Buckle up because there was quite a lot. In fact, the whole season could be a very tight competition of dumb, dumber, dumbest.


The third season of Locke & Key was released on Netflix on Aug 10, 2022, and while the stupidity of the Lockes has been a running joke among fans since Season 1, the third season took it to a whole other level - which is actually crazy because the Lockes have come very far since they wide-eyed discovered the magical keys and their capabilities. They’ve been through a lot, they’ve learned hard lessons, and they know better.


Season 3 said nah. There were so many plot holes in the third season of Locke & Key that the entire plot could be a giant sieve. Everything we’ve known about the keys and safeguarding them, past enemies, and general caution was just whooshed out the sandcastle.


Season 2 ended with Dodge (Laysla De Oliveira) being defeated, Nina Locke using the memory key and remembering magic, Tyler Locke deciding that he didn't want to remember magic due to the tragic death of the love of his life and the emergence of a new villain from centuries ago - Captain Frederich Gideon (Kevin Durand)


Season 3 picks up with a little time skip, Tyler is out in Montana with a nice-looking girl (more on that later), he’s not responding to texts and uncle Duncan’s big gay wedding is coming up. Now the dumb occurrences start right off the bat as Nina Locke who’s newly excited about magic, finds a new key.


Spoilers ahead

 

 


Dumb Plot 1: The Ridiculous Testing of the Snowglobe Key

This new key pretty much transports the house into a snowglobe and despite knowing better than to dive headfirst into trying out new keys, the super excited mother and son duo try out the key. They start playing in the snow only to get attacked by two witchy-looking women. Nina runs into the house AND THEN SLAMS THE DOOR leaving her son trapped in the snowglobe as the key is stolen from her.


From using the Ghost Key, they should know that shutting the door while someone remains outside is a dumb, dumb idea but she does it anyway and Bode remains trapped and nearly dies from frostbite for most of the first episode. Honestly, I had hoped his exile would have lasted much longer as he just got dumber as the season went on.


Dumb Plot 2 & 3: The discovery of a new key, the total disregard of modern technology and the taunting of a powerful villain.


On the day of Uncle Duncan’s (Aaron Ashmore) super important wedding, Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) and his sidekick Jamie (Liyou Abere)  find the timeshift key and without knowing exactly what it is - and without having any adult around - test this key and it takes Bode back in time to meet one of his ancestors, Benjamin Locke.


He goes back to the present time and finds that his time was cut short because the last digit on the clock determined how long you’d stay in a timeline and all the digits were in Roman Numerals. Now on figuring this out, Jamie brings out her smartphone and I think whoop she’s going to do an internet search on the remaining digits but NOO she goes straight to stopwatch and once again they dive headfirst into an unknown timeline.


Uncle Duncan vaguely warns them about the key by saying “that’s not how the key works, buddy” and it's “too unpredictable”. He then asks Nina to hide it but she practically keeps it in plain sight.


Bode, keen on seeing his dead father dives once again into an unknown timeline and instead of a daddy-son reunion, he finds himself smack in the middle of the Dodge confrontation. Little kid that he is, he starts taunting Dodge and says he’s not scared of her, he “knows how this ends”. As any smart villain would, Dodge changes her plan and piggybacks on Bode as he goes back to his own timeline.


Now you could defend Bode and say oh he’s a little kid plus he thought his travels into the past didn't affect the future but taunting Dodge? That's just a dumb idea. Dodge ends up taking over his little body when she figures out his plan to trap her in the ghost world. That wasn't the worst idea so I won't file it under dumb plot points.



Dumb Plothole 4 & 5: Dodge makes a horrible pre-teen + “he’s not acting like himself”


Now for most of Seasons 1 & 2, Dodge was doing a pretty good job of being a teenage boy Gabe (Griffin Gluck) and he was able to sneakily get intel without getting caught but Dodge as Bode was so bad, it almost seemed like she was trying to get caught. She was snarky, rude and outright asking for keys in the most blatantly obvious way. Now Dodge knows what Bode was like so it makes no sense that she tried so much to act out of character.


The second side of this coin is the fact that his family couldn't figure out that Bode wasn't Bode. They credited it to “hormones”, “puberty” and every other dumb excuse you can think of. He kept on asking for the location of the keys despite being the one who told them where to hide them and Kinsey couldn't figure it out?  Rufus however, bless his pure heart was able to figure it out in like 3 minutes of interaction.

 

Dumb Plothole 6: The key and key encyclopaedia just casually lying around.


When Captain Gideon and his echo lackeys break into Keyhouse on Duncan’s wedding day, we find out that Bode kept a key encyclopedia detailing what each key looks like and what they can do, including the possible key hideout. And where does he leave this journal that should be super secret? Why just lying on his bedroom table of course. And this key lets the new villain know what key to prioritize.


Same way Mama Locke just casually leaves the plant key on her dresser.




Dumb Plothole 7: The Love affair of Little Miss Drives-Several-Miles-to-See-a-Boy-Who-Didn't-Text-Back and Little Mr Suspects-Nothing


In Tyler’s Montana haven, we meet his co-worker (co-builder?), Carly who seems to have a thing for Tyler but the latter is quite oblivious to it. Carly (Oriana Leman) invites a reluctant Tyler out for drinks with the gang and quite suspiciously when Tyler gets there, it’s just her and the rest didn't show up for some reason. She and Tyler hit it off but then he goes back to Matheson for his uncle’s wedding and a few days later, Carly shows up on his doorstep.


Like she just shows up.


No warning, no text. She just shows up. Stalker much?


It’s even weirder because they were not depicted to be close - the fact that he was reluctant to go out with her, or go to her place. They barely even seemed like friendly colleagues and yet she shows up at his home and Tyler doesn't think it's weird? How did she get his address? Couldn't she call his home phone or his emergency contact to confirm if he was okay before travelling miles?


Right till the last second of the third season, I was so certain that she was a plant for some demon or a magical investigator but she really was just a desperate, stalkerish, love-struck teenager who casually alludes to her stalking by saying “I bring ‘em [cards] with me while I’m chasing boys across the country”. To be honest, the former scenario would have been a lot easier to swallow.


Dumb Plothole 8: Carrying out a body in broad daylight?


After some light investigation, Kinsey figures out that Eden is dead at the bottom of the well and she and the Savinis carry out Eden’s covered dead body in broad daylight to a cliff where they throw it off. Now I understand that it's a somewhat deserted town, a somewhat deserted neighbourhood but in daylight? Where’s the sense of caution?



Dumb Plot 9: No one remembers how the keys work


While the Lockes are in a showdown with Captain Gideon, it looks like the Lockes don't know how to use any keys at all - Dodge/Bode is the only one who tries to fend off the echoes in a smart way. Nina uses the chain key but it somehow, for the very first time reaches for the assailant’s leg instead of the midriff as we’ve seen so far?


Ghost Bode has the bright idea to use birds to distract Gideon and when all the keys fall out, Kinsey and Tyler individually pick up each key only to put them right back on the floor and within reach of the villain so they can get the animal key.


Whatever happened to divide and conquer? Couldn't one of them reach for the animal key while the other reaches for the alpha key and stabs the distracted demon?


Dumb Plothole 10 & 11: Kinsey gives Dodge the alpha key + Bode gets shot and is a-okay


The Lockes find out that Bode isn't really Bode after he threatens his mother with a knife. He later claims that he's on their side because he doesn't want Captain Gideon to destroy the “meatworld”. While helping the Lockes get rid of one of the Echoes, Bode gets shot in the shoulder and asides writhing on the floor for like 4 seconds turned out to be just fine and ends up asking for the alpha key and Kinsey just gives it to them, just like that. 


This is the same Kinsey who refused to tell her brother where the keys were when she thought he was acting weird. Now all of a sudden, she trusts him as Dodge? Turns out that Dodge was truly going to help them but then Tyler warns the villain by screaming “Gideon” just as Dodge/Bode is about to stab Gideon with the alpha key. Seconds after, Dodge gets completely thwarted by 


Dumb Plothole 12: The Ridiculousness of the Hourglass


Nina, Tyler and Kinsey Locke figure out from Duncan that when the hourglass is completely tipped, the anomaly in the timeline would be removed. At the time the three Lockes figure out this tidbit, the hourglass is halfway through (and Dodge/Bode had been around for maybe a day or two) but this half hourglass runs out in maybe 2 hours max and takes Dodge/Bode with it which makes no sense.


Dodge’s body and soul (or whatever an echo/demon has) is the timeline anomaly so her body and soul are what should have been taken - leaving Bode’s soulless body behind because Bode’s body belongs in that timeline. In the timeline Dodge is transported back into, Bode’s body would be an anomaly, how would that get fixed?

This brings us to yet another dumb plothole.



Dumb Plot 13: So the time paradox is real after all?


Duncan repeatedly says the time key doesn't work the way they think it does and you can't change the past at all. But not changing the past is quite different from being an observer like we’ve seen with the Head Key. Duncan’s statement about the Timeshift Key is what confidently urges Bode to taunt Dodge but it turns out that he could change the past just not the past they’ve known - a different past so kind of an alternate timeline?


But wait, this alternate timeline doesn't take effect immediately and that's why the hourglass is there. So what happened while Dodge left her timeline to wreak havoc on the present? Her own timeline was paused or what?


Dumb Plot 14: How does the animal key work precisely?


Our understanding so far is that the animal key allows humans morph into an animal and then morph back when they go through the door. But what happens when an animal with a human soul walks through the door? Do they become human again as seen with Ghost Bode? Doesn't that mean the animal key is essentially making new bodies?


 

Dumb Plot 15: Which is the real Gordie?


In a last-minute twist, it turns out that Gideon’s plan needs all the keys and the Keepers had utterly violated one of their high school classmates, Gordie (Michael Therriault) by invading his mind, stealing his memory of a magical encounter and then hiding the Creation Key in his head.


Gideon stabs Gordie and Ellie who’s being held hostage by Gideon uses the Head Key on Gordie. The Locke children appear and in truly the dumbest moment of this entire season declare that they don't know which Gordie to save because there were two of them.


The Head Key is probably the most used key in Locke & Key history and they don't know which body is real? IT’S THE BODY WITH THE FRICKING KEY STICKING OUT OF ITS NECK. They end up calling the ambulance to work on the fake body and then the real body bleeds out - which is truly a shame because Gordie’s episode was the most compelling of the season.


Locke & Key Season 3 Verdict


While Locke & Key has a very promising premise, the execution is truly horrendous and Season 3 takes the cake with just plothole after plothole after plothole. The series finale was wrapped up pretty nicely as the Lockes throw away all keys to close the portal Captain Gideon opened and it's hinted that Kinsey might be going to the UK to join her beau.


While we hear some whispering in the last shot, Locke & Key Season 3 has been confirmed as the last season.


Quote of the season


Dodge/Bode to Josh - “Hey relax cheapskate, they’re bottomless”