"Locke and Key":: Redrum Boy, Hot Brother, and Incessant Stupidity

I was drawn to the Netflix series Locke and Key, based upon the comic book series by Joe Hill (son of horrormeister Stephen King, but he'd rather you not know that), because I heard that there were Lovecraftian elements: three kids in a mysterious old house become involved with Cthulu and the Old Ones:

Scene 1: A man receives a phone call: "Rendell Locke is dead."  In response, he plunges an old-fashioned key into his heart and explodes.  Rather an intriguing intro.

Scene 2: Mom or Older Sister Nina Locke (she looks around twelve, but the actress is nearly 40) is driving cross-country from Seattle to small-town New England to "start over".  Her three kids make contemporary references to Fortnight but have an old-fashioned camera.  What year is this?

They are:

1. Outgoing, popular Tyler (Connor Jessup), who we're expected to find mega-dreamy.
2. Sullen, introverted class brain Kinsey (Emilia Jones)
3. Adorable tyke Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), who is certainly one of the many abused boys with "the shining" who populate Stephen King's novels.

Whoa, deja vu.  I feel like I'm watching The October Faction.  Or The Umbrella Academy.  Or even the Unfortunate Events series.  Or The Chronicles of Narnia

Scene 3:  They arrive in Matheson, Massachusetts (named after horrormeister Richard Matheson, no doubt), where it is always winter but never Christmas, and they are famous.  Apparently everyone knows about their tragedy, even though it took place on the other side of the country and it was just one murder out of the 7,000 that occur in the U.S. every year.

 They stop for ice cream and get fawned over by high schooler Scott (Petrice Jones).

Scene 4: Then it's off to the absurdly huge ancestral mansion, which must have about 1000 rooms and hasn't been cleaned or renovated for about a century.  Uncle Duncan (Aaron Ashmore, top photo) is supposed to be the caretaker, but he hates it there and never sets foot inside.

Duncan is gay in the comic books, but here there's nothing except a "blink and you miss it" reference to his boyfriend back in Boston.

Scene 5: Mom stupidly leaves her adorable tyke home alone in a house full of hidden passageways and sharp things.  Exploring, Bode finds a well boarded up inside a gazebo.  A woman's voice tells him that he has the Shining...um, I mean special powers that allow him to use the keys hidden all over the house.  Each has a different magical property..

Scene 6:  Flashback to how Dad died.  They were in the midst of renovating an old house, when high schooler Sam (Thomas Mitchell Barnet) burst in with a gun and demanded to know about the keys. Dad stupidly insults him, and is shot.  Mom, too.  Sam chases Kinsey and Bode through the house, but Mom subdues him.

Scene 7:  The first key will take you through any door to anywhere else with a door (the ice cream shop, but not the Eifel Tower). 

Um...Bode, you stiffed poor Scott the Ice Cream Guy $3.00 for that tiny vanilla cone.

Scene 8:  Time for school.  Kinsey gets flirted with by Scott the Ice Cream Guy, who won't take "no" for an answer.  It's called sexual harassment, guy.  She finally agrees to hang out with his posse tonight.

Scene 9:  Meanwhile, Tyler hooks up with a couple of golden boys, Javi (Kevin Alves) and Brinker (Colton Stewart), who discuss how surviving a horrific tragedy will help him get girls.  (ugh!  Heterosexism!).  They invite Tyler to a Golden Boy party tonight.

Scene 10: Hanging with the posse involves watching horror movies.  Come on, Scott, Kinsey is suffering from post-traumatic shock after a killer chased her through the house, and you want her to watch Day of the Dead?  Idiot!

I read ahead: his next idea for a big date is to have Kinsey act in his horror movie, as the girl who gets splattered with blood when a crab monster eats her boyfriend.  Ever hear of a Disney movie and milkshakes?  Double idiot!

Scene 11:  Meanwhile Tyler is at the Golden Boy party, which consists of boys trying to get with girls.  He uses his "tragedy survivor" cred to score with an It-Girl (personally, I would have gone with "I'm extremely wealthy").  But in the bedroom he sees Sam the Killer, who tells him that Dad's death was all his fault.  So he can't perform.

Scene 12:  Adorable Tyke Bode wants to see his dead Dad, so Well Woman tells him about a key that will allow him to talk to any dead person. It actually unlocks a sinister mirror that traps Mom.

Scene 13:  Adorable Tyke returns to the Well Woman and points out her deception.  She says that she can save his mother if he gives her the Go-Anywhere Key.  So Stupid Tyke hands it over, and Well Woman vanishes.

Scene 14:  Tyler goes in to mirror-world, attached to a cord, with his eyes closed, to rescue Mom.  Their hug has to be seen to be believed.  Very Oedipal.  After all, they're about the same age (Mom actually looks a little younger.)

Upon her rescue, Mom forgets all about the mirror world. Bummer.

Scene 15: Well Woman's first stop with her Go-Anywhere Key is the mental hospital, where she visits Sam the Killer.  "I told you I'd see you again," she says.



Whoa, plot twist.

Beefcake:  Tyler takes his shirt off.  He's presented throughout the episode as the epitome of masculine beauty, so I guess that's something.

Gay characters:  Uncle Duncan.  There's a character named Lucas Caravaggio later on (played by Felix Mallard, left).  The painter Caravaggio was gay, so maybe...

Heterosexism:  Holy cow, it's a 1980s teencom at that high school.  Girls, girls, girls, girls, girls!

Stupid Puns:  The Lockes can use the keys. Come on!

My grade:  C-

Update: In Season 2, all of the Locke kids get involved in heterosexual romances, even the 5th grader.  It's 95% hetero-romance, 5% supernatural mystery.  My grade goes down to an F.

Gay Subtexts in "Lovecraft Country"

Although I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in literature, I don't read much literature any more.  The few times that I've picked up novels, swayed by rave reviews, I'm inevitably disappointed; homophobic slurs and a boy-meets-girl lo-ooo-ove plotline that wasn't mentioned in the plot synopsis.  So I agonized over whether to buy Lovecraft Country.  But I was intrigued by the combination of Jim Crow racism and Lovecraftian monsters.

So I started:

Atticus, a 22-year old Korean War Veteran, comes home to discover that his estranged father has vanished, leaving only the command "Go to Ardham" (that's Ardham, not Arkham). So he and his Uncle George set out on a harrowing road trip from Chicago to Ardham, Massachusetts.

Letiticia, a childhood friend, insists on coming along.  "Uh-oh," I thought, "Lo.ooo..ove approaching!"  But she and Atticus never spark; in fact, on the way home Atticus takes the back seat, away from Letiticia.

En route to Ardham, the trio faces the horrors of Jim Crow America.  For instance, they go into a "safe" restaurant, only to find that the safe one burned down, and entering the white-only replacement results in a lot of white people with guns chasing them. 

Finally they reach Ardham, and discover that Atticus is the chosen one of an ancient secret society,  the Order of the Ancient Dawn, which disapproves of his blackness but really has no choice.  Wealthy Samuel Braithwaite and his son Caleb have orchestrated the disappearance to get Atticus there to perform a ritual. 

Atticus performs it, all right, but not the way the old rich white men would like.

Later segments show Letiticia moving into a haunted house, haunted by both ghosts and the white people who don't want her in the neighborhood; 

Hippolyta (George's wife) stumbling upon a doorway to another world full of unknown horrors and a very possessive woman.

Atticus, Uncle George, and Montrose (his father) investigating the mystery of a missing lodge member.

Henry (George's son) is pursued by an evil doll.

The characters are more proactive than most horror novel protagonists, actively taking part in their situation...and...

None of them.  Not one of them falls in lo...ooo.ooove.

Plus there's substantial buddy bonding between Atticus and Uncle George. 

I also suspect that Caleb has an erotic attraction to Atticus hidden behind his manipulations.

The lack of heterosexual plotlines made me think that author Matt Ruff must be gay, but he's married to a woman, and his other novels have hetero-romances.

I understand that a new HBO tv series has been ordered from the book, with Jonathan Majors  (top photo) as Atticus, Michael Kenneth Williams (second photo) as Montrose, and Courtney Vance as Uncle George.

Caleb has been turned into a girl: Christine Braithwaite (Elizabeth Debicki).  How much do you want to bet that she and Atticus fall in...well, you know.