Locke & Key 2 Review: Leads Us To The Discovery Of The Missing Whispering Keys, Between Teen Dramas And Thick Actors

Director: Mairzee Almas

Cast: Darby Stanchfield, Connor Jessup, Emilia Jones

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and half star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Not all secrets are meant to be revealed in the light, but it is also true that the hidden desire of each of them is to get out of the shadows. Locke & Key 2 desires just that, proposing a new and apparently captivating formula. The first season had pedimented interest and curiosity in fans of fantastic horror, but too many questions cluttered the mind, as we wrote in our review of Locke & Key. Since their father’s untimely death, the brothers Tyler, Kinsey and Bode have had to settle in Massachusetts to start a peaceful life again, but in contact with their father’s ineffable memories.

Locke & Key 2 Review: The Story

Let’s go back to Matheson, Massachusetts, three months after the events of the first season of the series and it’s time for an important and highly anticipated appointment for Kinsey and his group of friends: the premiere of the film they worked on with passion and some outside help, The Splattering. In fact, the concerns of Locke and the other protagonists of the story are now of a more earthly nature, now that they think they are free from the dangers experienced previously: to grow, with all that entails also in relation to the keys and the magic that governs them. But evil is not defeated, the demon Dodge has now taken the form of Gabe and has found a useful right hand in Eden, and new dangers will soon overwhelm the tranquility of the town and its inhabitants.

From the very first sequence set in colonial times, it’s clear that Locke & Key is relying on darker tones for its second season. A choice that seemed successful and adequate to accompany a phase of the story that is dedicated to expanding the world of the series: it takes time to deepen the main characters, but also to make room for figures outside the Locke family; we look at the past and further investigate the mythological structure concerning the keys and their creation; we dedicate ourselves to an interesting reflection on growth and what it entails as regards the inability to remember magic.

The same figure of Dodge seemed to us more focused, more disturbing without that ironic streak that had accompanied him in the first block of episodes. An evolution that we accompanied at the opening to the concept of continuity, because the change of tone never appears inconsistent with what we saw in the first season, but natural and sensible, supported by a punctual writing in outlining the situations and themes of the new episodes and capable of avoid that feeling of repetitiveness that emerged at times during the first ten episodes.

Locke & Key 2 Review and Analysis

The narrative framework of Locke & Key 2 climbs immediately beyond the mountain of the imaginative erected in the first season. If so far we have struggled to digest the presence of keys with impossible power, the work dares even more. In the meanders of the Key House hiss powerful new tools or clues about the presence of a still dormant secret.

There is tension in Locke & Key 2 and in its declination of magic, with a first part that manages to create the conditions for it to grow and mount. But there is also a lot of meat on the fire, which causes a feeling of haste and a hint of confusion in the second part, as you move towards what has the taste of a final showdown, which aims to prepare the field to a third season already announced that seems to want to get closer to what Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez told on paper. This is the only perplexity of a season that seemed a step forward, while the whole visual construction of the series remains suggestive, for a package that is confirmed to be capable of capturing the Locke & Key.

The three brothers sense its presence and it happens that the house echoes the call of a still sleeping key. The most convincing aspect of the narrative is in fact this semblance of a treasure hunt, which allows us to browse through the various rooms. Why is there the head of a giant animal? How do certain objects hold keys for so long? Why are whispers heard? One gets the impression that this power knows how to mask its limits very well and reveal itself only when it intends to do so.

For better or for worse, memories of the deceased father and unexplored domestic glimpses are what glue us morbidly in front of the screen. In the incipit of the plot we also learn about the. In particular it refers to the era in which despicable soldiers plundered its people. The evil of men in military jackets did not take long to confront the nightmare of the impossible. A cave gives them refuge during an impromptu escape, but a demonic portal decides to open wide to invade reality.
Where the plot eagerly seeks a pretext to mythicize the story, its progress does not do justice to the work done. Focusing on the historical aspect seasons the origin of the keys with healthy curiosity, but it is a narrative choice that is resumed in fits and starts. The episodes are lost in a slow teen drama, often an end in itself, without real repercussions on the main events.
Contributes a solid acting by the cast, which manages to emotionally involve the viewer, even without necessarily piercing the screen. We also open a dutiful parenthesis on the participation of Branden Hines, who perhaps you will remember for Lie to Me, and let’s say that the role of the truth seeker always fits him perfectly. The management of the scenic spaces is satisfactory but, beyond some bare and gloomy areas, the Locke odyssey is dotted with locations that have the aftertaste of already seen, drastically reducing the interest of the spectator in the long run. On one thing, however, it is impossible to argue: the traditional places of the family retain an imperishable charm.

Locke & Key 2 Review: The Final Words

the new episodes of the Netflix series taken from the comics Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez are presented in the name of continuity, visual and thematic, and evolution, in the most dark, in the deepening of the main characters and in giving space to some secondary ones, but also in the new role of the villain and in proposing further details on the mythology of the keys. Too bad for a certain amount of haste in the second part of the season, after a premiere that manages to carefully build the conditions to create tension and context in which to move the story.

What Worked

• The confirmation of the visual system of the series, which welcomes the viewer into the world of Locke & Key.
• A darker, more intriguing and engaging tone than the first season.
• The greatest space given to the deepening of the characters.
• The ability to build the tension and assumptions of the story throughout the first part of the season…

What Didn’t

• But a certain hurry and confusion when it comes to pulling the strings to close the many open discussions.