The episode starts with Dr. John Hathaway heading to Wych Cross for the fateful meeting with an occultist Roderick Burgess aka Magus. Roderick and his magical society want to summon and bind the member of the Endless.
The two greet each other and after talking, Hathaway brings out Grimoire, a book with spells to bring back the dead and also imprison the Angel of Darkness.
Magus and Hathaway lost their sons in The Great War. The magicians plan to invoke Death to bring their sons back to life (along with other things like immortality, wealth, and power). But instead, magicians end up with Dream, Death’s brother. Unsure, Magus imprisons Dream in his mansion, leaving him to rot there for the next couple of decades.
Corinthian shows up offering Magus advice on keeping Dream locked up. He inorms Magus that he should be able to conjure up Dream’s powers. Magus makes a deal with Dream: bring back his son in exchange for freedom.
The rest of the episode explores the effects of Dream’s imprisonment on the world. With him separated from his own realm, people become sick in a waking world, falling perpetually unconscious or not sleeping at all.
The decade passes with Randall Burgess becoming powerful and rich, all the while his other son, Alex, holds resentment toward his evil, vindictive father. In a way, Alex is this episode’s main character. Metaphorically speaking, he is a prisoner as well, trapped by his dismissive, cruel father. On several occasions, he almost sets Dream free, but fear of Randall stops him every time, even after his father dies.
But eventually, Dream gets free thanks to Paul, Alex’s adult partner, who breaks a magic circle. And with that, he is free to return home after the whole century of imprisonment.
The episode ends with Dream confronting Alex and condemning him to eternal sleep. This is both a satisfactory and tragic fate for him, which also emphasizes something important about Dream– he may be good, generally speaking, but he can be vengeful and terrifying as well. And the mortals who dare to mess with him are doomed to meet an unpleasant fate.
