"Locke and Key" Season 2 Review (Netflix)

 

As major streaming services fall over themselves to adapt best-selling comic series, sometimes the results fall sort of the dizzying possibilities available when storytelling in comics. 

I sat through "Locke and Key" Season 1 thinking "Hey, there's some good stuff in here" but also slightly frustrated that certain scenes would never make it from the comics to the screen (nor should they, let's face it "Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft" is pretty brutal from start to finish). 

However the show got a lot of stuff right. The production design was superb, the locations fit amazingly well, the cast was pretty good too and even if it had never got greenlit for a 2nd season, it would've been a pretty good attempt at bringing some of the elements from the comic across. 

Season 2 though? Not so much. In fact here's the issue I usually have with comic adaptations. Sometimes the writers / producers of the show clearly know they're not going to get away with anything too visceral so start to veer off at a tangent, spinning a pretty standard 'issues' story around a delicately crafted story world and finding that the gears don't quite mesh. 

(SPOILERS AHEAD - Proceed with caution if you're not all caught up with Locke and Key)

So as the show opens, we find out a bit of the history of the Locke family, their ancestors, and the secrets of Key House and the Black Vault that lies buried under its foundations. In the comics there's a lot of excellent delving into this back story and in fact in the extended comics there's even better stuff to be had in the short standalone story arcs. Sadly the show just binned all that aside from a few brief moments at the very start and very beginning of the series, laying down the foundations for Season 3 (which, in any show these days - streaming service based or otherwise - is a gutsy move if your show is suddenly pulled). 

For most of Season 2 we seem to spend a lot of time watching Dodge (the demon determined to open the black door and cause havoc) doing his level best to get as many keys as he can, as well as forging new keys to enable him / her to get back to Downtown Demontown (or more likely, unleash hell upon the earth). 

The show also gets a bit soapy, showing Nina's budding relationship with the mysterious new history teacher, and Bodie's friendship with his daughter revealing yet another key - the Dollhouse Key which leads to some of the show's better moments. 

Grud these two are annoying

In essence though there are so many hotch-potch elements swiped carelessly from the comics without any proper due or context, scrambled into something that feels like a mix of Riverdale and Sabrina the Teenage Witch with the whole essential core of Locke and Key swept to the side. The show deviates from the comics so much that even though the final scenes of the season temptingly lure you in to imagining what will happen now new demons are afoot, you secretly hope the viewing figures for Season 2 are so poor that you don't get to see "Elon Musk's Evil Twin" wreak havoc on the Locke family sometime next year. 

I've gone back to re-reading the comics again with a slightly grumpy outlook on upcoming comic adaptations (I still hold out a slim hope that Sandman won't be an utter disaster, please don't let it be crap!) but a tiny smidge wondering if L & K S:3 will be any better.