There are three things you need to know about the third season and finale of Locke and Key from Netflix. In the first place, that it tries, in a kind and moving way, to recover the power of its celebrated first chapters. The second is that does not achieve it. And the third: that the closing of the argument is weak and disappointing precisely because of the above. The curious thing is that it is not that there is a lack of interest for history that embraces fantasy in novel ways. The real drawback is that their narrative resources fall short for the ambitions of the program.
The production reached the Netflix catalog as a promise. That of reconstructing the fantasy genre at a more delicate, personal and emotional level than the usual productions on the platform. There was a good material to achieve it. The homonymous comic by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez is a splendid box of surprises, which also cleverly mixes the notion of the supernatural and the sensory. At the same time, it adds a correct exploration of grief and emotional pain. That, while the Locke family tries to understand the magical mystery that unites them. Such a combination promised a high-level show.
But the show enters its third season with little to say. What began with the murder of Rendell Locke (Bill Heck), reaches its culminating episodes in the midst of a confused air of incomplete travel. The Keyhouse mansion’s appeal as the center of unexplained events is also eroded.
The main plot lines about the magic keys they did not reach a conclusion that lived up to their inspired hypothesis. A consequence of the way in which the essence of the Locke family was blurred over time. The widow Nina (Darby Stanchfield) became a referential character, a weightless sounding board in history. The same happens with Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones) and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) whose plots decayed until they dissolved each other.
Locke and Key
Locke and Key arrives on Netflix with a final season that tries to recover the magic of its first installment. But either because it lacks the liveliness of the story’s openings or because it closes hastily, it doesn’t quite make it. As if that weren’t enough, it becomes an incomplete, inaccurate, and unattractive tour of a larger world. What began as the promise of a drama with gothic airs and great sensitivity, ended up being a mixture of generic elements without much relevance. A small disaster that says goodbye without much to give to the fantasy genre
What happens when a premise loses its most recognizable points? Locke and Key had a second season in which all the effort of the first fell into the void. Maybe it was due to the lack of a villain with enough solidity. Or the fact that the plot tried to cover very wide places to support a proposal that overwhelmed it. Whatever the reason, the program failed. And that is more evident than ever in its third season and farewell to the multiscreen.
Warning, spoilers ahead!
A sour goodbye to Locke and Key
The new season of Locke and Key starts immediately after the previous one. Which means that the consequences of the invocation to Frederick Gideon (Kevin Durand), will be noticeable. But despite only having eight chapters to tell his story, the series takes things slow. And that includes analyzing what has happened to the main characters. A road map that reflects on the permanence of the supernatural in the Locke family.
At first, Tyler decided to turn away from the idea of magic, which gives him a chance at a normal life. Or at least, as simple as it can be amid a latent sense that the extraordinary is about to return to his mind. On the other hand, Nina makes the opposite determination. Now, the inexplicable is a deep imprint on her behavior. Locke and Key establishes an obvious parallelism between both experiences. And the path that each character must take, in order to face the villain of the season and his diabolical abilities. The result is the highest point of the script in its final episodes.
It is a precise way of delving into the fact of the fantastic. What is the impact of the supernatural on a family united by sensitive ties? After all, Locke and Key it is a story about pain. The argument recognizes its origin and returns to its most powerful element. The legacy of the dead father – that connection to the disturbing and the beautiful – is, again, strong. Still, it goes to waste as the plot moves too quickly into its platitudes toward the end.
All a hasty closing
With fewer episodes and shorter than the rest of the seasons, the closing of Locke and Key It has a lot of a forced and artificial conclusion. Even as Tyler returns to the family home to contextualize the idea of the inexplicable that he holds the Serie, the script falls short. The series dispenses with its identity in favor of the spectacular. Or to fulfill a television formula that separates it from its nostalgic darkness, one of its most celebrated elements.
And while Gideon struggles to open a door for the demons, nothing seems very defined or well explained. With new keys on the line and less time to explore their usefulness, the script rushes. That, while the incarnation of darkness struggles to provoke shock or even interest. But this is a nightmarish villain that lacks substance. Is it necessary that the evil and disturbing be shown in such an obvious way? With no meaning to fight for, the program then relies on its very complicated network of interconnections. Which brother has which key and what does each one do, in particular? Locke and Key insists on solving his map of problems in a short time and with little skill.
And in the end, they all lived relatively happily
For its culmination, Locke and Key he goes to great lengths to ensure that every line and every turn of the narrative is carefully sustained. Which wouldn’t be bad, if it weren’t for the fact that the Netflix series always celebrated a kind of chaotic vitality that is sorely missed. But its later episodes lack that sparkling, often elusive, graceful grace that made it clear that magic is a manifestation of the unpredictable.
The production says goodbye discreetly. Even though there were stupendous and vast possibilities to narrate an unforgettable plot. Nevertheless, Locke and Key it’s a heap product. Perhaps the biggest problem that the adaptation of a larger, more sophisticated and profound mythology had to face at all times.