A Handy Locke & Key Season 2 Crash Course Before Season 3

Desperate to help his girlfriend, Jackie (Genevieve Kang), remember magic as her 18th birthday approached, Tyler spent a lot of season two trying to track down the Memory Key. That particular key was made two decades prior by Duncan Locke (Aaron Ashford), the kids’ uncle, at the behest of their father, Rendell (Bill Heck as an adult, Nick Dolan as a teen). He and his high-school friends—who dubbed themselves “the Keepers of the Keys”—wanted the power to hold onto their supernatural knowledge. Though Duncan ended up living at Keyhouse with his late brother’s family, he had never used the key on himself, so he doesn’t remember anything about magic, much less the Memory Key. Suffice it to say, it took some maneuvering to find it.

But to Tyler’s surprise, when presented with the chance to use the Memory Key, Jackie opted out. Then, she was turned into a demon—before dying in agony when the Alpha Key, which Tyler himself made trying to save her, killed both the demon and Jackie herself. This was (understandably) a lot for Tyler to take in, so at the end of season two, he headed out for a solo road trip ahead of his own 18th birthday after telling Bode and Kinsey he wouldn’t be using the Memory Key—and therefore wouldn’t remember magic or the keys when he returned.

Speaking of Uncle Dunc, in season two he did eventually use the Memory Key on himself—and thereafter became an essential part of Team Locke’s demon-fighting adventures. But the kids ended up losing another adult with important ties to their dad’s past: Rendell’s high-school girlfriend, Erin Voss (Joy Tanner), one of the Keepers of the Keys. Trapped in a catatonic state for decades due to a magical mishap, she was revived in season two by Kinsey and Tyler—only to be mercilessly murdered by Gabe (Griffin Gluck), Kinsey’s boyfriend, who was actually the demon Dodge in disguise.

Budding horror-movie maestro Scot (Petrice Jones)—Kinsey’s best friend and, eventually, boyfriend after she realized the truth about Gabe—turned down a spot at a prestigious film school in his native England, something Kinsey urged him to reconsider. After plenty of season-two heroics, not to mention finally winning Kinsey’s heart, he decided to follow her advice and pursue his directorial dreams. However, there’s a good chance we’ll see Scot again: After all, that sequel for The Splattering still needs finishing!

Though we learned a little bit about the Locke ancestors in season one, season two introduced us to Benjamin Locke (Carson McCormack)—a teen during the Revolutionary War who helped his father make weapons for the colonial rebels, then used his metalsmithing skills to craft the first magical key. Flashbacks showed us how British Captain Frederick Gideon (Kevin Durand), a very malevolent dude even before becoming a demon, first opened the Black Door (basically, a portal to an evil dimension) in a sea cave near Keyhouse. We also saw how Benjamin discovered “Whispering Iron”—the material that makes up the “bullets” that shoot out of the portal; any human struck with one becomes possessed—and used it to make the Omega Key to secure the lock on the Black Door. It’s implied that he and his sister then made even more keys, using a magical ritual passed down to future generations of Lockes, including Duncan and Tyler.

In season two, Gabe/Dodge forced Duncan to make a key that turned humans into demons that would serve him, including “hockey bro” Javi (Kevin Alves), seen here, as well as Jackie, Matheson police detective Mutuku (Martin Roach), and a host of others. While the Tyler-made Alpha Key proved useful in wiping out the demons (along with their human hosts, tragically in Jackie’s case), the best part of this subplot was when Duncan realized that since he’d actually made the Demon Key, the creatures had to follow his orders, canceling out anything Gabe/Dodge told them to do.

Dodge, and therefore Dodge’s Gabe persona, was destroyed by the Alpha Key, thus eliminating the major antagonist of Locke & Key seasons one and two. And there was an unexpected bonus: Lucas, one of the Keepers of the Keys who’d long been trapped inside Dodge, was finally freed. Lucas’ life path is second in tragedy only to Erin’s and far more complicated, but he went from normal teen, to possessed teen, to dead but still possessed teen, to revived demon, to finally being free of any and all demons (and still looking like a teenager 20-plus years later). Weird, but at least he got a happy ending... we hope.

Ellie (Sherri Saum), another Keeper of the Keys, was tossed through the Black Door and into the demon dimension by Tyler, Kinsey, and their friends at the end of season one. In their defense, she’d been unwittingly shape-shifted to look like the version of Dodge they all recognized (as performed by Laysla de Oliveria), before everyone realized Gabe was also Dodge. Lucky for Ellie, she was able to slip out of the Black Door when teen demon Eden (Hallea Jones) and Matheson Academy history teacher Josh Bennett (Brendan Hines) went in search of the portal. Also lucky for Ellie, Bode had the Identity Key handy so she could revert back into her true appearance soon after emerging.

Nina lost her husband in season one, a traumatic event that triggered a relapse of her alcoholism. In season two she sparked with Josh, but their budding relationship wavered because of his fixation on finding the Black Door (something he learned about in a journal written by his ancestor, Captain Gideon) which he believed might help him reconnect with his own late wife. That emotional turmoil, coupled with the fact that she never knew what was really going on with her kids because adults can’t remember magic, made Nina contemplate slipping off the wagon again. At the very end of season two, there was a sweet scene in which Bode guided her in using the Head Key—allowing her to re-live fond memories of Rendell—and then told her he had a way she could remember everything: the Memory Key.

My personal favorite character in all of season two: the hurricane known as Eden Hawkins (Hallea Jones), who was struck by one of those Black Door bullets at the end of season one and therefore spent all of season two in full-on demon mode. Unlike Dodge, who craved world-dominating power on a large scale and longed for Kinsey’s complete devotion on a more intimate one, Eden existed to supply pure chaos, being a perfect blend of teen-girl brattiness and devious, delightfully gluttonous demon-ness. (At one point, the Locke kids track her down by following an address found among her copious food-delivery receipts.) Eden outlived Dodge, and had a notion to revive Gideon—who she’d learned about from Josh—at the end of season two, using the Echo Key that was still in her clutches. Like Lucas, Gideon died while possessed, so he returned still very much a demon. His first 21st-century decision was... tossing a shrieking Eden down the Keyhouse well. Will she be back? We can only hope.

It’s clear that Gideon is going to be the major antagonist of season three, with the added worrisome layer that the demon possessing him is some kind of notoriously powerful being; Eden “recognized” him in season two, but we didn’t learn anything specific about who or what he was. No doubt he’ll be gunning for the Lockes—a family he’s hated since the 18th century—in evil ways that make the likes of Dodge look like small potatoes.

Locke & Key season three arrives August 10 on Netflix.

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