Season 1 Episode 8
I have been writing about the impact of magic on those who don’t know about it or can’t remember it, but ‘Ray of F**kng Sunshine’ was the first episode that put the grownups front and centre of the Locke and Key tale. Nina was particularly heartbreaking, as her return to drinking actually made her see and remember magic. Mixing magic and alcohol is a bit problematic, but it did lead to a nice scene between Nina and Kinsey. It was Kinsey who brought up to Tyler how nice it would be to have Nina fully in the know, part of the magical Locke team. When she saw her mother fall apart after she tried to use the magical cabinet to bring Rendell back to life, Kinsey gently told Nina that she could not go back to drinking. Kinsey knew they were losing a potential adult support if Nina got sober again, but she figured that was better than Nina returning to the terrible days when she drank.
Tyler and Kinsey were at their most mature when they realised Nina fell off the waggon. They kept the truth from Bode, who was not old enough to remember and recognise the signs that Nina was drinking again. They did chores around the house. When Nina showed Kinsey how the magical cabinet repaired Sally the stuffed toy, Kinsey quietly assured Nina that she believed her. For once, Kinsey was not reckless. She went to Tyler so they could talk things over.
Kinsey had to go alone to the psychiatric hospital to speak to Erin, because Tyler chose to remain at home with Nina. When Nina in frustration broke the urn that contained Rendell’s ashes, Tyler calmly told Nina that he would clean it up. Tyler and Kinsey could be annoying, but in this episode they were good kids who faced their mother’s pain with admirable maturity.
This was also the episode where Kinsey realised the gravity of what she did to the Savini Squad. I went back and forth on how much the lack of fear affected Kinsey, on whether her decisions were because there was no fear in her, or mostly because she was a teenager being reckless. The best I could come up with after seeing this episode was that the lack of fear aggravated the worst parts of Kinsey. When she realised what was happening, she was better able to keep herself under control.
Kinsey didn’t want to go back to the sea cave. Tyler, however, wanted to see this black door that was causing all this trouble. Thankfully, Tyler knew how to watch for tides, so he figured out the safest time to go to the sea cave. Tyler and Kinsey figured out that Dodge wanted to use the head key to get information from someone on how to open the black door. Since Ellie was of no help, and the rest of the keepers of the keys (listed below) were dead, the only one left to go to was Rendell’s high school girlfriend Erin.
Dodge got to Erin first, and retrieved the information she needed. Rendell hid the omega key inside his own head. Struggling though she may have been, Erin was able to communicate to Kinsey that Dodge was Lucas, Rendell’s best friend who supposedly died in the sea cave. As Tyler cleaned up Rendell’s ashes that were all over the floor after Nina broke the urn, the whispers came. The omega key was right there, amongst Rendell’s ashes.
More than the previous episodes, ‘Ray of F**king Sunshine’ was bringing the story’s focus back on Rendell’s generation. Lucas, who still looked like his high school self, has been living with Ellie and Rufus. Lucas was also Dodge. He has been using the identity key to change his appearance. When Tyler and Kinsey saw the names of Rendell and his friends carved on stone inside the sea cave, it was as though that was a list of the people who knew the secrets that somehow came back to haunt the Lockes. And now, the Locke kids had the omega key, the key that Dodge/ Lucas had been after all along.
Strays
🗝I should have mentioned this in the main paragraph, but this is the best episode of Locke & Key so far this season.
🗝Rufus was not happy with Lucas being in the house. When Bode was at his house, it looked like Rufus was tempted to tell Bode about Lucas. The tension in the air was thick when Lucas unexpectedly arrived and spent some time talking to Bode and Rufus.
🗝Ellie suspected but did not know for certain that Lucas had something to do with Sam's attack of the Lockes.
🗝People kept bringing food to Key House. Jackie and Tyler reconciled. Gabe and Scot both came to see Kinsey.
🗝The detective who investigated Joe's death came to check on Nina not as a cop but as a neighbour. My guess is that the detective sensed Nina was drunk when she received him.
🗝Nina not only saw the cabinet magically repair things, she also started to remember what happened to her inside the mirror.
🗝Kinsey asked Ellie if she had seen someone of Dodge's description. It looked like Ellie had no idea yet that Lucas had been going around as a young woman.
🗝Bode: 'Just because they're older doesn't mean they're right.' I agree with Bode, but in this case, what Tyler and Kinsey were protecting him from was the heavy burden of their mother's drinking. I think Tyler and Kinsey were just being good older siblings.
🗝Tyler assured Kinsey that both times they had to battle Sam, she was protecting Bode.
🗝The keepers of the keys: (1) Rendell Locke (2) Lucas Caravaggio (3) Erin Voss (4) Ellie Whedon (5) Mark Cho (6) Kim Topher (7) Jeff Ellis.
🗝Tyler and Kinsey figured the story Javi told them referred to Erin, who was in a psychiatric ward.
🗝There was that nice scene where Dodge and Kinsey both used the same door. Kinsey entered Erin's room in the hospital. Since Dodge used the anywhere key, she passed through elsewhere, so they did not see each other.
Director: Dawn Wilkinson
Writer: Vanessa Rojas
Original Release Date: 7 February 2020