Locke and Key Season 3 Episode 2 begins with Locke getting ready for his big wedding. Duncan shows up with Brian, ready for the big day, while Nina uses the Plant Key to speed up the flora building process. It’s all laughter and joy…but Captain Gideon is watching from afar, and he’s definitely not laughing.
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Using the key in the well, Gideon manages to summon his old soldiers to his command. Or echoes of them anyway. Gideon uses his demonic voice to reinforce that these soldiers must obey his every command, making them mortal assets. And like echoes, they are incapable of physical pain.
Freeing them from the Well House, Gideon explains that the barrier between worlds has been broken. Given their history with Benjamin Locke and his house, this seems like a big challenge for Locke, especially since the two soldiers are tasked with recovering all the keys.
As the wedding approaches, Bode tries to write the words for his best man speech. However, Tyler shows up and, to everyone’s surprise, prepares for the wedding. Of course, given that he’s out of town, he has no idea about the keys and the magic he’s involved in at will.
Bode comments to Kinsey how easy it would be if Tyler just remembered, but Kinsey reminds him that it’s not what he wants and they have to respect that. It got even more complicated when Tyler admitted that he was moving back to Montana after the wedding.
On the big day, Bode, dressed in a suit, goes downstairs, follows the whispers, and opens another switch inside the grandfather clock. With so many different roman numerals and rotating dials, Bode decides to give it a go…and finds himself thrown back in time.
In particular, Bode shows up to find a young Benjamin Locke discussing an unbreakable Harlequin chest with Miranda. Suddenly, Bode appears with Jamie, who happily realizes he’s passed the time. They conclude that the last number is an indication of how far back they actually are.
Grabbing their phones, Bode and Jamie both jump back to find a young Duncan at the kitchen table. Bode immediately mentions how Duncan is his uncle, but it doesn’t break the schedule.
When they return to the present, Duncan admits that he messed with the key when he was a kid. Bode is forbidden to use the key, so Duncan gives it to Nina…who looks at her in wonder.
For now, Brian and Duncan are married and the celebrations continue. Nina and Josh dance while the others are released. Unbeknownst to them, Gideon and his cronies start looking for various keys inside the house. Gideon strikes gold when he discovers Bode’s journal, which lists each of the keys and what they do. They also find the Plant Key; Gideon’s collection is growing.
Speaking of the keys, Kinsey tells her brother about his past and his departure. However, Tyler notices a key wrapped around his neck, and as a result, his lost memories begin to return. These memories, of course, include Jackie’s death. Tyler starts hyperventilating, shaking, and saying he doesn’t want it.
Tyler goes inside the house to get some space, but runs right into Gideon and his henchmen. Before it looks like they’re about to hurt him, Kinsey rushes to his safety and scares them away with a chain with the help of the Chain Wrench.
Unfortunately, during the shootout, it’s revealed that Gideon also has the key all over the place, meaning that their leaving the house is just the beginning of their problems. Believing these men to be simple intruders, Tyler decides to stay there for a while, while Bode tries to come up with a new plan to keep the keys safe.
Time Travel
The problem with time travel is that it introduces a whole world of problems into world building and ideas that can easily destroy the world’s credibility. For example, how come Duncan doesn’t remember Boden coming back and talking to his younger self about the keys? Doesn’t it matter to the plot? Is this literally a one-off thing that doesn’t distort the timeline, and any changes are discarded once the “guest” leaves?
If so, I hope we don’t see a key used to make major changes to the past, because that just presents a whole world of problems and awkward knots that require more exposition to explain.
Most of the problems with this show can be summed up in frustrating character choices, and this second episode demonstrates that even more. Bode immediately rushes to use the Time Key, realizing that he has gone back in time but is completely unaware of the problems this could cause.
It’s no different than Nina in the first episode, using the Snow Globe key and all the other issues we’ve encountered over time. The difference here is that season three literally relies on our characters making stupid decisions to move the plot forward, and it gets tiresome quickly.
With a long, drawn-out wedding that doesn’t advance the plot much, this chapter feels oddly like filler – minus Gideon, of course, to grab a few keys! Let’s hope that future episodes will improve.