If you’ve just finished watching Locke & Key season 3, then you’re probably wondering whether the Netflix series is returning for a season 4. To find out the answer to your question, here’s everything you should know about the fate of the hit fantasy horror drama.
Locke and Key season 4 release date
Locke & Key season 4 doesn’t have a release date because the series only has three seasons. In April 2022, it was announced that the show’s season 3 would be its final installment.
Locke and Key season 4 trailer
Since Locke & Key ended with season 3, the series won’t be getting a season 4 trailer. But if you haven’t seen Locke & Key yet, you can watch the trailers for the three seasons of the show below:
Why is there no season 4 of Locke and Key?
Locke & Key doesn’t have a season 4 because Netflix only ordered three seasons of the drama, and that happened to fit the vision of co-showrunners Carlton Cuse and Meredith Averill for how to tell the story of the series and when to wrap it.
“Once we began working on the series, we felt three seasons was the ideal length to bring the story of the Locke family and their Keyhouse adventures to a satisfying conclusion,” Cuse and Averill said in a statement. “As storytellers, we are grateful that we had the opportunity to tell our version of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s incredible story exactly the way we wanted. We’re keeping the magical keys, though, for our own personal use.”
According to Deadline, Netflix approached Locke & Key’s creative team with a plan for a three-season run following the breakout success of the show’s freshman run, which premiered back in February 2020. But for some reason, the third and final season of the show only consists of eight episodes – two episodes short of the 10-episode order for both its first and second seasons.
About Locke and Key
Based on the comic-book series of the same name by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez, Locke & Key follows the Locke siblings ― Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) ― who move into their ancestral family home with their mom Nina (Darby Stanchfield) following the murder of their father Rendell (Bill Heck). The children soon discover a number of mysterious keys throughout the house that can be used to unlock various doors in magical ways. But almost at the same time, they become aware of a demonic entity that is also searching for the keys for its own malevolent purposes.
Locke and Key cast
In addition to Darby Stanchfield (Nina Locke), Connor Jessup (Tyler Locke), Emilia Jones (Kinsey Locke), and Jackson Robert Scott (Bode Locke) who appear as the titular Locke family, the series also starred Petrice Jones as Scot Cavendish, Laysla De Oliveira as Dodge, Griffin Gluck as Gabe, Aaron Ashmore as Duncan, Hallea Jones as Eden Hawkins, Brendan Hines as Josh Bennett, Kevin Durand as Frederick Gideon, Sherri Saum as Ellie Whedon, and Coby Bird as Rufus Whedon, among many others.
Is Locke and Key worth watching?
Locke & Key received generally positive reviews from critics, who particularly commended the show’s scoring, set design, and visual effects. Plot-wise, critics applauded the show’s handling of themes relating to loss and trauma as well as its use of horror genre elements. They, however, panned the show’s use of teen drama and romance subplots to drag out the story. The acting of the cast was great in general, but critics named Jackson Robert Scott (Bode Locke) and Laysla De Oliveira (Dodge) as the most outstanding performers.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Locke & Key season 1 has a 66% approval rating based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website’s critics’ consensus notes that even though the first season of the show occasionally struggles to strike a consistent tone, it captures enough of the essence of its source material, giving viewers “a fiendishly fun and sufficiently spooky time.”
The second season has a higher score on Tomatometer. Based on 12 reviews, the show’s sophomore run has an 83% approval rating, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The critics’ consensus indicates that the series improved in season 2, which turns on the charm of the show while leaping from one cliffhanger to the next.
The third season, meanwhile, only holds a 50% approval rating based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. Some critics said that show’s final season failed to settle on its dark and suspense tone when it rewarded the Lockes with happy endings.