Who is the Prodigal’ in ‘The Sandman?’

The Sandman‘s long ago first season did a wonderful job converting millions of Netflix viewers around the globe into devoted followers of Neil Gaiman’s seminal comic book universe. While those initial 10 episodes do a great job of welcoming fresh fans into the world of the Endless, however, there’s still much more to be explored in its upcoming sophomore run, as the first run left several major questions unanswered by the time of its finale.

For starters, who is the mysterious “Prodigal” that the Endless keep talking about? The series follows Lord Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), the King of Dreams, as he returns to his realm, the Dreaming, after being imprisoned on Earth for a century. Across season one, we meet three more of the Endless — Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), and Despair (Donna Preston). Destiny and “poor Delirium” are also mentioned.

As there are seven Endless siblings, this leaves one more to be accounted for, the enigmatic “Prodigal.” But who is the Prodigal? Thankfully, the comics provide us an answer to that question.

The missing Endless sibling, explained

The so-called Prodigal is, in fact, Destruction. The fourth oldest of the Endless family — following Destiny, Death, and Dream — Destruction is, as his name suggests, the anthropomorphic personification of the destructive forces of the universe. While this may suggest that the character could have villainous leanings, like his younger sibling Desire and their twin, Despair, that’s actually far from the truth.

Much as in the TV show, what happened to Destruction is initially kept a secret in the comics, too, with his story only eventually being told in Brief Lives, the seventh volume of The Sandman series. This revealed that Destruction broke the code of the Endless by abandoning his duties some two hundred years before Dream’s incarceration in the 1700s.

His reason for doing so is because he foresaw that the increasing scientific and technological advances of humankind would only lead to greater destruction and he wanted no part in it. Despite, or because of, his role in the universe, Destruction actually possesses many creative and constructive passions, although it’s noted that he displays little talent for them.

In Brief Lives, Dream and Delirium — who was previously known as Delight before an unknown traumatic event caused them to change — embark on a road trip in order to search for their lost brother. In this arc, we finally find out what Destruction looks like. Specifically, he presents as a tall, burly red-headed Caucasian man, usually seen with a thick beard. Neil Gaiman has explained that he was intended to physically resemble the British actor Brian Blessed (Flash Gordon).

In The Sandman, we see that each Endless has a gallery in their realm featuring the sigil of each of their siblings so they can visit and contact them. Destruction’s sigil is the sword, but it is not included in any of his siblings’ galleries as they shunned him when he disappeared.

Who is playing The Prodigal in the TV series?

Although it took until the seventh comic volume to deal with Destruction, The Sandman on TV is fast-forwarding his storyline as The Prodigal is confirmed to appear in season 2. In fact, all seven Endless siblings will appear. Adrian Lester has been announced as Destiny, the eldest of the family, as has Esmé Creed-Miles as Delirium. The Prodigal, meanwhile, is played by Barry Sloane (Call of Duty).

Going by the moody teaser promo announcing the new Endless casting, Sloane’s Destruction will look very different from his comics counterpart. Gone is his long red hair, replaced by Sloane’s naturally dark, short locks. This was perhaps done to make the similarly red-headed Delirium stand out from her siblings.

The Sandman is available to stream on Netflix. At the time of writing, season 2 has yet to be handed a release date.