Welcome back to Matheson. I’m a lover of the comic “Locke & Key” but my relationship with the show Locke & Key is slowly shifting in a pessimistic direction. Open mindedness is giving way to another emotion, one I don’t have a word for. Something ancient, and possibly eldritch. This may be how those who came before us felt when they looked upon Shub-Niggorath and her thousand young. My point is that this show may be driving me a little mad. I’ll try to keep my sanity you brave Keeper of the Keys. I’ll stay strong and get us through this season. I hope you’ll take the journey, so I don’t have to do it alone. That said, we’ve got to talk about episode three, “Head Games.”
1. [Adjective] Instrumentals
Part of my frustration with Locke & Key has had to do with the high quality of most of the component parts. The acting, the production design, the effects, they’ve all been pretty good. But the score has not been sitting well with me. Not at all. I never feel good about calling out a particular creator as the weak link of a project, and relative newcomer Torin Borrowdale is certainly writing music that could fit on some show. Just not this show. The playful, bouncy music frequently undercuts the dread of Keyhouse and when it’s applied to the more adventurous moments of the show, it becomes overstated serving to pull you out of the action instead of amping you up. My subtitles often described the score with phrases like “whimsical twinkling instrumental” and uh-uh, that’s far too much whismy for me. I know that scoring is a nigh-impossible job. Composers are given instructions from producers who often don’t know the first thing they are talking about. But the score has consistently let me down on Locke & Key
2. The Head Key
We get to play with a new Key in this episode: The Head Key. This was a moment I’d be really nervous about in any adaptation. Each characters’ mindscape in the comics is simply unadaptable. It’s pure comic book imagery. I was pleasantly surprised to see the production team doing their damnedest. Bode’s inner world is improbably an old school arcade. Kinsey’s is an MC Escher shopping mall… also does Netflix have one excellent mall set they built for Stranger Things that they are using for all their shows? I feel like I’m seeing it everywhere. That’s cool though, nothing about the sets detracted from the feeling that the production team can bring it. The sets and locations have been universally outstanding.
As props, the keys themselves are pretty cool! We see a scene where Dodge uses the Anywhere Key to murder a little kid (yikes) and steal the um, Lighter Key from him. As a fan of the source material, seeing the keys as physical props being held by actors was a total thrill.
Unfortunately, there is one design element that didn’t do it for me: Kinsey’s fear. Comic book Fear is wrapped in terrifying newspaper headlines and dripping with Venom-like goo. This just looked like Kinsey, but pointy and growly. I did like the final scene of the episode though, where she grabbed a knife and just killed that part of herself, no hesitation. It’s that kind of metaphor made literal that I love this comic, hell, this genre for. What do you think fearless Kinsey is going to be like? I bet it involves a makeover…
3. Bad Education
I just watched the first season of Sex Education, also on Netflix, and it ruled. Sometimes it veered into romcom cliché, but the writing was so strong that I was always deeply invested. It’s hard to transition from that, to this. The ambient high school conflict feels simultaneously overwritten and undercooked. You see Tyler’s fight coming from a mile away, but when he throws a punch at the undeveloped creep, you just aren’t sold on his inner conflict. I get what they were going for. Tyler has a lot of anger about his father’s death (and the responsibility he feels for jokingly egging on his killer). Sometimes high school boys are creepy. But a more tightly written show would have brought those things together, maybe by connecting the creep back to Sam Lesser. As it stands, the point of the scene was to show how Tyler’s behavior is bother Kinsey and we established that in the first episode. Netflix shows, am I right?
Or how about that disabled guy, whose name I don’t think I caught. He’s likable, funny, and confident enough. But every time he shows up, the camera always manages shoot the scene from the ground through his prosthetic legs. If it was just about matter-of-factly including a disabled character, we wouldn’t have to linger on his prosthetics like this. If there’s a point or a metaphor, it’s really being lost. If this is going to turn into a high school drama, that’s well-worn territory and there’s lots of good story there. But this effort feels halfhearted at best.
4. The forgetful detective
Most of the changes from the comic to the show I’ve felt pretty strongly about (and those feelings have not been positive). This one is genuinely perplexing. In the comics, Nina became an out of control alcoholic, a big problem played for melodrama. Here, she’s six years sober. And friends, I am honestly a bit baffled. Having her drunk and stumbling seems like easy drama. TV loves easy drama! A sobriety story seems subtle. I’m here for it, but will the show go there? I’m just at a loss for why this change was made.
All things considered though, I really feel for Nina more than almost anyone else. She’s got Ellie, but she’s otherwise so isolated, and she’s so disadvantaged in solving this mystery. Every time she finds a clue, she mostly forgets it! The kids all have their mother, but who does Nina really have? At the end of the episode, she connects the creepy omegas drawn in Hot Rendell’s yearbook with the Omega tattoo that Sam Lesser had. But she doesn’t even realize that there’s a mystery here. She just thinks it’s creepy serendipity. Take mercy on poor cursed Nina!
5. Bode the friendly ghost
The first issue of “Locke & Key” ends with an unforgettable sequences where Bode discovers the Ghost Key, which is played alarmingly. We’re on episode three, and you guessed it, it ain’t the same. It starts off great: the Ghost Key is found in a spooky painting, which we later learn is a portrait of Chamberlain Locke. Besides being a great and memorable image, it actually connects back to the comic lore in a neat way: Chamberlain Locke was introduced in the “Open the Moon” one-shot, a prequel that took place just after the Civil War. The comic only hinted at a lot of these ancestor Locke stories, so this is a cool new territory to explore!
But any dread that a skull key that kills kids may have once had vanishes like smoke.The episode goes full funtimes fantasy, with Bode getting a sequence that was one part E.T. and one part Spider-Man. It’s the discovering your powers scene. He goes flying over the trees in the moonlight. “Yipee!” he yells. We get that jaunty bouncing score. Eventually, he lands in the family cemetery, and encounters the ghost of Chamberlain Locke.
This isn’t just a preference of tone. There’s important thematic work being wasted here too. Comic book Bode becomes almost addicted to the Ghost Key, contemplating death and using it to try and cope with his dad’s murder. It’s one of the best examples of his childish perspective being used to grapple with some heavy shit. That’s sort of alluded to, but the point of this scene is for the Ghost of Chamberlain to exposit about the ghost rules. If you don’t die on the Keyhouse grounds your ghost can’tzzzzzzzzzz…
I’ve mentioned that the day I can’t find some fun in spooky magical keys is the day I’ve got to start asking myself some fundamental questions. I fear that day has come. That might be what these reviews are turning into. It’s not just my disappointment with changes that this adaptation has made, maddening though they may be. It’s that I feel like events are playing out with as much weight as Chamberlain’s ghost and his bland dialogue. I’d love to hear from a “Locke & Key” newbie though. Are there any of you out there who think I’m being unfair? Is this a charming story, and I’m looking for the wrong thing? I don’t even know what I know anymore.
