A brilliant medley of spellbinding plot, dazzling visuals and pitch-perfect acting, the first season of Netflix’s “The Sandman” was sheer delight — and is among the peak of graphic novel adaptations. The second season, the first volume of which began streaming July 3, rises higher still, touching the heavens above with its darkly mesmerizing reminder that the only constant in life is change itself.

When “The Sandman” last left off, Dream (Tom Sturridge) was rebuilding his realm, The Dreaming, after being captured for a century by humans, escaping his glass prison, reclaiming his stolen objects of power, dueling in Hell, interrupting a serial killer convention and saving the world from a once-in-an-age threat. It was a busy stretch of time for the immortal personification of dreams and nightmares, one that saw Dream — also known as Morpheus, Oneiros, Lord Shaper and the Sandman, among other names — slowly evolve from a reticent, imperial lord into someone a little more forgiving, a little more understanding (though still quick to dole out punishment if you cross him).

The main thread through the first volume of Season 2 is the continuation of Dream’s slow but steady change, even against the headwinds of fate and duty, family and responsibility. (Vol. 1 is six episodes long; the second volume, dropping July 24, has five episodes, with a bonus episode also dropping that day.) It’s a fascinating transformation, one made all the more captivating by Sturridge's once-again fantastic performance. Those sharp gazes, just-there smirks and deadpan delivery lift every scene he’s in — which is saying something, because some truly colorful characters show up in Season 2.

We met some of Dream’s seven-member family, called the Endless, in the first season, particularly the chipper, empathetic Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) and the delightfully twisted twins Desire (Mason Alexander Park) and Despair (Donna Preston). This time around, we’re introduced to the rest: Destiny (Adrian Lester), Destruction (Barry Sloane) and Delirium (Esmé Creed-Miles). The latter two are standout additions this season: The charming Destruction and unpredictable Delirium offer personality counterpoints to the stoic Dream, often making for humorous odd-couple antics.

The first half of Vol. 1 contends with Dream making a fateful trip to demand Lucifer (Gwendoline Christie) release a woman Dream condemned to Hell thousands of years ago. If you’re familiar with the “Season of Mists” storyline from the graphic novels, you know what that entails. (In fact, much of Vol. 1 hews pretty closely to the source material.) If you’re not, what follows is a game of political maneuvering among all sorts of mythical creatures, a welcome pivot from the mortal bloodshed that defined the first season. (Not to say there isn’t bloodshed, though.)

The second half of the volume is anchored by Dream, Destruction and Delirium as, without spoiling, they ponder the meaning of family and responsibility as the former falls apart and the latter starts to become unbearably heavy.

In a continuation from the first season, some of the best sequences in Season 2 involve the side stories, flashbacks to distant times in which Dream and his family made decisions that would affect them for centuries to come. They offer much-needed context and adapt humanity’s history in ingenious ways. (The new origin stories for Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the French Revolution are beyond clever.)

And for fans of queer romance and subtext, Season 2 is phenomenally inclusive without being self-congratulating or hyperfixated about it. People (and immortals) are who they are, nothing more and nothing less.

All that well-paced plot is elevated by the same jaw-dropping visuals from the first season: a father frantically washing the bright, bright blood of his son off his hands, tears streaming down his face; auroras and sand blending together to create something new, something beautiful; a demon opening its cavernous maw to devour what’s standing in its way; a tendril of a galaxy stretching across a sunset-golden sky — Season 2 is full of lush beauty, matching the shifting tone of the story.

That story, sadly, will conclude at the end of this season, Netflix has announced. (Variety reported that the show's conclusion was decided on before accusations of sexual assault were made against Neil Gaiman, who wrote the Sandman comics and is an executive producer on the show. Gaiman has denied that he ever engaged in nonconsensual sex.)

Vol. 1’s final episode ends on a tense cliffhanger as Dream makes a fateful decision that could change everything. It’s appropriate: After all, Vol. 1 is all about change — and it seems, after eons of existence, that Dream is finally discovering that nothing ever stays the same.

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'THE SANDMAN'

Rating: TV-MA

How to watch: Netflix

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