Locke & Key
Episodes: 10
Developed by: Carlton Cuse, Meredith Averill, Aron Eli Coleite
As everyone under the sun now knows, Netflix—previous home to the Marvel television series Daredevil, Jessica Jones and a host of others—no longer holds the rights to Marvel characters thanks to Disney’s shot at the streaming market with its own service, Disney+. As everyone also knows, even without the rights to these mainstream characters, comic book adaptations must roll on; the cash cow must be milked! This time dipping into IDW’s back-catalogue, Netflix has gifted us Locke & Key.
I went into Locke & Key blind, with my only prior knowledge of the comic being its existence. I also had not seen any trailers or marketing leading up to the series release. Instead I was enticed by the intriguing premise, creative title card, and interesting promo featured on the Netflix app itself. Locke & Key follows the journey of the Locke family moving to a new town after their father’s murder. Weirdly, they decided to move into their father’s despised childhood home—which seems kind of counterproductive for this family who are trying to gain a new start and escape the memory of this tragic incident, but what do I know?
Upon moving in, the family—more specifically, the three children—begin to discover mysterious magical keys scattered around the house and in turn embroil themselves in a mystery. Along side the main premise, we also have the more dramatic side of the story of the kids beginning at a new school. This is where the plot is the slowest, and while the main plot involving the keys and weirder elements of the story is fun and interesting, most everything involving the kids’ high school problems is cliché and boring. Of course, the story can’t be all weird all the time, but that doesn’t mean the teenage drama elements can’t be something that we haven’t already seen done countless times.
The main characters themselves are the highlight of the high school scenes, with Kinsey (Emilia Jones) a real standout. Jones manages to pull off some impressive emotional scenes and displays the PTSD and pain her character is going through exceptionally well. Connor Jessup as Tyler plays a more reserved and introspective character who is struggling with self-identity. While Jessup performs this well, the script at times does let him down by forcing the character into baffling social choices. For the most part Jessup seems to be playing the character at the end of this arc while the script is trying to catch up. Whether this is a result of direction problems or just scripting issues I am unsure. The remainder of the acting throughout the series is mostly standard fair.
Now, last year I reviewed Netflix’s first season of The Umbrella Academy (another comic book adaptation) where I commented that Netflix had done well to maintain the weird and wonderful aspects of the source material. TUA was able to creatively use film, as the visual medium it is, to build on those aspects, and that’s where I feel Locke & Key is primarily being let down. While the weird is still sufficiently present in the story, most of the time the visuals do not support or build on this aspect of the series. Locke & Key is shot and edited more akin to another comic book adaptation Netflix is currently airing: Riverdale. With the overwhelming success Riverdale has received I have noticed its visual style is beginning to bleed over into other Netflix series, including this one. There isn’t anything wrong with Riverdale’s style for its own primary genre of drama—and, yes, Locke & Key does have drama elements—but it also has a strong focus on horror and fantasy. These are the elements which I would rather see the creators build upon in the series’ visuals. While visual formulas can be used well across similar genres or content that takes place within the same world, I would rather see separate series create their own interesting styles and not lean so heavily on established ones.
It is definitely nice to see Netflix continuing to take chances on smaller more niche properties like Locke & Key. The platform continuing to develop interesting ideas and concepts within its content can only be a good thing for the industry and viewers. But while Locke & Key fits into this category, it is yet to stand out. Unlike a series such as The Umbrella Academy, the creators seem to have erred more on the side of safety, playing down aspects and sticking to a well-tread visual formula. Locke & Key is not ‘bad’—it’s just acceptable, something you can use to pass the time while you wait for the next season of a show you are inevitably more invested in.
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