Rose Walker (Vanesu Samunyai) had a pretty rough ride in season one of The Sandman.
What started out as a quest for her estranged brother following her mother's death quickly unravelled, revealing more of her family roots than she had bargained for.
Unearthing more about herself led to Rose learning about her true identity as The Vortex.
In this fantastical, supernatural universe, being a vortex sounds pretty interesting. Perhaps even something that could earn you bragging rights – only it's a lot less so when the truth of what it entails comes to light.
As the vortex Rose is capable of destruction on a universe-ending level. With her power she has the ability to break the walls between the waking and the dreaming world. This event would envelope the two into one singular dream causing the eradication of both.
It is made clear early on that the only known way to stop a vortex before it becomes too powerful is to kill them.
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Rose's whole story arc is based upon baddies manipulating her into destroying Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) and taking his dream realm for herself – which will inevitably lead to destruction – or her sacrificing herself for the greater good.
The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook) tries to persuade her to do the former. He informs Rose that it's kill or be killed, The King of Dreams or her.
Her friend Lyta (Razane Jammal) also tries to convince her to end Morpheus' life. However we can slightly forgive her motives as she is acting out of grief, desperation and a mother's love.
Lyta sees the death of Morpheus as the only way to keep safe the child she conceived with her dead husband in the dreaming. Morpheus had already banished her husband from the realm and away from Lyta, stating that he did not belong, before laying claim on their unborn child.
Despite the consequences of Morpheus' death, Lyta is determined to keep her baby at all costs.
Eventually Rose makes the decision to give herself up to Morpheus in order to protect her loved ones as well as the rest of humanity.
As he begins to draw the life from her, they are interrupted by the presence of Lucienne (Vivenne Acheampong) and Rose's great-grandmother Unity Kincaid (Sandra James-Young).
It is revealed that Unity was intended to be the vortex of their time before she succumbed to the sleepy sickness when Morpheus was captured all those years before. Her slumber meant that the fate of the vortex was passed on generationally until it reached Rose.
This fact coupled with the desire to protect her great-granddaughter moved Unity to take on the burden of the vortex once more. She asked Rose to reach inside herself and hand over whatever it was that made her the vortex.
Here is where The Sandman lore gets a little confusing.
When Unity accepts the vortex, there is a supernatural burst of energy, pink light is emitted from the vortex contained in a crystal heart and Unity is physically weakened.
When she asks what's happened Morpheus tells her, "You died so that Rose might live," which is poetic and sweet but makes zero sense whatsoever.
Why would the transference of the vortex from person to person cause the original host to die?
Rose – the pseudo vortex – is made stronger by its presence within her. So strong that she becomes a threat to the dreaming and to Morpheus, therefore becoming fatal to humanity in the process.
She is so powerful that Morpheus is forced to take her life. However Unity simply reclaimed her rightful spot as the original vortex and in doing so died?
This begs the question, why was Rose able to contain the vortex within for so long, becoming stronger in the process but Unity perished almost instantly after taking it?
The scrupulous amongst us will have rewound that part a few hundred times looking for the point where Morpheus had a hand in her demise.
If you haven't already, don't bother. There's not so much as a wave of the arm to suggest that he is responsible for her death, so why then did she pass?
There is an argument for her age being a factor, Unity is over a century old having been 12 at the time of Morpheus' 100-year-long detainment.
It's plausible that she was nearing the end of her life span and that receiving it was just too much for her.
However one would expect something as natural and innate as the vortex was to Unity to have given her the same power Rose had, leading to Morpheus having to sacrifice her too. That, or at the very least it presumably would have revived her.
Perhaps there's a plausible explanation but we've scrubbed through the scene countless times and are none the wiser. Over to you, Neil Gaiman and Allan Heinberg.
The Sandman is now available to stream on Netflix.
Netflix/Left Bank Pictures The Crown season 3 with Amazon exclusive box artwork
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
