After receiving raving reviews for its first season, the much anticipated second season of “Locke & Key” is finally here and it’s time to unpack all of the details.
The first season released in early 2020 followed Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke, along with their mother Nina, as they move from Seattle to Mattheson, Massachusetts after the death of their father Rendell Locke. Their new home, Keyhouse, introduces them to a world of supernatural chaos and conflict revolving around a variety of magical keys.
Season one leaves off with the Locke kids thinking they have done away with Dodge, a demon who threatened, manipulated, and terrorized them for the magical keys they possessed. Unaware of Dodges remaining existence in their lives as Gabe, season two follows the Locke kids as they uncover new forces of evil that are conspiring against them to gain power through the magical keys.
All in all, I liked season two and appreciated the effort that was put into making a show with so many elements, but I don’t think it matched the quality of season one.
For starters, I feel like this season tried exploring too many plotlines into a ten-episode sequence. This may be useful to help the flow of next season’s plot, but it made this season feel a little too chaotic.
The plot, although interesting, was predictable and scattered at times. Specifically Gabe’s villain storyline. Although I was a fan of Gabe as a character, the storyline his character explored was foreseeable, and felt rushed to come to a resolution.
In that same manner, the climax of the season, a large battle scene between demon-possessed people and the Locke kids, also felt rushed. It was still an epic scene to watch, but resolving the majority of their issues within nine minutes makes all their struggles seem a bit useless.
There were some outlandish moments like Kinsey using a key to get large wings and fly, but overall these magical and surreal components that were included in this season helped me to overlook the rushed and messy plot.
There were a few elements of the show that I think accomplished the same level of captivating entertainment. One of those elements is exploring new keys and their magical abilities. My personal favorite was the small world key, which is used by inserting a key into a dollhouse replica of Keyhouse binding the dollhouse to the real Keyhouse, and making it possible for whatever happens in the dollhouse to happen in the real Keyhouse.
I also really enjoyed Bode’s character development in season two. As one of my favorite characters in both seasons, I consider Bode to be one of the most intelligent characters on the show. His vigilant persona and quick wit matched with his youthful nature easily make him one of the strongest characters of the show.
Overall the show wasn’t horrible but it felt lacking and could have benefited from a few extra episodes this season. I do feel like they left off in a good place with a lot of potential for a season three, so I am excited to see where things go from here for the Locke family.