Summary
Rose has dreamed her way into the dreaming realm with Morpheus. Rose is concentrating on finding her long-lost brother, and realizes she can use her new powers to do so — but will this weaken the walls between the dream state and reality?
This recap of Netflix’s The Sandman season 1, episode 8, “Playing House,” contains spoilers.
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The Sandman season 1, episode 8 recap
The previous episode ended with Jed trying to escape his awful foster home, but being captured. Rose has dreamed her way into the dreaming realm with Morpheus.
This episode begins with Rose asking Morpheus what he knows about her brother. He makes her aware that she is a dream vortex, someone who can travel through people’s dreams, and he insists that together they can search dreams and find Jed.
We finally meet Gault, who is with Jed, and they’re playing superheroes. Jed pretends to be The Sandman Superhero who is sent on missions by his mother (Gault shift-changing into his mother) but when Jed wakes, he’s in a dirty basement, alone, locked away with his foster parents ignoring him. His dreams are his escapism from his horrible reality. Is Gault really a nightmare?
Rose tries to find Jed in the waking world, through the foster agency, who won’t tell her anything, but the foster agency wants to do a home visit. Jed is threatened with physical violence if he doesn’t put on a good show for the agency.
We cut to The Corinthian doing his usual sneaking about and now posing as a Journalist with Unity to find more information on Rose. Unity tells him that Rose is in Florida, so we can only guess where he’s going next.
Back to the agency conducting the home visit, Jed sneaks a note into her bag. At least we think he did. It turns out the foster dad is quick and has taken the note, and is ready to beat Jed senseless. Corinthian, maybe luckily, is in Florida and finds the agency worker, asking for Jed’s address. He kills her, taking out her eyes as usual but all I want right now is for Corinthian to find the foster dad and take his eyes out.
We cut to Rose who is dreaming, traveling between people’s dreams until she finds Jed’s dream. Where Gault is too, and Jed is wanting to fight The King of Dreams so as not to lose Gault who is shape-shifting as their mother. Now that Morpheus has Gault, he tells Jed to wake up, and when he does he is screaming for Rose. The foster dad gets his belt ready, but there is a knock at the door, distracting him.
The ending
Cut to The Dreaming and Gault is defending her actions stating that they want to be a dreamer, someone to inspire, rather than a nightmare. Gault warns the people left out of freedom and returned out of fear. He punishes her by sending her to the dark, a harsh move, as this where Morpheus starts to lose control, or forcefully gains and enforces more control.
Lyta is still living in her dreams, where her late husband is, now becoming pregnant, with their perfect home. Lyta is wanting to stay in her dreams. When she wakes, In the waking world, Lyta is pregnant, dreams are starting to come true.
Jed walks up the basement stairs to find the house trashed, and Corinthian greets him, stating that his sister Rose sent him to retrieve and save him. When Rose finally arrives at the house, bodies are being brought out as it is now a crime scene.
The episode ends with The Corinthian and Jed driving off in a fancy car, with The Corinthian saying he can’t wait to meet Rose.
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