Netflix The Sandman recap guide: All 10 episodes explained

The Sandman episode 7 recap: The Doll’s House

The Sandman introduces a lot of new characters each episode, and “The Dolls House” is no different. Here’s where we see a shift in the season and Dream gets yet another mission to take care of.

The episode starts off with Dream picking up a book about someone named Rose Walker (Vanesu Samunyai), and we get to meet the character as he’s reading through the book of her life. We see that at a young age, she’s separated from her brother Jed after her parents split up. Fast forward to current day, and she’s a 21-year-old trying to live a new life all while still trying to locate Jed.

Rose wants to hire a private investigator but unfortunately does not have the money to do so. She and her neighbor Lyta (Razane Jammal) are preparing for a trip to London, England, where she was recruited to join an undisclosed foundation. Though it’s all a bit mysterious, we would never expect how extraordinary Rose’s life is about to turn out.

Meanwhile, we find out that the sibling Desire had summoned was Despair (Donna Preston). Desire explains that the Prodigal – their sibling Destruction – is still missing, and they need to do something to assert their dominance now that Dream is free. Shockingly, Desire suggests that Roderick capturing Dream was their doing. They then tell Despair that there’s a Vortex out there, a woman who doesn’t even know that she is one. They reveal the Vortex’s identity is Rose Walker.

It doesn’t take long for people to find out about the Vortex. While conducting a census for Dream, Lucienne visits Abel and he asks if he had heard about there being a Vortex, to which she dismisses as gossip. But she’s surprised to find out when she later tells Dream about what she heard that he already knew. Lucienne seems worried about the threat Rose can bring as the Vortex, though Dream thinks she can help them.

Matthew the raven agrees to go watch over Rose to monitor what she’s up to, and we see her travel to London and meet a woman named Unity (Sandra James-Young). As they’re looking at a doll house at Unity’s home, her true intentions for bring Rose across the pond are revealed. As it turns out, Unity is Rose’s great-grandmother. Unity explains that at 12 years old, she suffered from encephalitis lethargica – the “sleepy sickness” – and slept for years and years. She had only just woken up a few months back. While she was asleep, she had a vivid dream that she got pregnant and had a baby, which remarkably translated to real life. While she was asleep in the hospital, she gave birth to a baby girl – Rose’s grandmother.

We then meet a group of new characters at a diner who are planning a serial killer convention: The Good Doctor, Fun Land, and Nimrod. They talk about wanting a special guest at the event, suggesting that the Corinthian would be perfect. But how would they get his attention? They decide to copy his kill-and-collector M.O., with The Good Doctor cutting out their waiter’s eyeballs. They mention over 100 serial killers would be coming to their convention and they hope the Corinthian will be onto them now.

Cut to the Corinthian, and he’s on a mission to find Rose. He shows up at her place back in the U.S., and meets a character named Carl (Ben Wiggins) who is house-sitting. They end up hooking up, but the Corinthian is done with him after he gets some information and figures out his next step. But before traveling to London to find Rose, he shows up at the diner and agrees to be the special guest at the serial killer convention under one condition – if he can bring the Vortex with him.

Rose heads back to America – Florida specifically, where she and Jed grew up – so she can start looking for him once again. She stays at a B&B owned by an awesome character named Hal Carter (John Cameron Mitchell), and meets her new neighbors who are each super fun and interesting. Ken and Barbie are her downstairs neighbors, while Chantal and Zelda also live there. Someone named Gilbert (Stephen Fry) lives in the attic room, though we don’t get to meet him just yet.

Rose and Lyta go to the foster agency that placed Jed, but the woman working there, Miss Rubio, refuses to give out private information. Understandably, Rose gets upset, though Miss Rubio assures her that Jed was taken in by friends of their father’s.

Later on, Rose goes out to a bar with her new neighbors and they watch Hal give a fun performance in drag up on stage. While she’s outside in an alley way, two creepy guys start hitting on Rose and try to rob her with a knife. A mystery man shows up and tries to help, while Rose takes matters into her own hands and kicks the knife out of the burglars’ hands. They leave, and it’s revealed the man who appeared is Gilbert!

While Rose is sleeping, she hears Lucienne and Dream’s voices in another room. The two are trying to find Jed in the dream world and can’t locate him, which they find concerning. They realize that a nightmare Dream had created, Gault, might’ve captured Jed and severed him from the Dreaming. Rose shows up, much to Dream’s surprise, introducing herself and asking what they know about Jed.

We then get to watch Jed try to escape from his Uncle Barnaby (Sam Hazeldine), running into his Aunt Clarice in the street and telling her they have to go before Barnaby catches up to them. But it’s too late. Uncle Barnaby drives up and puts Jed in the trunk of his car.

Written by Natalie Zamora