‘Locke & Key’ Gets Early Season 3 Renewal (For Now)

Wonders never cease for the Locke family.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix has extended an early Season 3 renewal for Locke & Key. The program tells the tale of three children who move from Seattle to their father’s ancestral home in Massachusetts following his death. The youngest, Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), discovers a set of magical keys which grants him access to a world of wonder (and terror) the adults around him have all forgotten about. His older siblings — Tyler (Connor Jessup) and Kinsey (Emilia Jones) — also make use of the keys for their own reasons. Unfortunately for the group, a demon from another reality is hellbent on getting hold of the keys.

The series, which debuted earlier this year, is a remix of the IDW comic book by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. Enough of a remix, in fact, for some fans of the book to note its more fanciful take on ideas presented as horror in the original text. Curiously, the series represents the third attempt to adapt the comic to television; suggesting the horror angle was always going to present a problem to broadcasters or even streamers like Netflix.

Production on the second season is set to wrap soon with work on Season 3 to commence January. It is unclear if that means breaking the story and commission scripts or actual filming. If the latter, it means executive producers Carlton Cuse and Meredith Averill were given the go-ahead to commission scripts sometime ago. A good sign. At the same time, we’re still hedging our bets on the third season as Netflix’s recent tendency to revoke renewals puts even something like Locke & Key at risk.

For the moment, though, it seems the show will have a fairly good lifespan on the service. A while back, Netflix suggested 30 episodes is the optimal length for their original programing as viewers seem to drop off afterward. There are, of course, exceptions to that, but a three season run may be enough time for Locke & Key to explore itself on television.