Netflix’s loose adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s beloved comic-book series Locke & Key has had fun all season with the magical keys that keep dropping into the lives of its main characters. The arrival of a new key into the hands of the Locke children can fundamentally shift what it is they’re facing and their ability to deal with it, so understanding them is key (sorry) to unlocking (sorry again) the show’s plot.
After a shocking act of self-immolation (explained far later in the series), the pilot begins with the Locke family — mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), teens Tyler (Connor Jessup) and Kinsey (Emilia Jones), plus Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) in elementary school — leaving Seattle after a horrifying family tragedy to move to the ancestral home of deceased patriarch Rendell (Bill Heck, in a lot of flashbacks) on a remote part of coastal Massachusetts. The spacious Key House has everything — ample bedrooms, magical keys tied to a family curse, scenic views, a secret walled-off room in the basement, seaside access, a demonic woman trapped in a well. Everything!
Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s comic is a horror story with fantastical undertones, but the series has reversed the equation, adding classic horror references — the town’s name has gone from “Lovecraft” to “Matheson,” like Richard, while Tom Savini references, plus a cameo, abound. These don’t always connect with a story that has become alternatingly whimsical and sad, but very rarely actually scary.
The penultimate episode, directed by Vincenzo Natali, has the series’ lone good fright as part of a fast-moving installment that is, frankly, sharper and funnier than anything that comes before it, gives our heroes a dose of high energy and finishes on a killer Billie Eilish needle drop. And as seems to be the case every time Locke & Key hits a peak — episodes three and four and seven through nine are the highlights — it’s followed by a valley, in this case a rushed finale that manages to be both over-explained and confusing. I’d compare it to a magician explaining the secret of a trick he hadn’t bothered to do in the first place.
By : Riddhima Rajpal
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