Melissanthi Mahut’s Character Had One Episode, but Changed ‘The Sandman’ Forever
Despite getting her own episode in The Sandman’s season 1, the actress’ character was nowhere to be found in the second instalment, yet had a direct connection to one of the most heartbreaking plot twists.
All kinds of mythical characters come and go in Netflix’s The Sandman, but it doesn’t mean their absence would signal their complete disappearance from the story.
Despite mostly revolving around Tom Sturridge’s Dream aka Morpheus, Netflix’s show, based on Neil Gaiman’s vast collection of comic books, has spent two entire seasons exploring his relationships with other characters, whether those are members of his Endless family or some sort of outsiders that he’s close with.
Particularly, both the comic book series and the TV adaptation briefly introduced Dream’s former wife and prominent figure from Greek mythology.
Played by Canadian-Greek actress Melissanthi Mahut, she was someone to remember about even when she was nowhere to be found in The Sandman’s season 2.
Melissanthi Mahut Portrayed Calliope in ‘The Sandman’ Season 1
In both “The Sandman” comic books and Greek mythology they rely on, Calliope is a muse of epic poetry and eloquence who is also considered the wisest of nine muses living on Mount Olympus.
In Neil Gaiman’s comic book series Calliope meets Dream and they fall in love with each other, resulting in the two having a son who they name Orpheus.
Eventually, Calliope and Dream part their ways, and sometime later the former is captured and taken as a prisoner by several prominent writers who use her for inspiration for their bestselling books, also raping Calliope in the meantime.
She is freed once Dream escapes his own imprisonment and comes to Calliope’s rescue by punishing her torturers with experiencing an overabundance of ideas which would never let them concentrate on just one idea.
Calliope returns to the world of gods afterwards, leaving Dream in his own realm where he will eventually see the demise of their son Orpheus, struggling to keep living without his deceased wife.
Calliope’s Story Is Featured in ‘The Sandman’ Season 1 Special Episode
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Even though the character was never meant to become one of the show’s leads, both The Sandman’s showrunner Allan Heinberg and Neil Gaiman felt like Calliope’s story, even this disturbing, deserved some attention since it also had a major impact on Dream’s life.
As both revealed at the time of The Sandman’s season 1 premiere back in 2022, Calliope’s disheartening twist wasn’t only important to the main storyline itself, but could also resonate with the social movements like #MeToo, though it still required some major changes to avoid controversy.
“There were certain things we knew right away. We knew we didn't have any interest in showing any of the sexual assault on camera. We knew that as much as we could give them the structure of the story, we wanted it to be Calliope's story. As Neil said, we wanted to give Calliope more agency”, Heinberg said in an interview with CBR back then.
