‘Locke & Key’ Recap: ‘The Premiere’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the season two premiere of ‘Locke & Key’.
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One particular aspect of our world that brings about great concern, is the evil that men do. Because we simply don’t understand its origins well enough to stop it at the source, and we seemingly… cannot defeat it. For time and time again, we see it return long after we thought it was conquered. Creating an imbalance in our world that everyone wants to go away, and this constant cycle of triumph and resurgence leaves us wondering exactly how we can conquer evil at last and really, its persistence and what it might take to genuinely achieve that goal is top of mind today, simply because those concepts served as the focal themes of the season two premiere of Locke & Key on Netflix.
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Which made ‘The Premiere’ quite the fascinating tale, one that immediately explored how evil persists after it loses, by quickly pointing out… that we are too quick to believe that it can be easily defeated. For when we catch up with the Locke family here, they have basically forgotten Dodge and their battle in the caves and what it stood for, allowing for everyone to return to their normal lives. Well, as normal as life can get when you live in a house with magic keys that allow for people to lose themselves within their minds or obtain super strength, and well… while it was nice to see the family enjoy a little peace and quiet for a change, their arrogance in believing they utterly defeated Dodge, gave her incredible strength.

For she was able to work behind the scenes and collect more of what she needs for the future. Since she was quick to grab hold of iron pellets from failed possessions down in the caves, and she was also quick to kill a man and usurp his home so that she could that iron, to begin to build keys of her own to fight the Locke magic in an epic manner and well, that made for some frightening moments for certain. Since it really did make it clear that our desire for comfort and peace will always allow for evil to persist, because it thrives on ignorance and hope and that the only way to truly defeat it… is to remain vigilant and observant to its machinations and of course… we must be equally as ruthless in defeating it as it is in attempting to conquer us and well, that is no easy task since we have lives to lead and a conscience that guides all of us.

In fact, this story took the time to inject those elements into the story as well, since we spent a lot of time watching the Locke family just live and face new challenges in life. Such as how Kinsey and Scot continued their little song and dance when it comes to their feelings, since it is inherently obvious, they are madly in love with one another and are denying those feelings at every turn. And of course, the harsh reality that Tyler is inching closer to forgetting about magic hung heavy over this tale. Creating a priority for the family to do something special with their keys before he begins to lose sight of their wonder and well, this aspect of the story not only helped to balance out the central themes present here, but it also did a wonderful job of reintroducing us to this universe and what these characters stand for, as did the other sequence of note in this tale.

Because seeing the Savini Squad’s finished product on the big screen just plunged us back into this world once again. One that is part love letter to the genre and part original ride, which is clearly taking a deeper turn this year. Since pondering upon the nature of evil and how hard it is to kill it because we are beings that prefer to bathe ourselves in light, is quite the heavy direction to take this show in. For that’s a harsh truth we don’t talk about all that often, and that just goes to show that the stakes and the concepts are going to be bigger in season two and that’s a wonderful thing. Because growth is important and pushing the envelope makes for better storytelling and it will be quite incredible to see how the family will respond to the moral challenges that await them and the sheer horror that evil is going to send their way, when it is ready to remerge. Until next time.

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