- Title: Locke & Key – Welcome to Matheson
- wiki: link
Adapted from the comic of the same name, the opening episode of Locke & Key introduces us to the Locke family who relocates to Matheson, Massachusetts. Following the murder of her husband Randall (Bill Heck), Nina (Darby Stanchfield) takes the kids to the family’s ancestral home known as Keyhouse Manor. After a quick tour from their uncle (Aaron Ashmore), Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), settle into their new home. Bode is the first to recognize that there is something unusual with the house, first in the form of an Echo (Laysla De Oliveira) speaking to him from a well and later in finding magical keys around the house (each which holds a different power).
While mixing in the basics of a family moving to a new town and kids starting a new school, while still dealing with the trauma of their father’s murder (over the mysteries tied to Keyhouse), it’s the more fantastic elements that stand-out. It’s unclear how much of the comic’s wide-sweeping centuries-long story will be adapted to the series, but “Welcome to Matheson” offers a solid introduction to the series highlighted to Bode being tricked by the Echo in the well and Nina nearly getting trapped in a mirror prison when Bode uses the Mirror Key for the first time. The episode ends with things back to normal, with Nina unaware what has occurred, although it’s unclear if that is because she is an adult or not a Locke by birth (or for any number of other reasons). There’s also Echo’s visit to Randall Locke’s killer (Thomas Mitchell Barnet) thanks to the Anywhere Key suggesting the boy didn’t act alone and that the mysterious trickster has far more planned for the Locke family.
