Locke and Key | Television Review

A lot of times I come at these reviews with some sort of angle. Maybe what I watched touched a memory, feeling, or inspired a point of view. This time, frankly I am at a loss. I want to come at you with some sort of Goonies-ian inspiration, but I’m not quite there. My other thought was to take this very Zathura–esque look at Locke and Key, but that feels cheap and unnecessary. So, here we are about to launch into a review, and neither of us will know where it lands until we get there.

We open on the remains of the Locke family driving cross country from Seattle to Massachusetts to their ancestral home after the loss of the family’s patriarch. Man, is it bleak. Nina Locke (Darby Stanchfield) is a woman who lost her partner and she is trying to keep her children together as she works through her pain. Tyler Locke (Connor Jessup) is a mopey puddle of teen angst and Apple headphones. Kinsey Locke (Emilia Jones) is walking PTSD with the magical ability to keep a perpetual teardrop on her bottom eyelid at will. Finally, Bode Locke (Jackson Robert Scott) is the smartest damn person in the car just pointing out every obvious thing that everyone is way too torn up to realize.

Yeah, it’s about as dreary as it sounds. The color is all muted, it’s hard to look at these people, and you really feel for what they may be going through. To give you an idea, Tyler feels responsible for his father’s death, especially since it came at the hands of one of his friends. Kinsey feels haunted by the fact that she didn’t do any saving, even though options seemed to be available to her at the time. Nina was shot, and then she brained the dude, but she lost her husband still and, well, that’s just terrible. Bode is just too busy being awesome to let anything keep him down for too long. These people have been through it, and this move to Key House is their way to connect to Rendell Locke (Bill Heck) after his loss.   

We get to Key House and that’s when they start letting a little color into the scenes. You see, Key House is named as such because the original Locke’s were as ridiculous as this sentence is and thought it would be cute to name their homestead Key House. Also, magical keys to magical doors that unlock special abilities and magical effects. You know what comes with a magical house with magical keys that unlock magical doors? Evil… it always comes with evil. Enter Dodge (Laysla De Oliveria), the evil incarnate there to tempt and torture our heroes, and she doesn’t care about who she steps on along the way.  

The story falls under the category of something that I would call engaging. The story felt different and fresh, something that crosses magical-whimsy with the spine of a haunted house. It is rich and textured, but it is not all excellent. I have grown accustomed to watching a streaming show and feeling the almost drug-fueled need to let it play the next episode. However, Locke and Key didn’t do that. The story took its time and doesn’t start driving the need to hit the next episode button until the last few episodes. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing to you, is up to you, but I am a little perplexed by it.  

The cast is a marvel. The biggest standout being Jackson Robert Scott as Bode Locke. The most notable time I’ve seen him on the screen was in Stephen King’s IT. Here, much like the little we saw of him in IT, he was a little powerhouse of acting. He is a wonderful shepherd for us while the rest of the characters get their acts together. Next to Jackson as a standout is Laysla De Oliveria’s work as Dodge. She is terrifying, funny, conniving, twisted, and just a whole bunch of fun in a slinky dress.  

The rest of the cast is strong too, but they take a little time before they become interesting. Give them a break though, their dad died. Connor Jessup’s Tyler takes the trip from angsty teen to a legitimate leader and caregiver to his younger siblings. The trippy manner in which Emilia Jones’ Kinsey is written makes her seem as if she is two separate characters and it works.  

The primary players are some strong bit of casting and a credit to the show, but the secondary characters are equally as powerful in charm. It’s only a feat of the writing that keeps them firmly placed where they are in the hierarchy of storytelling. At any point, one of the secondaries could have stolen the show.  

One thing that Locke and Key unavoidably has going for it is the obvious budget, and it shows in the production. The House itself is a character, much like The Haunting of Hill House only cuddlier, and the magical effect competes with anything coming to theaters today. The level of imagination hits a first-class high with enough grounding to keep it honest, making it apparent that creators Meredith Averill, Aron Eli Coleite, and Carlton Cuse really took their time. If there was any corner-cutting to make something work that shouldn’t, it wasn’t evident to this viewer.   

So, here we are, the end of this article. Now that I am here, I am still a little surprised by how I feel. You see, I love shows like this. shows that remind us about the magic of life, spark the imagination, and make me feel like I went on an adventure. As I sit and reflect on my viewing experience, I just feel as though I was merely watching as someone else took this journey, and I was never truly along for the ride. Now, I’m willing to admit maybe angsty teens who strive to become cool down the road are not the kind of people I want to hang out with, but shouldn’t the show get me past that? Isn’t that the key to TV greatness?

While it didn’t quite sweep me up in the adventure, what I do know is that Locke and Key has a stellar cast, effects that will surprise you, and a devil in a green dress that will leave you thinking being evil might not be so bad…

Locke and Key is now streaming on Netflix
Starring Darby Stanchfield, Connor Jessup, and Emilia Jones
Created by Meredith Averill, Aron Eli Coleite, and Carlton Cuse
Based on the comic books by Joe Hill