As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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Chapter 1: Sleep of the Just
- Morpheus's reaction to seeing Jessamy being messily shot to death in front of him by Alex. Jessamy was there for over a decade without Morpheus's knowledge, so when he finally sees her he seems genuinely touched and happy she's still with him, looking delighted for the first time on screen. Then his expression turns to shock and grief moments after. Nearly a century later, her death still affects him to the point where he remains in captivity much longer than he has to partly because he could not forgive her murderer, and then initially refuses to take on a new raven to replace her afterward.
- Alex's reaction to killing Jessamy. It's obvious he's only doing so to impress Roderick—who threatened to beat him to death if the boy didn't prove his loyalty by killing Dream's bird (who has evaded such attempts for years by the way)—only for his father to berate him about possibly breaking the glass instead. The poor boy is too dazed to acknowledge a proffered trashcan as he carries Jessamy's remains upstairs, presumably to bury her himself.
- Even when Roderick lies dead on the floor and can't harm him anymore, Alex is jolted out of communicating with Dream when a guard asks what his father would think of his actions.
- Although he loses sympathy as he ages, Alex being reminded time and again that he was unworthy of being the Magus's son, that he could never match or surpass his (dead) older brother, is close to heartbreaking.
- When Morpheus arrives back in the Dreaming after being imprisoned for a century, he's horrified to discover his home has become a barren wasteland and that almost all the residents have left (especially when compared to the beautiful, vibrant land we saw at the beginning). He sounds genuinely hurt that most of his subjects had little faith he would return, with some even believing that it wasn't about him being unable to come back but that he actively chose to stay away.
Chapter 2: Imperfect Hosts
- When Lucienne suggests going to his siblings for help finding the tools, Dream points out that the rest of the Endless knew about his imprisonment. And yet none of them tried to help him. The look on his face says it all.
- Considering what we see of how Death does her job in her episode, it's very likely that she picked up Roderick Burgess' soul and came face to face with Dream in his cage...and still did nothing.
- When Dream realizes he needs to absorb something he has created to regain a portion of his power, he's genuinely sorrowful to learn that the only option is Gregory, a gargoyle who has become family to Cain and Abel. Even with all that's at stake, Dream respects Gregory's autonomy and does not demand he sacrifice himself, instead asking him for his help. Both Cain and Abel are heartbroken when saying goodbye to him, and Dream himself agrees that no, it's not fair. All Lucienne can do during this scene is look on sadly, clearly feeling sympathy for everyone involved.
- Cain offers himself and his brother to be sacrificed in Gregory's place. It doesn't work, but they tried.
- Abel telling Goldie/Irving a story that is very obviously about what he wishes his and Cain's relationship could be.
Chapter 3: Dream A Little Dream of Me
- While she attempts to look for Dream's sand in her office, Johanna makes conversation by innocently bringing up Roderick Burgess and how the Magus used to have the devil in his basement...only for her to quickly realize that said devil was Dream, if his suddenly teary expression is anything to go by.
- Johanna asks Dream if he has any ex-girlfriends. He does not answer, but the look on his face shows that he is upset. It doesn't help that any viewer who has read the comics knows that Dream has had five known ex-lovers by this point, and none of those relationships ended well.
- Johanna attempts to reconcile with Rachel, whom she abandoned without a word instead of properly breaking up with her. It goes very well at first—until it turns out that 'Rachel' is a vision caused by Dream's sand, who rebukes Joanna before crumbling into dust. Once Dream wakes her, Johanna sees the heart-breaking truth of the real Rachel, delirious and fatally emaciated. And it's her fault for leaving Rachel with a dangerous artifact, as Dream points out. Despite the selfish way she went about it, Johanna's only wish was to avoid seeing Rachel get hurt, just like so many other people she loved, but in the end, Johanna essentially causes her death.
- The fact that Morpheus doesn't want Matthew to help him at first. Jessamy's death is still affecting him decades after it happened.
Chapter 4: A Hope in Hell
- Purely to torture his guest, Squatterbloat deliberately goes out of his way to force Dream past the cell of his ex-lover, Nada. She calls out to him, raw hope in her eyes that he has come to rescue her, only for Dream to admit that though he still loves her, he has not forgiven her. Despite this crushing news, Nada still clings to hope that Dream will set her free one day. Matthew is appropriately horrified that Dream condemned someone he loves to Hell for millennia just because she "defied" him.
- When Morpheus asks "What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?", Lucifer looks for a second like they're about to burst into tears—no doubt remembering their days as the beautiful and beloved Samael.
Chapter 5: 24/ 7
- Bette spends most of the day being utterly ignored by the man she has a crush on until John Dee influences her to be more honest about what she wants. She boldly invites Marsh to dinner and then to her room afterward, and is devastated when Marsh is forced to be graphically honest about his secret relationship with her 21-year-old son.
- Mark unwittingly snaps that Judy doesn't have poor reception, but that Donna is ignoring all of her messages. Judy glares at him, growls, "Fuck you, dude" and nearly storms out of the diner. While she later admits to Bette that she had actually hit Donna during their fight, she's obviously worried about her ex's safety.
- While also horrifying, the fact that everyone in the diner winds up dead as a result of John Dee's actions, especially since some of the characters are more sympathetic than their comic book counterparts (e.g. Bette not being homophobic but rather wanting Judy to be in a less volatile relationship than the one she has with Donna).
- In the wake of the massacre, Bette is left as the only survivor. In the last few minutes, she's had to destroy her novel, mutilate herself, watch her friends kill themselves, and even lost Judy—who she was falling in love with. In the wake of this, she can only look at John and ask—in a voice that sounds like she's about to break down in tears—"How is this a better world?"
- And then John makes her drive screwdrivers into her eyes. As she takes up the screwdrivers, Bette almost looks relieved.
Chapter 6: The Sound of Her Wings
- Dream informing Death that the one Roderick was trying to capture wasn't him, but her. Death pauses for a long beat before saying she knew. Death then tells Dream he could have tried to call for her as if feeling guilty that she was part of the reason Dream was captured for over a century. She even tells him how worried she was over his disappearance.
- Obviously, with half of this episode being about Death and her duties, there's bound to be a few tearjerker in there:
- Sam, the newlywed who drowns, is extremely distraught when he realizes he's dead, all but begging Death to let him tell his wife the passcode to his phone so she can at least have access to the information for their trip. She can't do this because he's already dead, and seems genuinely regretful about it. Even Dream seems rather disturbed as they leave and Sam's wife begins to call for him.
- A young man the two Endless come across appears to have been shot in the chest via a mugging.
- One of the deaths that Dream and Death see is what appears to be a homeless woman who may have died from an overdose.
- All of the deaths that Death shows up for are tragic, but one of the absolute saddest is a baby who is only a few months old dying of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Death sombrely apologizes to them for how little time they got to live, and is clearly eager to leave before the poor mother learns what happened to her child...
Death: Yeah. I'm afraid so. That's all there is, little one. That's all you get.- In that same scene, Dream's expression after one watches episode 11; chances are that he was thinking of how the baby's parents will have to feel the same grief that he and Calliope felt after losing Orpheus.
- The scene cuts away before we can see the mother's reaction, but we can only imagine how horrible it would have been.
- During one of their meetings of the century, Hob, who was once wealthy, has now become a beggar. Dream calmly listens as Hob—haggard, dirty, and angered—yells about how he not only lost his fortune; he also lost his wife, his unborn child, and his twenty-year-old son who died in a bar fight. Just the previous century, Hob had declared that his life can go nowhere but up, and now we see just how wrong he was.
- Hob doesn't think the printing press will catch on—but he's fairly certain that the slave trade will be profitable. Even the usually aloof Dream advises him to rethink his career choices.Hob: You're giving me advice? After four hundred years? What happened to, "live your life as you choose"?
Dream: The choice is yours. Would you take that choice from others?
Hob: .... I will consider your advice. - Lushing Lou the prostitute has one hell of a Dark and Troubled Past: her own cousin raped and impregnated her. Even Dream in 1889 doesn't feel comfortable talking about it in depth.
- Hob forms a genuine bond with Dream, enough to suggest the two of them might be friends—only for Morpheus to become offended at the concept and storm out. A hundred years later, Hob waits for Dream at the same pub as per their agreement... but this time, he doesn't show. This leaves Hob's downcast and convinced that he's ruined their relationship with his assumptions—not realizing that Dream was still imprisoned at the time. Moving from beer to scotch, Hob strikes up an amiable chat with the bartender... only to find out that the pub that he and Dream have been meeting at for the last few centuries is being shut down, cutting him off from Dream even further.
- The grief-stricken expression on Dream's face when he finds the pub condemned and abandoned, clearly believing that he'll never be able to find Hob again. Then the moment becomes heartwarming again when a line of graffiti leads him to a nearby pub where he finally reunites with Hob and openly acknowledges him as a friend.
Chapter 7: The Doll's House
- Unity Kincaid tells her story to Rose and Lyta, of how she fell asleep when she was twelve years old and slept for over a hundred years. She has a glorious dream life, inheriting her father's business with a lover and a baby...but then she woke up and found out none of it was real, except for her having given birth to a baby while she was unconscious in hospital.
Chapter 8: Playing House
- Clarice attempts to care for Jed and reason with her abusive husband, but she is far too terrified of Barnaby to be effective, which implies that she's likely suffered at his hands as well. And then she's brutally killed by the Corinthian.
- Zelda dreams about being a little girl again and remarks that her own parents told her to go away, nobody understands her, and nobody cares about her except Chantal.
Chapter 9: Collectors
- Lyta's heart is forced to break for her husband a second time when, after months of enjoying a second chance at a life with her beloved Hector, Lord Morpheus suddenly arrives to banish Hector's spirit to the land of the dead. And if that wasn't enough, the Dreamlord tactlessly chooses that time to inform a grieving Lyta that since her baby was conceived in the Dreaming, the child automatically belongs to him. Dream for his part tries to soften the blow, but doesn't do a very good job.
Chapter 10: Lost Hearts
- After seeing his mother in his dreams for years thanks to Gault taking on her form, Jed learns from Rose that she has actually died very recently; he never got to see her again.
- It turns out that Unity was originally destined to be the Vortex, but Dream's century-long imprisonment caused that destiny to pass along through the generations until Dream escaped. This means that even if Unity never fell victim to the sleeping sickness, the life she would have had still would have been cut short.
- In a move both heartbreaking and heartwarming, Unity willingly accepts Rose's vortex powers and allows Dream to kill her instead in order to save her great-granddaughter and the rest of the world.
- Jed also never got to meet his great-grandmother, something Unity was greatly looking forward to, as she had told Rose they could live with her.
- When Dream confronts Desire over their involvement in trying to get him to spill family blood "with all that would entail", he is mostly furious, but there is also a very strong sense of sadness and disbelief. note While Dream knew their relationship was bad, he clearly had no idea that Desire was genuinely trying to get him killed and is deeply hurt that his sibling would do that.
- When Lyta is asked what her baby's name shall be, Jed repeats the Corinthian's line about people only ever using your name when you're in trouble, and maybe as long as you don't have one, you can't ever fall into trouble. When it cuts back to Lyta's face, she has a hidden stare of panic, seemingly remembering Dream's words that he will come for her child one day.
Chapter 11: A Dream of A Thousand Cats/Calliope
- The cat who wanted to be a mother to her kits, only for them to be taken away from her, tossed into a bag with a brick, and then thrown into a lake to drown. She recalls hearing them mewling and struggling...until she couldn't anymore. Her owners then proceed to have a conversation within earshot of the cat about how they made the right choice, and that the cat looks happy without her kits.
- Calliope's entire situation is this mixed with nightmare fuel as she is held captive by two different authors and dehumanized for the ideas they need.
- First, she was enslaved by an ancient law that neither she nor her sisters had any hand in.
- Then, Erasmus locks her up and rapes her to gain inspiration for decades. He dismisses her pain by reducing her to an object—calling her a cow at one point. He promises her that she'll be free after he dies, but as soon as he no longer has any use for her, he quickly foists her off onto another man, gleefully pointing out that all writers are liars when Calliope brings up his promise.
- Just when she thought that Ric might be different and that he might set her free—he does the same thing as Erasmus anyway.
- Broken, she prays to her mothers for help, only to be told that even they couldn't help her and that her prayers are wasted. They leave her with nothing but cryptic information regarding Dream.
- Even as she prays for Dream, Calliope obviously knows that there's a very little chance he might come, so imagine her relief when he does. She's even more touched when it's revealed that he came not because he felt possessive of her, like he would have in the past, but because somebody dared to hurt her.
