Lately, I have been thinking of expanding my writing to reflect on visual storytelling. In the past few months, I have watched a number of shows and wanted to rave about them. There isn’t a better place than the blog so here’s my first attempt. Starting a new category of posts with Locke and Key, a 3-season show streaming on Netflix. The show is based on graphic novels of the same name by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez.
Locke and Key centres around a family of a mom and three kids. Nina, the mom, has just moved them from Seattle to the small town of Matheson where their father, Rendell, grew up. After the tragedy of losing him, Nina is looking for a new start for them all. The oldest, Tyler, is in his last year of high school, Kinsey is fifteen and Bode is in his tweens.
The young adult target audience and the urban fantasy settings are two characteristics of stories that I generally struggle with and I was a little sceptical going into the show. I was pleasantly surprised and very excited that the first few episodes got me hooked on a very devastating storyline – Dark fantasy has a way of doing that.
The Locke family’s home, Keyhouse, is magical. In his early exploration of the property, Bode hears whispering and it leads him to a key. Recognizing the shape from a door in the house, Bode tries the key and suddenly, magic is very much real. What follows is an adventure of finding magical keys as well as a deep dive into his dad’s history with the house, the peculiar discovery that adults cannot remember magic and that Rendell’s death might have had something to do with the very place he didn’t like to share about.
There are many reasons I can’t get this story out of my head.
The Mind Key
The mind key allows the user to enter their mind. Based on the personality of the user, the door to and layout of the mind changes. Through the show, we enter the minds of many characters and I loved how well they match their personalities. My favorite is Nina’s – between all her grief, there is a spark in her that is trying so hard to come alive again. The mind key reveals one of the most fierce characters of Locke and Key – Kinsey, the one who will take fear out of her head. Figuratively. The personification of fear and how it goes after things we are afraid of relates to the survival strategies ingrained within our psyche. This is such a powerful experience to watch!
Seeing the minds of the characters and how they use it to their advantage are solid portrayals of ways in which we actually influence our minds. Everyone has different ways of storing memories and every time I think about the mind key, I wonder what the door to my mind looks like and in what objects do I keep my memories?
Books.
The Magic-Reality Balance
The challenge I find with urban fantasy is to be able to make magic exist in a world that in general is unable to experience magic. Through Locke and Key, I am realizing the advantage that the young adult storytelling has – if done well, the storyteller can convince the reader/observer that magic does not exist for the adults. The kids, Tyler and Kinsey, see this as a problem as they are approaching adulthood. These are the very questions their father and his friends pondered too. Bode is too young to care about finding a solution and his pain of witnessing his adult family – his mom in particular – not remembering what just happened is inhabited very well by the actor, Jackson Robert Scott.
Filling the world
Like a typical small town, there is gossip and everyone knows everyone. Nina is learning about the time and place in his husband’s life that he never talked about. Through her, the realities of being a single parent and a grief stricken widow are lived. Her fight with alcoholism, how the kids separately deal with it and her joy in finding magic is heartbreaking, especially since she can’t remember it. I loved how actor Darby Stanchfield plays the role!
Locke and Key keeps the keys central to the plot while touching on everyday life of school going kids, though I felt the teenagers did more hanging out at the school than studying. Friendships, teenage crushes and mistakes keep the story more interesting.
I hadn’t thought of it until now but the wide age range of the characters makes this an even more engaging show to watch.
The plot of Locke and Key is dark and raw. Its visual storytelling is rooted in reality and situated within the Locke family. There are many aspects of the show that I have not touched on in this post, my intent was to highlight my favorites. 🙂 I just finished season 2 and the final season promises to be a fight with a supernatural creature no one saw coming.
Have you watched Locke and Key or plan to check it out?
I am seeing the appeal of urban fantasy more and more!
Is there another urban fantasy show you would recommend?
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for thoughts on other TV shows and books. 🙂
I wasn’t able to get into Locke & Key when I watched the first season a couple years ago, but your review makes me want to take another look! One urban fantasy series I love to pieces is “The Magicians.” It’s definitely not YA, but it’s funny, weird and heartbreaking.
I loved The Magicians! Did you read the books?