How Locke & Key's wild cliffhanger sets up Season 2
Tyler and Kinsey seemed to vanquish their nemesis, but there's a massive catch.
The long-awaited Netflix adaptation of Locke & Key has finally arrived, and the showrunners are already hard at work on the scripts for Season 2, even though the streaming giant has yet to greenlight another run of episodes. The final episode of the first season drops a pretty massive bombshell, but with all the identity-swapping and magic key tomfoolery, it can be a little tricky to figure out exactly what's going on.
Need a little refresher on WTF just happened in that bonkers ending for Locke & Key? We've got you covered. Spoilers ahead!
In episode 10 of Locke & Key, "Crown of Shadows," Kinsey discovered Dodge unconscious in the entryway of Key House. She and Tyler, along with their school friends, ventured down to the Drowning Cave to toss Dodge back through the Black Door, back to the demon's realm. The Locke siblings congratulate themselves on a job well done and assure little Bode that everything's hunky-dory. Dawww.
The Locke siblings, relieved that Dodge is gone.
There's just one problem: what about dad's old friend and Rufus' mom, Ellie? She completely disappeared when all the supernatural shit went down. Rufus's aunt and uncle spirit him off to Nebraska, and even he doesn't know what happened to her. Tyler and Kinsey assume Ellie's disappearance is totally unrelated, but we soon learn that couldn't be further from the truth.
Turns out, Dodge is still on the loose. Tyler tossed Ellie through the Black Door, not the demon itself. Dodge used one of the keys to transform Ellie against her will, causing her to look just like the mysterious woman in the well.
We also learn the demon has inhabited the bodies of several characters throughout the season: the dark-haired woman in the well (who the Locke siblings most often call Dodge), Lucas, Gabe, and Ellie. It was Ellie, disguised as "Dodge," who was plonked in the entryway of Key House and chucked into the Black Door. So is Ellie dead? It's not clear at this point, and her story plays out very differently in the comics, so that doesn't give us much to go on.
Dodge wears the Crown of Shadows in the Season 1 finale.
Speaking of Season 2, "Crown of Shadows" left a pretty clear roadmap for where the story could go next. Dodge is currently impersonating Gabe, who's getting cosy with Kinsey. We also learn that when the gang ventured down to the Drowning Cave, Eden got possessed by a demon too. So now there are two high-schoolers who are secretly demons, and both have close ties to the Locke family. It's only a matter of time before trouble kicks off in Key House again.
Here's the thing: Gabe and Eden are new characters created for the Netflix show. They never appear in the comics. If we had to guess, they're probably marked for death in Season 2. Perhaps one-T Scot will help Kinsey escape the clutches of Demon Gabe, and they'll get back together. Or maybe Tyler will start making keys of his own, now that he has that enchanted lump of metal from the Black Door.
Bode and Tyler make a startling discovery.
The showrunners have already started working on Locke & Key, but it's not a foregone conclusion those future episodes will ever see the light of day. Still, executive producer Carlton Cuse recently told IGN he's cautiously optimistic the show will continue, perhaps for even more seasons: "By the end of Season 2 we'll have a better idea of how much story we have left and how much we want to do... There's a lot of story left."
Locke & Key Season 1 is available to stream now on Netflix.
