift. However, he could only learn this through the eyes of someone with just that day.
The answer lies with people and what they mean to us, as well as in the awareness that life’s brevity is what makes it precious.
Mercifully, “Death: The High Cost of Living” doesn’t spend too much time dragging the audience down with reminders of why exactly Sexton is so down on the future of humanity. The show knows we’re well-aware of how bad things have gotten and can’t seem to stop getting, and it doesn’t ask us to pretend that this isn’t happening. However, it offers a sliver of hope and an option other than total despair all the time. The answer lies with people and what they mean to us, as well as in the awareness that life’s brevity is what makes it precious.
In terms of the season as a whole, the episode doesn’t have anything new to say; it just helps us put the themes and messages of the project back into our everyday perspective of boring, magical human life. However, as a standalone installment, this is what makes it so beautiful. Existing in a vacuum, the story is almost painfully poignant, made even more so by the dual performances of Howell-Baptiste and Morgan, who have an easy chemistry, allowing Sexton and Death to act like old friends from the start.
The Special Episode Is A Refreshing Palate Cleanser After A Heavy Season Of The Sandman
The Sandman Season 2 Took Some Big Emotional Swings, So The Series Needed This Comedown
These standalone additions to The Sandman canon are always interesting because they follow a much more linear narrative and contained arc than any other episode in the series. However, The Sandman season 2’s official series finale might have been satisfying and justified in its big emotions, but that didn’t make it any less intense or cathartic. Since the show was cut short, it didn’t have as much room to breathe this season, and this is where the special episode comes in.
“Death: The High Cost of Living” can exist within the boundaries of The Sandman universe because audiences know that the reason we follow Dream on his mystical adventures is to use that as a tool to reflect on our own lives. Not every episode of the show can be these windows into the simple life, but when they work, they never fail to make the audience at least a little bit misty. As The Sandman fades from view and we move on to other fantasy stories, revisiting episodes like this will draw us back in, and we’ll go willingly.
The Sandman Season 2: Special Episode
9/10
- Release Date
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2022 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Allan Heinberg
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Tom Sturridge
Morpheus / Dream
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Boyd Holbrook
The Corinthian
- The performances by Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Colin Morgan are incredible.
- This story is sentimental yet wise, making it a perfect palate cleanser for the season.
- The episode rehashes the same themes as the rest of the season.
