Locke & Key: When the Comic Reader’s Perspective is Dismissed

By John Kirk

Rating: C

The challenge that television creators have when trying to adapt a property created by their comic cousins is that they must appeal to two audiences.

The first is the one who read and loved the original story in the comic medium, were essential in it getting noticed, and who are so easily dismissed. The second audience are those introduced to the story for the first time via television.

I’m talking about Netflix’s Locke & Key, the televised adaptation of IDW Publishing’s incredibly imaginative comic series written by Joe Hill and drawn by Gabriel Rodriguez. In season three, the comic got thrown out the proverbial window.

But, if the story was good enough to be considered for a television adaptation, then perhaps reinvention isn’t such a great idea and leave enough of the story that was successful well alone? Just a thought.

Season three marks a radical shift in story from the previous seasons. The first audience group I mentioned would appreciate the former ones more given that there are a lot of familiar story elements from the books.

Season two has a bit of a departure towards more original elements but there’s also a sense of finality in it, as Tyler decides to break from his family and move west, leaving the family to fend for itself now that the dangers are settled. Season Three is mostly new story and owes very little to the comic.

Locke & Key is the story of the Locke family who suffer a seemingly senseless tragedy in which Rendell Locke (Bill Heck), patriarch of the clan and well-loved guidance counselor, is brutally murdered by an unbalanced student in a home invasion.

In the show, the family moves to their ancestral town in the fictional town of Matheson, Massachusetts. In the books, the family had already lived there, and the town was known as Lovecraft — a bit of a nod to the New England, Call of Cthulhu horror stories that influenced not only Joe Hill but his father, Stephen King. Comic readers will mark this change but it’s in the realm of acceptable license.

Their home is known as Keyhouse, and unsurprisingly, is the hiding place of magical keys made from extra-dimensional metal from a place that houses demons who want to take over the world. The Lockes become the guardians of these keys and use them to defend against these demons.

With the death of her husband, Nina Locke (Darby Stanchfield) moves her family into the ancestral home of the Lockes to give her children, Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones) and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) new scenery and a fresh start away from Chicago.

However, they soon realize there is something odd about their new home as they begin to discover strange keys with even stranger properties and ghosts from their father’s time as a student at Matheson Academy (not Lovecraft Academy) when he and his friends were the “Keepers of the Keys.” Again, this is fairly faithful to the storyline, and aside from the name-change, most comic readers won’t take umbrage to the slight differences in seasons one and two.

In terms of casting, Connor Jessup is the perfect Tyler Locke. He’s the kid who has to shoulder his own guilt but grow up fast to take on the role of father-figure after his dad’s murder. Jessup understands this character perfectly. Other favourites include Laysla De Oliveira as Dodge (although I’m sure she would have made a great Zack as well) and Martin Roach as Detective Mutuku.

Watch Bonnie Laufer's interview with Locke & Key Actor Connor Jessup

Season three has a much different nature than the previous ones. The first two covered the dark storyline of the comic series well enough that there was little left for the third to expound upon. As a result, the spirit of S3 is new material and has more of a “Disney-esque” feel to it with a jaunty musical score and comedic side-glances interspersed here and there. Its flavour is lighter.

There’s even a new villain — an “echo” (a property of one of the keys is to call up almost-spirits of departed beings into existence) of a British officer from the War of American Independence times, Captain Frederick Gideon (Kevin Durand). As dark as he is, even he isn’t enough to minimalize the influence of “feel-good” moments.

The conspicuously diminished presence of Uncle Duncan Locke (Aaron Ashmore) can’t be overlooked. As Rendell’s brother, Duncan plays a pivotal role in the first two seasons grounding the family, recovering his memories of the keys and proves to be a valuable ally.

He is a crucial member of the family and, after he gets his memories of his childhood back, proves to be a repository of key lore. In season three, he gets married and is on his honeymoon for the rest of it, only showing up for breakfast in the final episode. Duncan is too important a character to receive this treatment.

There are also rules that govern the use of the keys in this story. A part of the story’s success is the eventual discovery of their operation in the comic. For the most part these are observed in the first two seasons. By the third season, the collective voices of loyal fans to the comic can be heard protesting throughout the ether.

At its heart, Locke & Key is supposed to be a dark tale of suspense-driven horror and while the previous two seasons managed to capture that essence, the third season doesn’t. Instead, it rewards the Lockes with happy endings when there wasn’t.

There are less deaths, the characters find successes in their personal pursuits and like a Shakesperean formula, even find romantic matchups in the end. There’s even a scene at the end of the season where the whole family is sitting around the breakfast table, complete with new significant others looking at each other in familial bliss.

The draw of this series is the strength of the comic its story is based on. Seasons one and two managed to capture the essence of the award-winning comic and its sense of finality signalled the end of a good story. In comparison, season three falls short in delivering that same sense. The one good thing about season three is that both a comic-reading audience and a television one will both agree on that.

Maybe use more of the comic next time.

Locke & Key Season Three is currently streaming on Netflix.