I'm gonna be delaying a Stranger Things retrospective until next year owing to it only being released a few weeks back [time of writing], I have something in mind for it, given the ungodly episode lengths. But instead, this Halloween, we’re looking at Locke and Key. Based on the comics written by Joe Hill with art by Gabriel Rodriguez, the series had a pilot developed for Fox, it didn’t make it past a pilot, but after a successful comic-con screening, they announced a feature film trilogy, which also didn’t make it. A pilot was made for Hulu but continuing the string of failures, Hulu also didn’t pick it up for a series. It’s at this point, Netflix came in, and gave the series a season order of 10 episodes. It dropped on February 2nd 2020. [The Aug 10 date on the poster is for the most recent season]
Welcome to Matheson
The opening credits are visually striking, with a nice
slightly creepy musical choice. We open in the suburbs; a man gets a phone-call
that tells him that Rendell Locke is dead. Hearing this a man takes a key out
of his safe, sticks it into his chest in doing so sets the whole house ablaze.
We’re next introduced to the Lockes, Nina (Darby
Stanchfield) and her sons Tyler (Connor Jessup) and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott)
and her daughter Kinsey (Emilia Jones) so actors wise we have a Canadian, an US
American, and an Englishwoman, and no real attempt to match their accents. It’s
not overly weird, just an observation.
Just to give the idea of the family dynamic right now, let’s
take a look at what they’re up to. Tyler is being silent and listening to music
with his headphones on, Kinsey is drawing and Bode is annoying everyone because
he’s bored. They have arrived at their father’s hometown of Matheson, and the
location of their ancestral mansion.
Still, before we get there they decide to stop for ice
cream, in the middle of winter. OK, its here we’re introduced to Rufus (Coby
Bird), a guy who’s I think considerably older than Bode but potentially, how to
put this delicately, mentally underdeveloped, I think that’s what they were
going for. I mean he’s not stupid, but he relates more with the 10-year-old
Bode than he does with people his own age, more on him later. We also meet Scot
(Petrice Jones) , who works at the ice cream shop and has a bad business habit
of giving free ice cream to their only customers out of sympathy.
They arrive at the huge mansion, where we’re introduced to
Duncan (Aaron Ashmore) , their uncle who will be important later. They get a
house tour and, well it’s certainly a bit of a fixer-upper. Bode goes to choose
a room, Duncan and Kinsey briefly talk about drawing a bike for her application
to a summer programme. And Tyler looks over a cliff whilst trying and failing
to smoke a joint. It’s revealed he and Rendell had not been seeing eye-to-eye
of late. Neither he or Kinsey are looking forward to being recognised at school
the next day. Wow, things are moving fast for them
Nina gets a flashback as to what happened the day Rendell
died. Everything seemed normal, Rendell (Bill Heck) was painting, Nina was
decorating some glass when a guy named Sam (Thomas Mitchell Barnet) comes
wanting information about Keyhouse, and threatening Rendell at gunpoint, he
shoots Nina in the leg to prove he’s serious but Tyler comes home, banging at
the door having forgotten his keys and startles Sam enough that he shoots
Rendell in the stomach, killing him.
Body’s taking some photos of the surrounding area with his
polaroid and comes across an old wellhouse. It’s locked but he’s small enough
to squeeze through the bars. He takes a photo but the developed film falls down
the well, only to reappear right beside him. He calls out and hears another
voice talk back to him, scaring him off.
Naturally he screams about it and the others don’t believe
him. Bode isn’t starting school for another year, Duncan’s off to work in
Boston and Kinsey and Tyler head off to school. A boarding school they aren’t
boarding at, guess the town’s too small just to accommodate just the denizens
of the town. First thing Kinsey hears is preppy girl say she’s probably a
killjoy, saying her aunt died and she didn’t get any attention.
So, I already hate this girl. Wanting to avoid people,
Kinsey eats in a basement or something and that’s where Scot finds her. And
he’s giving it the full charm offensive, which would work better if he wasn’t
constantly tripping over himself, verbally I mean, he’s not that big of a
klutz. We do learn that Kinsey is vegan, neat. He invites Kinsey to hang out
with his friends, the Sabini squad.
Tyler is at Hockey try-outs and not doing too badly but he
has his own PTSD flashback and credit to them, they make the sure it’s from his
perspective, something a few shows, even good ones tend to forget to do when
they show a person’s perspective. Here he meets Javi (Kelvin Alves) and Brinker
(Kolton Stewart) who invite him to a party.
Nina needs to head to the hardware store, leaving Body, ahm,
Home Alone TM. And whilst he’s Home Alone TM, he heads
back to the wellhouse. The voice from the well tells him that Keyhouse contains
amazing keys with abilities, including one that will open a door to anywhere,
she tells him to listen, the keys will whisper to him.
Whilst talking with Kinsey, Bode hears the whisper and finds
the key the voice described. He tries to test it, thinking about ice cream, and
he sticks the key in a nearby lock, when he opens the door, he’s at the ice
cream Parlour, the one Scot works at. Body hears another whispering, finding
another key in the sink.
He heads back to the wellhouse, telling his echo about it
because we’re still in that phase where no-one believes him. The anywhere key
will only take you through a door you’ve previously seen. Good, there’s some
limitations. He asks about the other key and echo tells him that it will allow
him to speak to his father again and he should definitely show his mother…
Tyler’s at the party, making small talk with a girl named
Jackie (Genevieve Kang), he begins making out with a different girl, we find
out later her name is Eden, but through the sex he sees visions of Sam telling
him it’s all his fault. He puts a stop to it and starts to leave. Kinsey has
come to see the Savini squad, watching a scary film which triggers Kinsey’s
PTSD episode as she was hiding with Bode whilst it all went down. Unlike Tyler
though, she doesn’t mince words with explaining how she’s feeling to Scot
before storming off.
By lucky co-incidence, Tyler happens to be passing by to
give her a lift. Meanwhile Body examines a keyhole in the mirror that just
appeared, showing a reflection trying to get him to follow him into the mirror.
He shows this to Nina, who is immediately entranced by the reflection and
follows her reflection into the mirror.
Body goes to the well-house to call for help, giving her the
anywhere key which she said she needed to help, but it was a trick, she wasn’t
even stuck in the well, don’t know how she got up but... With the anywhere key,
she escapes, leaving Body having to deal with his mother being trapped in a
reflection.
Still, there’s a long length of rope in the wellhouse, and
Body plans to use it to guide him, and Nina out. Tyler and Kinsey arrive with
Tyler going into the mirror while Kinsey and Bode anchor the other end of the
rope to pull them out. They do this and it’s super-easy, barely an
inconvenience. The only thing is, Nina remembers none of it once she’s pulled
out, at the very least though, the kids all know.
The woman from the well next pays Sam a visit, and it’s
implied they have some history.
This episode shows its aiming for a more grounded coming of
age tale than an abject horror story, not necessarily a bad thing but might
shake up your expectations.
Rating 7/10
Trapper/Keeper
Next day comes and Bode hasn’t told anyone about the Lady in
the well, after finding out that Bode lost the anywhere key, Tyler keeps it on
his person instead as he and Kinsey head to school. Body hears another key,
inside the dust bag of an old vacuum cleaner.
Tyler is asked about his escapade with Eden which he says
was ‘cool,’ which is gonna totally be countered by Eden, so I don’t even see
the value of this particular lie, especially since he has the hots for someone
else.
At Keyhouse, Ellie (Sherri Saum), Rufus’ mother stops by,
and she reminisces over an old photo of Rendell and his school friends.
Including the identification of her then-boyfriend Lucas. Bode tries the key anywhere he can but is not
successful in using it. He begins trying the key in locks outside the house and
it’s there he bumps into Rufus, who’s the groundskeeper of the place.
The two bond over their love of action figures and Bode
manages to convince Rufus to give him a bear trap, telling him how to activate
it, he intends to use it to catch the lady of the well, using a key as bait.
Where is the lady in the well? Well (ha), she’s using the
anywhere key to steal her way to success and murder for sexual pleasure, yikes.
Scot apologises to Kinsey over last night and him
apologising for his British accent when Kinsey’s actor is also British is kinda
funny to me. But before you can say *ugh, love triangle* in comes the love
rival whose name I can’t remember and is clearly taking advantage. The Savini
squad are making a film called The Splattering and he invites her onto the set.
Nina comes to the school because of a payment processing
error or something, and it’s there she meets Joe Ridgeway (Steven Williams) the
Principal and Tyler’s English teacher, he was Rendell’s teacher too and he
gives her an insight or his friends from the photo, they were a tight-knit
group, which makes Rendell having never mentioned them all the stranger, whilst
hinting at some tragedy that she doesn’t know about either.
Tyler attempts again to spark up a conversation with Jackie,
it doesn’t go great and triggers another PTSD episode, this time of Rendell,
the guidance councillor at his old school, asking Tyler to help Sam out. Tyler
objects for the shallow reasons you might expect but Rendell insists. After
said episode and talking to Nina, he sees a guy with 2 prosthetic legs key the
car of one of his friends. You know protest generally works better when the
target knows who’s protesting and why. Keying the car whilst the owner isn't looking
is just being petty, and it’s not like there weren’t other disabled spaces.
Bode ends up at the hardware store, he asks to see what
locks his new key could fit, as the worker turns away, Bode sees a keyhole in
the back of his head. Nina has another PTSD flashback, revealing that despite
being shot in the leg, she managed to subdue Sam by hitting him in the back of
the head with a hammer.
Scot left a copy of The Splattering’s script in Kinsey’s
locker, despite initially dismissing it, she does ultimately give it a
flick-through. Ellie comes by to pick up Rufus, but Rufus is still busy, giving
Nina a chance to ask about the tragedy Joe referred to, turns out 3 of their
friends died thanks to an ‘accident’ at the nearby sea-cave, including Lucas.
Bode prepares his trap, using a key from the hardware store
as the bait. Meanwhile Tyler is pushed by Javi and Brinker into robbing a
store. Tyler manages to break away from them, and break away from consequences
thanks to the disabled guy who keyed the car earlier. Tyler had not mentioned
who it was despite blatantly seeing him.
The lady in the lack returns but is not fooled by Bode’s
trap. Now she drops any playful façade and threatens him with death if he
doesn’t find and give her keys. The Savini squad are joined by Gabe (Griffin
Gluck) playing the monster. Upon hearing that one of the scenes will see her
showered in blood (in this film mocked up with red food colouring and corn
syrup) she straight up quits the show. The others suggest that Kinsey fill in
the role, but not wanting to make her uncomfortable given the night before,
Scot rejects this idea, but Kinsey agrees. But the moment she has to scream,
she gets another PTSD flashback and freezes up.
Nina asks Duncan what he knows about the drowning, but he
seems to remember very little, despite being Rendell’s brother. He says he has
very little memory of his time at the house. Kinsey returns, having another
flashback, this time to when she received the bracelet that hid the anywhere
key. She’s crying in front of the mirror.
Bode decides to try the key on himself. He then exists
outside of his own body, with a massive toy chest in front of him. Kinsey and
Tyler are about to rattle sabres at each other over Tyler’s behaviour of almost
smoking and being a bit distant, crimes of the century I’m sure, but it’s
interrupted as they see Bode with the key sticking out of his neck.
As they check up on him, another Bode comes out of the
toybox, inviting them in.
Not a lot actually happens in this episode, it’s more about
continuing to set up the world, in particular the mystery with Rendell and his
friends. No real hook or excitement to bring this episode up a notch. As it is,
the drama is decent and the mystery is intriguing.
Rating 6/10
We’ll take another look at Locke and Key next week
No comments:
Post a Comment