Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ brings the story of Morpheus to an end with its second season. The era of a new Dream begins in its eleventh episode; however, to leave the audience on a better note, the show delivers a bonus episode that is set in the same universe but doesn’t have anything to do with Dream’s storyline. It focuses on his elder sister, Death, who takes a day off in a century when she is not burdened by her responsibility as an Endless and can enjoy life just as humans do. Her journey takes her to the Undercut Club in London, which turns out to be more than she had expected. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Fictional Undercut Club is an Important Plot Point in Death’s Storyline
The Undercut Club is a fictional place that appears in ‘Death: The High Cost of Living.’ There is a real place called the Undercut Club, but it is a barbershop in Castlemaine, Australia, and has no connection to the club that appears in the Netflix series. The scenes for the club were most likely filmed on a set in Shepperton Studios, located at Studios Road, Shepperton TW17 0QD, UK. Being the world’s second-largest film studio, Shepperton provides a wide range of services to productions, which led Netflix to create its own production hub at the place. This has allowed the streaming service access to at least 14 soundstages.
While Netflix productions like ‘The Old Guard’ may have helped shine a spotlight at Shepperton, it has been around since 1932 and has housed productions like ’2001: A Space Odyssey,’ ‘Gladiator,’ and ‘Gravity,’ to name a few. The Undercut Club for ‘The Sandman’ was also most likely created in one of the soundstages which would have allowed the cast and crew more wiggle room with the way they wanted to paint the location to the audience.
The club becomes an instrumental plot point in the episode as Death realises that there is more to her coming there than a simple choice. She finds out about the place through Sexton, who reveals that he used to go there with his girlfriend. The more he describes the place, the more exciting it sounds. It actually does live up to its reputation as Death has a great time there, drinking, dancing, and making friends. However, circumstances change when she and Sexton are locked into a room by the club’s owner, Theo, which is also where Death discovers the mark of her sigil, and she realizes that she was summoned to the club. What happens next also puts a lot of things in perspective, but spending time with Sexton and his friends at the club remains a highlight for Death, who will not return as a mortal for another hundred years.
