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The Sandman, Netflix’s long-awaited adaptation of the much-loved comics, hasn’t yet been renewed for a season 2, but that hasn’t stopped creator Neil Gaiman from thinking about what he would include in the next chapter. And if you’ve watched all 10 episodes, it should come as no surprise that those plans include Lucifer Morningstar and her revenge.
Very much a sprawling epic, where characters dip in and out of Dream of the Endless’ life, The Sandman follows the titular cosmic being as he traverses different worlds to reclaim his tools and restore his realm, having previously been imprisoned by an amateur magic user for 100 years. His efforts see him pay a visit to Lucifer (Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie) in episode 4, after learning that his missing helm is in the possession of a demon.
When Dream (Tom Sturridge), AKA Morpheus, orders the underworld-dwelling thief to give him back what’s his, Choronzon, the demon, suggests they fight for it. Dream accepts, knowing that he’ll be enslaved in Hell if he loses, Choronzon nominates Lucifer as his champion, and so the latter and Dream engage in ‘The Oldest Game’. No fisticuffs here – instead, supernatural entities use their imaginations to inflict harm on one another. Lucifer "transforms" herself into a dire wolf, a poison-toothed serpent, a virus, a supernova, and the anti-life, but Dream’s hunter, bird of prey, and hope manages to best the Devil – and publicly humiliate her in the process.
We don’t see Lucifer again until the final moments of the season 1 finale, where she vows to team up with Azazel, invade The Dreaming, the Waking World, and the Silver City, make "God absolutely livid", and "bring Morpheus to his knees".
"The Silver City is the place where the angels live," Gaiman explains to Total Film, teasing what would be to come. "Lucifer is very much a fallen angel and you get that amazing Gwendoline Christie beauty, and presence, and gloriousness. But the idea of actually getting to meet some honest-to-goodness angels from the Silver City? That would definitely be something we would want to have happen. And also, you know, season two would essentially begin with the Lucifer/Morpheus rematch – the rematch to end all rematches. Lucifer is not going to let things end in the way that Lucifer let things end at the end of episode 4, this is going to go so much darker – but it's also going to go to places that people are not expecting."
"They really built that palace," Christie tells us in a separate interview when asked what Lucifer and Dream’s first face-off was like to shoot. "It was up on stilts. It was a huge set, with pits of fire. It had human bodies coming out of the walls. It was an extraordinary thing. We obviously did use many VFX elements, particularly during the challenge – those are always tough, but working with Tom Sturridge was genuinely a delight. It was all about the embrace that we had together as actors, the connection that we had, and the trust that we had in each other.
"We really loved playing those scenes. So, it was all about listening to Tom and reacting to it. We had a brilliant director, Jamie Childs, who wanted to push things as far as possible. We had different ideas for our performances in terms of the emotionality or how far we wanted to take it, and he was really willing to go there with us. It was a surprising and joyous, collaborative experience... in Hell."
Since its release, The Sandman has nabbed the number one spot on the Netflix Top 10 chart in over 89 countries and has been watched for 69.5 million hours across the globe. With that, it seems inevitable that the streamer will announce a second season soon. For now, all 10 episodes of the show are available to stream now.
If dark fantasy is your bag, and you're after more on The Sandman, check out our interview with cast members Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Jenna Coleman, and Gwendoline Christie, or our other chats with Neil Gaiman and showrunner Allan Heinberg. If you're not, and find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of content on the platform, then look to our list of the best Netflix shows for some viewing inspiration.
