YMMV / The Sandman (2022) S01 E11 A Dream of a Thousand Cats/Calliope

• Alternate Character Interpretation: After Richard Madoc's second novel becomes a best-seller, he starts boasting about being a "feminist writer". He even begins citing female authors as his inspiration and insists on there being equal gender hiring for the production of its film adaptation. Was he doing this as PR, or was this him trying to "give back" and ease his guilty conscience over the deeply misogynistic things he was doing to Calliope?
• Complete Monster: Erasmus Fry is an elderly author who became world-renowned through the vilest means imaginable. Having bound the magical muse Calliope to his will many decades ago, Erasmus used Calliope to inspire himself with creativity by regularly raping and abusing her, trapping her as his slave for over 50 years. Erasmus kept Calliope hopeful for release through all the years, yet when he grows tired of her presence, Erasmus sells her off to Richard Madoc and encourages Madoc to continue raping and dehumanizing Calliope, and Erasmus personally mocks her for having ever believed he would let her go.
• Genius Bonus: Richard is a writer struggling to work on his second novel after a smash hit. His writer's block montage ends with him watching TV — specifically I May Destroy You, whose protagonist is a writer struggling to work on her second novel after a smash hit. More than that, the series is a drama exploring sexual assault, and the specific moment Richard is seen watching is a woman talking about a sexual abuser's self-justifications, foreshadowing the path Richard is going to take. It's very apposite (and technically anachronistic, since the scene is set in 2018 and I May Destroy You aired in 2020).
• Self-Deprecation: As in the comic it's based on, Calliope is not kind in its depiction of writers, to the point that one sometimes wonders if Neil Gaiman was feeling quite all right when he wrote it.