Locke and Key: A Smart(er) Teen Drama

Ultimately, Locke and Key was Netflix’s attempt at creating their version of House of Anubis, or any other live action series created by Nicktoons, or Cartoon Network during their live action phase. There’s an obvious appeal towards a younger audience, but it doesn’t treat them like a bunch of flashing colors and fart noises will entertain them. Locke and Key is a lot smarter than a lot of the shows that cater to this demographic that are out on Netflix. Although, the show is only as good as that particular genre allows. There are plenty of romantic subplots that aren’t entirely necessary, for example, but that’s just the way of the teen drama. While it’s not award winning, it’s certainly has a little more substance than half the YA material that is out now.

Locke and Key’s storyline, while fairly basic, was able to properly capture my attention. The series was slow to start, admittedly, but got more intense over time, and by the end I was interested to see how the story would end. I wasn’t enthralled, certainly, but I was interested. The main characters, the children, tend to fall into tropes: Tyler is the popular kid, Kensey is the awkward, nerdy kid, and Bode’s the annoying little brother. They’re all likable, with just enough flaws to make them relatable. While the tropes are tropes, they certainly aren’t the worst ones.

LOCKE & KEY

The villain of the series, however, wasn’t fleshed out beyond being a moustache-twirler. While they were a great moustache-twirler, we got no indication as to their motives. We’re not sure what they want with the different keys, and so we’re left confused as to why they’re doing what they’re doing in the first place.

One thing I will applaud the series for is that it is clever at times. There are moments when I can tell what’s going to happen next from a mile away, but there are times where I was surprised by what occurs. The twist at the very end, for example, is really shocking. Unfortunately, the scenes in which the twists were revealed tended to stretch on for a little too long, but that’s normal given the demographic that the series is appealing to. The fantastical aspects of the series were also really unique. All of the keys were interesting in their own way, and it was always cool to see what they opened. It also didn’t hurt that the special effects for the series were really well done. They definitely put some money into them. It was rare that something felt fake.

As far as the story’s length is concerned, there were times in which the hour long format wasn’t necessary. The series goes between the length of an average TV series, 40 minutes, to being an hour, which is the length of some shows that are only accessed through streaming. The unfortunate result is that some shows that don’t need to be an hour end up being an hour. Locke and Key did suffer from this at times. There were several moments, especially towards the beginning of the series, where the plot was slow and rather uninteresting. While it does pick up later, there were some moments that felt that they were just included in order to try and make the series longer.

It also doesn’t help that a lot of the big reveals are made towards the end. As a result, not much is revealed throughout most of the series, and so during most of the series you’re left with a lot of questions and not a lot of answers, and I got kind of disinterested in the series, at that point, as a result. It’s not that nothing is revealed, it’s that little is, so you’re not left completely disinterested. For example, and this is a spoiler so if you don’t want spoilers, skip to the next paragraph, Kinsey ends up using a key that lets people enter her mind and she kills a physical manifestation of her fear. This happens in episode 3, and you see the consequences of her fear being completely erased, yet this isn’t really acknowledged until the final few episodes.

One thing the series did really well was the portrayal of grief and alcoholism, particularly the latter. Each character, interestingly, had a different way of dealing with their grief, and they deal with it in very real ways. This next part, and the paragraph following, contains spoilers, so if you don’t want spoilers, skip to the final paragraph.The alcoholism was dealt with similarly, except attributed to the mother character, which makes it all the more upsetting, given she’s a parent. Ultimately, the way the series treats these two things is both well done and impactful.