The worst thing about Locke & Key on Netflix is all of the wasted potential. The show has good acting and good visual design, but the lousy writing and direction has really been a letdown. Well, this episode had me absolutely screaming. What the hell!? After so many stupid and boring episodes, now we get one that is totally awesome? “Crown of Shadows” totally honked, and I feel a certain kind of way about it.
1. What we did in the shadows
Before I offer a lot of praise for this episode, let’s just get its most boring story out of the way. Nina’s falling-off-the-wagon story seems to have lasted about two episodes before she found out that hot detective Daniel Matuku is also an alcoholic, and now she’s going on a date with him. In her defense, her conflict of not wanting to raise her kids in the supernatural murder-town was pretty engaging, but the episode didn’t know what it wanted to do with that, so she just quietly expressed her opinions throughout the episode, was repeatedly told that she was wrong, and she didn’t push back at all.
The weirdest note is that she never seems to find out that Ellie is missing, that Rupert was assaulted, and that her pre-tween son is the one who called it in. Like, I don’t know the actual rules of police confidentiality, but when you get called away from a date to go interview your date’s son as a witness, I feel like you should say something? Locke & Key went out with one last stupid and lazy inexplicable writing choice.
2. My favorite key
First of all the titular Crown of Shadows is probably my favorite key, and my favorite arc of the comic. I just looks way cool to use, and is pretty scary. Though Dodge’s shadow assault was brief, it looked great. Dodge came out dressed to the nines and looking totally dope. The crown itself was similarly pretty dope. And the shadow effects were on point. Even when the dialogue got rough, or the characters acted the fool, the visual spectacle prevented me from caring all that much.
Ultimately though, the plot itself was kind of interesting. There were a whole mess of double crosses and twists, and though it wasn’t hard to see coming, Ellie’s banishment was pretty wrenching. It’s frankly a more gentle fate than I thought she was going to get, but the mechanics that got her there were so elaborate, they kept me guessing.
3. Kids! On! Bikes!
I’ve learned to call this entire Amblin-inspired genre Kids On Bikes, in honor of the lack of supervision the child protagonists usually get. Bode has been that kid on that bike all season, but a lot of the time he’s been given dumb dead-end plans (setting up a bear trap) or was in a tonally dissonant show (flying around the graveyard). In this episode he was easily the MVP. The sight of him defending his siblings from the shadows with his rainbow lightsaber was probably the most memorable image of the season, and when he thought to attach the Matchstick Key to it, he stepped into the neighborhood of true badassery. It clicked with me that Bode is in some ways better equipped to battle demons because the rules of magic are very childlike. He gets how to banish the shadows because he can think in kid-logic.
Once the shadows have been bested, it’s Bode who finds an injured Rufus and comes very close to solving the mystery of the missing Ellie. Of course, Rufus needs medical attention and he gets it from an EMT who is definitely comics author Joe Hill, and I’m pretty sure his partner was comics artist Gabriel Rodriguez. So that was fun.
My only complaint about the Bode story was that we ended the season with a patented Netflix voice-over wrap-up letter. A lot of Netflix originals end with this device, and it’s always stupid and a great way to remind us of all the dumb ways Bode has been written and not all of his excellent accomplishments in this episode. Oh well, the kid had a good run there.
Continued below4. Curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal
While Bode handled his mission with the most panache, Kinsey carried the second half of the episode when the kids got into demon body disposal. That doesn’t mean it was all smooth sailing though. There was some pretty intolerable dialogue. “Ellie said that Echoes can’t be killed by normal means,” Kinsey was written to say. The terrible exposition writing hasn’t gone anywhere. No one talks like that, no one.
Then Kinsey’s friend squad rolled up and helped her for the rest of the episode and while I saw the makings of a classic Kids On Bikes situation, the squad has been underdeveloped and their moment felt unearned. Plus I literally wrote “Gabe is still just the goddamn worst,” when I saw his stupid face. And it turns out… I was right! What did I tell you!? I told you Gabe was bad news. And you didn’t believe me, you thought I was being harsh. But no, in the best twist of the season creepy Gabe was acting like a creep because… he was an actual monster. Gabe is Dodge, and all of this has been part of his evil plan! Nice one!
Plus, now whats-her-face got demoned too! I sure wish other members of their friend group had names or memorable characteristics.
5. Lacking a baseline
Of all the development this season, Tyler’s feels the least significant. This entire episode he basically became a supporting character in Kinsey’s story, and I hardly noticed. He started as a sullen jerk and he ended the season as a self righteous and sullen jerk, only without any supporting cast or driving motivation. This entire episode I wrote in my notes that I thought he was possessed at various times, or that Dodge was somehow in his body and that doesn’t seem to be the case, and I think that captures what I haven’t liked about this season. Tyler is ostensibly one of the main characters, but they couldn’t find anything for him to do this episode, so I wrote a more interesting story in my head for him.
Still, we end with a thrilling Omega Door sequence, and the next season is set up to be pretty thrilling. I expected to walk away from Locke & Key disappointed, but now I’m just disappointed that the entire season wasn’t half this fun.
