[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Sandman series finale, “A Tale of Graceful Ends.”]

Night falls on Netflix’s The Sandman as Season 2 comes to an end, and with it, at least for the foreseeable future, the live-action version of the Sandman himself. In the finale, “A Tale of Graceful Ends,” Dream (Tom Sturridge) chooses to end his life when he decides to end his son’s endless suffering.

After mercy killing his son Orpheus (Ruairi O’Connor) and committing the taboo act of shedding family blood, Dream brings upon himself the wrath of the Kindly Ones, who demand justice, a life for a life. Rather than resist, he accepts his fate and gently takes the hand of his sister Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), freeing himself from his duties as the Lord of the Dreaming and allowing a new Dream to take his place. His heir, Daniel Hall (Jacob Anderson), the only being to ever be conceived in the Dreaming, immediately ages from an infant into a full-fledged deity, becoming the new Dream.

Now inhabiting the body of an adult Endless, carrying the essence and powers of the old Dream but retaining the innocence of a child, it quickly becomes clear that this Dream is quite different from his predecessor. In addition to his changed disposition, he also possesses the extraordinary ability to restore the dead.

As he is prohibited from attending the funeral of Morpheus, the new Dream wanders his new palace and makes himself useful by resurrecting those killed by Lyta (Razane Jammal) during her rampage in the Dreaming. His ability to raise the dead is a power the old Dream could not even fathom, proving to the others that he is already a very different Dream.

He first revives Abel (Asim Chaudhry), followed by Mervyn Pumpkinhead (voiced by Mark Hamill), and eventually Gilbert (Stephen Fry), also known as Fiddler’s Green, who, upon returning, scolds the fledgling deity for wielding such power.

“My dear boy, do you not see? If you bring us back, then our deaths, our lives, will have no meaning,” he tells the young Endless, making a strong point about the need to grieve and story structure. And with that, Gilbert returns to dust.

At the funeral, all of the Endless appear to bid adieu to their departed sibling, even Desire (Mason Alexander Park), who, although once responsible for plotting Dream’s demise, weeps tears of mourning for his deceased brother. “I will miss infuriating him,” he says tearfully.

While the others pay respects to Morpheus, the new Dream meets his long-absent brother, Destruction (Barry Sloane), who has returned to welcome his new sibling into the fractured family.

After the body is given a proper send-off, Death and Hob Gadling (Ferdinand Kingsley) share a moment reflecting on the nature of life, while Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman) and the new and improved Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook) decide to give romance a try. “You don’t mind that I’m a nightmare?” he asks. “Every man I ever dated was a nightmare. And most of the women,” she replies.

The emotional core of the story lies in a meeting between Lyta Hall and Dream, who had once been her infant son, Daniel. Believing that Morpheus had killed him, she set in motion the events that led to the near-destruction of the Dreaming realm. “I didn’t lose my son; he was taken from me. My husband was taken from me. My life was taken from me. Why? What did I do?” she pleads. But where the old Dream would have punished, the new Dream chooses to forgive, marking the change between the two Dream Lords.

“Nothing,” the former Daniel replies. “It was nothing you did. Just as it was nothing I did. But sometimes, life and death affect us in ways that have nothing to do with the choices we make. That is how stories are born.”

“You have suffered enough,” says Dream. He forgives her, and they embrace as he promises her protection and vows to visit his mortal mother in her dreams. It is clear that his humanity is what sets him apart from the other Endless, allowing him to relate to humans, rather than rule over them or regard them as odd animals. He is the first of his kind, and with that, there is a joy to his being.

After the funeral, the new Dream is welcomed by his siblings with open arms in a flurry of smiles and chatter, rejoicing in their newest sibling and all the ways he differs from the Dream they have lost. For that is the way of the Endless: to lose, to grieve, to accept, and to move on. Even Dream smiles as he regards his new family.

And with that, Dream’s story comes to a close, or at least the chapter on Morpheus.

TV Insider sat down with showrunner and writer Allan Heinberg to talk about The Sandman finale, and the possible future of the new Dream Lord. Here is what he shared:

You were able to adapt almost 2/3 of the Sandman stories, which was quite an undertaking. Are there any stories, characters, or one-off comics that you would have loved to have included if given the chance?

There were one-offs that I was really attracted to, that we actually outlined, but now moving forward, I think I [what I would like to] explore, weirdly, is Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong).

Like, I feel like Lucienne as the lead of her own story, sort of untapping her resources, unleashing her, and her discovering her own, that would sort of be incredibly attractive to me.

I’d love to write Joanna and the Corinthian solving mysteries every week. That would be fun, but I felt like we barely got to scratch the surface with Lucienne. And it would be awesome to put her front and center and expand her world and let her navigate the universe using her own wits and in ways that surprise even her.

Was there a change that you particularly had to wrestle with?

I was sad originally to see “A Game of You” go by the wayside because I love it as a comic. But it was a real struggle to take that book and to try to make it into a Dream story. It wasn’t built for that.

I really want to find a way to bring Wanda (Indya Moore) into the “Brief Lives” story. And once we were able to do that, you know, I felt better.

I love Wanda, and she was super important to me as a young gay person reading that story for the first time, and I just want to bring her with us as we move forward. And the scene at the cemetery was so iconic.

Making Wanda part of Dream’s story makes Wanda more important to the series, and having Dream be the one who changes the headstone to me showed a lot of growth for him. So those were changes that I felt helped us show the show’s version of Dream’s story, enormously, but they were painful to figure out in the moment. If that makes sense.

Ed Miller/Netflix

In the comics, Daniel Hall’s Dream goes on to have many further adventures, some of which are with some DC characters, such as in Scott Snyder’s Dark Knight: Metal when he interacts with Batman. Do you think there might be a place for him in the new DC Universe?

I don’t know. From the outset, we started Sandman before James Gunn and Peter Safran took over, and we very clearly said we are separate. We are not part of the DC Universe, which allowed us to do Joanna Constantine, instead of John Constantine. It allowed us to sort of play by our own rules in relationship to the DCU.

I made Jed [Walker] (Eddie Karanja) a fan of DC Comics so that, you know, the DC superheroes could show up in in that form, like this is a universe informed by DC Comics. If there was a creator, or if James or Peter wanted there to be crossover of some kind, that would be delightful to me. But it would be a decision of theirs rather than a decision of ours.

I designed the end of this season with a possible Season 3 in mind, because I love Jacob [Anderson] so much that I just wanted to continue watching him play this part forever. So in Season 3 of my dreams, yeah, there’s all kinds of stuff going on. There are all kinds of crossovers going on.

We’ve gone out of our way to make ourselves a kind of separate entity, unless, on the DC Studio side, if they wanted to have Kirby [Howell-Baptiste] come in and be part of their universe, what a thrill that would be.

Do you have a favorite character outside of Dream?

I was the most afraid of writing Delirium of any of the characters. And in the end, I think I ended up having the best time writing Delirium. But that’s how this show has worked for me, is, as a fan, I would be so intimidated [thinking] I’m not going to be able to do what the comic book did, and then I’d find a way into it, and it would end up being my favorite thing.

Ed Miller/Netflix

The Kindly Ones were a scary nightmare to me because I didn’t understand how we were going to structure it. And in the end, I am, so I love it so much, and I’m so delighted by the changes and the surprises. And putting Joanna with the Corinthian in a romantic relationship. And putting Puck and Loki in a romantic relationship with a baby, like, I would never have thought a year ago, like, “Oh, that’s the solution. Make them a gay couple with a baby. That’s gonna solve everything.” But once we cast Freddie [Fox] and Jack [Gleeson], I was like, “Oh, now it’s yes, they can play that. I know exactly how to write that for them.”

I don’t know, it’s hard picking a favorite, but Delirium, my version of Delirium, was particularly fun and satisfying, having been afraid of it for as long as I was.

What is your final note for fans of The Sandman?

I would love — and I’ve said this privately, internally — I would love for viewers who love the show to go back and read these comics and then watch the show again, just to sort of see what we did and why we did what we did…

When you see it on the page, you’re like, “This is impossible.” And then the achievement of everybody who worked on this show is that they had the same experience of reading the comic and then brought it to life in ways that constantly surprised and delighted us. So, I would say, go back to the comics and then come back and watch us again and have that experience. Because it’s, I think they talk to each other in really interesting ways. I hope so, anyways.

The Sandman, Season 2 Volume 2, Available Now, Netflix