Late one night, Jill Petterson wakes from a nightmare brought on by late night reading of Snow White. She rises for a glass of water.
On return, she sits on the mattress. From beneath it, two hands reach forth to grab her ankles. She pulls herself free and runs for her parents' bedroom. They wearily inspect her mattress, gently chide her flights of fancy, and return to bed. Older brother Jon stops by; gloats over his successful prank, and deems fairy tales unorthodox fodder for a thirteen-year-old.
The next morning, Jill, mindful of her parents' wish for behaviour more typical of her age, dithers over how to arrange her hair, misses the bus, and has to be driven to school by her vexed mother.
In the school library, Jill rents The Sandman and Other Tales, and sits at a table with two girls who lust after Rick, and disdain Jill's quaint vocabulary. Rick approaches in request to borrow Jill’s homework reading. In revenge, the other two spitefully examine Jill’s other books. Humiliated, she storms off.
That night, Jill is woken from a dream about Rick by Jon standing over her, wearing a werewolf mask. She rails against her family’s persecution of her, and dismisses him. She takes The Sandman to the window; holds it to her chest, gazes at the stars, and wishes to live in a world where dreams come true, and for everyone to leave her alone. As she returns to bed, one star briefly twinkles more brightly...
Later that night, she wakes again, to find Jon, sans werewolf mask, standing over her bed. Jill furiously goes to tell their parents. However, when she looks back, Jon has vanished. She enters their parents' bedroom, to find the bed empty.
Back in her own bedroom, she sees the sheet flutter. Thinking Jon to be up to his old tricks, she lifts the sheet. From beneath the bed peeps a bearded man in a purple robe and nightcap (played by Bobcat Goldthwait), who raucously greets her.
Jill screams and runs, but a supernatural wind drags her beneath the bed, where she falls down an ethereal blue tunnel and onto the purple sheet of a mattress. She stands, and finds herself in a black void, set with airborne cogs, pendulums, and two-dimensional reversed head sculptures.
A curtained archway, bedecked with clocks, leads to a region where, above a white mist, float the sleeping bodies of various people known to Jill.
A detached door flanked by pillars leads to a region set with a towering pendulum, and a bench set with jars of sand, all labelled in accordance with various sleeping patterns. She curiously reaches for a large sand timer. From behind, the voice of the man from under her bed commands her not to touch.
This is a dream, says the man, but Jills isn’t dreaming: this is the Land of Nod, where everyone goes to dream, and he is the Sandman. Jill' presence here, says the Sandman, is the fulfilment of her wish: she's in her own fairy tale, where no one will bother her anymore, as they’re in eternal sleep. Jill despairs. The Sandman mockingly chides her incautious wish.
Jill runs, and finds a row of doors. The voice of the Sandman taunts her with offer of different fairy tales. One door reveals a gigantic array of playing cards, before which stands an axe-wielding queen.
Another door reveals a cannibalistic witch. Another door leads to Jill's sleeping friends and family. Jill weeps in despair. The towering face of the Sandman appears to taunt her.
Back in the sand chamber, Jill threatens to smash the sand timer, unless the Sandman releases everyone. He nervously submits that fairy tales can't be changed. At her defiance, he threatens to put Jill to sleep - so fairy tales can be changed, Jill realises. She smashes the sand timer, and instantly finds herself flying back up the tunnel.
With a scream, she sits upright in bed. Her parents arrive to see what's happened. Just a dream, explains a relieved Jill. She apologetically pledges to go easy on the fairy tale stuff. Her mother reassuringly urges her not to completely detach from childhood innocence. Her family return to bed. One last time, Jill checks under her own bed, laughs, and goes back to sleep. A breeze blows the pages of The Sandman. The ending, read aloud by the voice of the Sandman, implies further trouble to be in store...
Don’t take fairy tales lightly, cautions Kristen: you never know which ones might be real. Frank has but one question: where, in this macabre tome of Kristen's, is the beheading scene?
This episode provides examples of:
- Age-Inappropriate Dress: Jill is thirteen but wears a frilly nightgown more likely to be worn by a younger child.
- Asshole Victim: Pretty much everyone except maybe Rick. We have...
- Jill's two friends, who are determined to humiliate her out of jealousy that Rick checked her out.
- John, her bullying brother, who regularly hides in her room to scare her and tells her it's her own fault for being immature.
- Her mother and father, who do nothing to stop John's torment, are apathetic to Jill's nightmares and frequently tell her to "grow up".
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Played for Horror. A wish for a world in which such things can happen is unexpectedly fulfilled, but to its cruelest possible interpretation: this world imprisons family and friends in enchanted sleep.
- Big Brother Bully: Jill views her brother as this for continually pranking her, especially for the petty motivation that he wants her to act her age.
- Disneyfication: Discussed. Kristen, David, Gary and Betty Anne fondly note that early fairy tales were far more gruesome than the cleaned-up, popular versions that everyone knows through the Disney films and several non-Disney adaptations.
- Eldritch Location: The Land of Nod, a black void in which Jill’s family and acquaintances float in eternal sleep. The place is set with detached doors, behind which lurk various fantasy antagonists.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: A wish upon a star that goes horribly wrong, an enchanted sleep and a Cruel Twist Ending.
- Hate Sink: John and Jill's two friends are utterly horrible people who torment her, existing to be hated and give Jill a reason to make her wish.
- Jackass Genie: The Sandman responds to Jill’s wish to be left alone and to live in a world where dreams come true by trapping her family and friends in eternal sleep.
- Kick the Dog: In an act of jealousy and spite for getting Rick's attention, Jill's "friends" try to retaliate by looking through her backpack and showing Rick all of the backpack's contents to expose how 'childish' Jill is.
- Laughably Evil: Cruel as he is, this Sandman is quite jovial.
- Ms. Imagination: Jill, to a point where she wishes for actuality of such stories.
- Nice Guy: Rick is strongly implied to be this. Not only does he compliment Jill's sense of fashion, but when Jill's "friends" try to humiliate her by exposing the childish contents of her backpack, he proves to be the only person in the story who is open-minded to Jill's child-like mentality. Case in point, when he learns she has a troll doll, he casually remarks that he used to have one of those instead of taunting her for it.
- Oh, Crap!: The Sandman, when Jill realises the spell can be broken.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: An ethereal blue tunnel appears beneath Jill’s bed, through which she falls to the Land of Nod.
- Sadist: The Sandman seems to take vindictive glee in fulfilling the devastating implications of Jill’s wish.
- The Sandman: His mastery over sleep and dreams seems to include bringing them to life.
- Skewed Priorities: Jill's mother complains about being late for work, yet takes the time to stop and give her daughter a lecture in the hallway rather than the car. Additionally, she hassles Jill for being immature, yet doesn't consider that the reason Jill is late getting ready could be from: a) getting extremely confused by everyone telling her to grow up and therefore not knowing what to wear, or b) probably not getting any sleep from the fact that her brother keeps going out of his way to scare her.
- There Are No Therapists: Jill's parents are dismissive of their daughter's constant nightmares, telling her to grow up, and never think about taking her to a therapist to understand why she's having them.
- With Friends Like These...: Jill unfortunately has two such friends. For a couple of girls who are supposed to be her friends, they look down on Jill for her child-like personality. And it doesn't help that, out of jealousy for Rick giving her attention, they try to humiliate Jill by searching through her backpack and exposing her childish belongings.
