My Review of The Sandman: "The Ruler Of Hell"

 

Written by Ameni Rozsa

Directed by Jamie Childs

Dream: "This is your revenge on me."

Lucifer: "Perhaps it will destroy you. Perhaps it won't but I doubt it'll make your life any easier."

Last season, we had the battle of wits and cunning between Dream and Lucifer. If you were expecting Round Two to be as theatrical, you might be disappointed. Dream's second trip to Hell in this show had a far stranger outcome than expected.

As Dream came looking to rescue Nada, Lucifer spent that time evicting everyone out of Hell, including Nada. On top of that, Lucifer was less interested in fighting Dream and more fixated on giving up on Hell altogether. They were done with the place and there wasn't anything that Dream could say otherwise on the matter.

Instead Dream got to cut off Lucifer's wings before the latter handed him the key to Hell. Dream didn't want to rule Hell and Death refused to let him palm the place off on her. Instead, Dream would have to host a lavish banquet that would serve as a decider as to whom should rule Hell instead.

This episode was a way to introduce a lot of new characters,  arguably too many all at once. There was Odin (Clive Russsell) and his sons Thor (Laurence O'Fuarain) and Loki (Freddie Fox), a sea god (Kristofer Kamiyasu), Chaos (Lyla Quinn) herself, as well as fairy siblings Cluracan (Douglas Booth) and Nuala (Ann Skelly). The last two were more keen on Hell remaining unoccupied than ruling it.

Of course the most desperate to get their hands on Hell was Lord Azazel (Wil Coban) himself. He made the most noise about wanting to rule Hell and certainly played the most dirty to get Dream's attention. There was offering Choronzon (Munya Chawawa) as a revenge offering. Then there was using Nada to strong arm Dream into surrending Hell to him.

Personally while it did look like Azazel had the upper hand to begin with, I think using Nada might have brought about his downfall. Dream didn't look best pleased and given how he punished Richard Madoc for mistreating Calliope, I imagine Dream will subject Azazel to a similarly nasty fate for hurting Nada.

- Tom Sturridge's mother, Phoebe Nicholls had a role as Taramis in this episode with them sharing a scene together.

- Dream didn't seem pleased with Odin releasing Loki from prison. Dream also destroyed Thor's hammer.

- Of course Cain's party piece would involve sawing Abel in half and turning him into sausages.

- Cluracan was flirting with men and women in this episode. Seven out of nine fairies usually end up in Hell. Nuala was keen to avoid that.

- Dream confessed to Lucienne he had two candidates in mind to take over Hell but didn't tell her who they were.

- Chronology: From where the previous episode left off.

The Ruler Of Hell offers an abrupt change of direction for Lucifer but within that chaos, it certainly succeeded in putting Dream in such a dire position. It loses points for too many new characters and not enough time to spend with them.

Rating: 7 out of 10