Hello, everyone! Welcome back to another edition of TV Show Talk. On this edition of TV Show Talk, I'm gonna be talking about a netflix show based on a book series with the same name, Lockwood & Co.
DISCLAIMER : spoiler alert for Lockwood & Co if you haven't watched or read the books
So, Lockwood & Co tells a story about a girl named Lucy Carlyle, living in what I'd say alternate United Kingdom, in which ghosts, or what they'd like to call "Visitors", are roaming free on the streets, houses, any places, you name it because of a situation called The Problem which dated 50 years prior (correct me if I'm wrong) of the events of the show. Lucy has one of the three main abilities (called Talent in the books and shows), which is Listener, the other two are Sight and Touch, meaning that she can listen to objects that are related to Visitors' past and/or emotions before they died called Source (or at least this is what I understand as Source).
The series started with Lucy walking into her first case while working with Lockwood & Co, a start-up ghost-hunting agency owned and founded by a young adult guy (seriously, I think he's like 18 or 19 at the start of the show) named Anthony Lockwood (preferably nicknamed Lockwood or Anthony. Not Tony, not Ant, not Big A. In the books, he said that he hated being called the latter two, not in the show though, but I'm pretty sure it's the same), as an agent. Lucy and Lockwood walked into the house of their client who was afraid of walking inside the house because she had all these disturbances and attacks after her husband died in the house. Lucy and Lockwood already made assumptions on the Visitor that resided in the house was the ghost of the client's husband. But they were wrong, turns out there was another visitor, the ghost of a female who died 40 years ago, long before the client's family lived in the house. The ghost hunting failed miserably because not only that they weren't prepared for the visitor, but also because they forgot to bring one of the essentials, which is the chain to minimize the movement of the visitor, so they resorted to the explosives which cause the house to almost burn down. But during that night, Lucy found out something new about her Talent, not only she could listen to the visitor's voice and emotions, but she could also felt what the visitor felt, almost like she was her which was almost impossible. Because she was so curious about her newly developed Talent, she "secured" the Source of the Visitor, which was a ring found together with the body of the Visitor that was shoved inside of the walls.
The show also told the story before Lucy worked for Lockwood & Co. She used to live in a small town on the Northern side of England. Her mom was emotionally abusive to her, only seeing her as a quick money grab because of her Talent. Lucy was brought by her mom to a local ghost hunting agency. There she trained her Talent as a Listener and quickly became their biggest asset because she exceeded all of her peers. She had a lot of friends there, with the closest of them all being a girl named Norrie. They were doing all these cases together, training together and dreaming to become like Marissa Fittes, one of the two first ghost hunters. But all of that was quickly turned to dust because of a case in which all of her friends being killed by the visitor because they were dealing with a visitor outside of their capabilities (so there are, well mostly known, 2 types of ghosts, Type 1, usually dormant and they don't have purposes, and Type 2, kind of like the ghost of the woman found in the house earlier), it was told that they were supposed to be dealing with Type 1 ghost, but it was actually a very powerful Type 2. Her supervisor was there to avoid these things happening, but he was also drowned in his own trauma that he chose to not help them. What made it more frustrating was that it was ruled out as an accident in court. Because she already had enough of the people in her hometown, her mom still wanted her to work at the agency even though Lucy was literally traumatized and didn't want to, she ran away from home and went to London to keep her and Norrie's dream alive as a ghost hunter.
But it wasn't easy because Lucy had no certification of her completing her training as an agent and she had little to no money. Almost all ghost-hunting agencies rejected her before she was able to test her Talent, until she found the advertisement for Lockwood & Co, in search of a Listener. She went there and was quite surprised to find two boys around her age, running the agency by themselves. But she put that behind her and passed the test of showing her Talent with flying colors (with a little confrontation because she felt like she was treated as a joke when she was asked to sense anything from a new cup). The two boys being, Lockwood, which you read earlier, who had the talent of Sight, and the other boy was called George Karim, the agency's researcher, with the talent of Touch. He's basically the one who kept the agency running while Lockwood was too busy loving himself and pursuing fame for his work in cases. Lucy was hired right away without a background check including whether she already completed her training or not because Lockwood was already very sure of her Talent from the test. They all lived together in Lockwood's childhood house which also functioned as their office. Then the story was back to present, which was after they burned down their client's house.
The show mostly tells the story of Lucy, Lockwood, and George's journey in solving cases and ghost hunting, including how they got away with sixty thousand pounds of debt of burning the client's house and them solving who the woman visitor in the house, their rivalry with other agents from one of the biggest agencies, Fittes (yes, it was found by Marissa Fittes), and also it won't be complete without a not so subtle romance growing between Lucy and Lockwood (it's very innocent, it's really cute honestly).
Now, we're gonna talk about things that I like about the show. First is just the storyline and the vibe in general and how it feels very nostalgic for me because it's been a while since I consumed quite light (well light compared to Game of Thrones and Marauders era fanfiction) fantasy, science fiction, and teenager/young adult media. It was very reminiscent of the time when I used to read books with similar themes back in middle school. I'm actually reading the books at the moment, and when I saw the covers for the first time, it was like I was being thrown back in my local public library, reading novels about a bunch of teens solving cold cases. All 3 of them, going to haunted places, and doing things better than if they were with adults. The banter between them, the innocence of it but also how quite "heavy" it is because of each character's backstory. Like how terrible Lucy's relationship with her mom is, how George felt outcasted because everyone in his family is useful because all of his older siblings are engineers and he's a "freak" because he has the Talent and is interested in historical things, also Lockwood and his mysterious background but we got a little bit of a sneak peek of his past in the show, and it wasn't all that light either. I learned, reminisced, and related a lot to the storyline.
Next is the acting of the three main characters. I feel like I can say they have the best chemistry when all three of them together. Ican feel their instant bond of family and friendship especially when they're in the kitchen, just talking about their life in general and brainstorming about the case that they're currently doing. Not only when they're doing good but also when they're fighting or arguing, I can't help but also feel a little sad as if I were part of them. All three of them are relatively newcomers in the acting scene. Especially the actor who played Lockwood, Cameron Chapman. I was so surprised and impressed when I found out that it was not only his first professional acting gig but also the first audition that he did. He was doing a really good job with portraying Lockwood's cockiness and his obsession with fame and being the best but also his trauma regarding his mysterious past (based on the hints from the show) and anxiety of losing the people around him. According to the people who've read the books before the show came out (I've only read the first book and starting the second book up until the writing of this post), Cameron did a great job in bringing Lockwood the character to life.
There are two main cases/storylines, The first is of the woman in the wall, and the other one is about a mirror that believed to show the most powerful things that it became quite of a trouble in the past, killing people, and killing them. So there are two main villains, one for each story. Both are adults and equally manipulative and annoying. Especially the villain in the second story, very manipulative. I was screaming when she finally died, like finally, no more manipulation of George's situation in the show.
Now, onto my silly little hopeless romantic self, talking about Lockyle aka Lockwood and Lucy's blooming first love romance. I just love them and how cute they are. I was so excited when I saw the scene of when Lucy met Lockwood for the first time because clearly it was love at first sight for Lockwood but a slow burn for Lucy because of Lockwood's inability of expressing what his feelings actually are and, well because technically she was hungry and in need of a shelter, but also Lockwood. I mean when Lockwood is sweet for one second and then went on press saying that Lucy is their agency's asset, reminding her of how her mother using her as a quick money grab and not a person, then apologizing to her in a very romantic manner I almost thought they were gonna kiss, yeah, of course Lucy is stressing out because of it. My favorite scene of them is of course when they attended Fittes' Ball because it felt like they can act their age for a bit and went on a prom like event. Some people said that Lockyle reminded them of Kaz and Inej from Six of Crows book series/Shadow and Bone TV Series, and I agree, although it should be the other way around because the Lockwood & Co books were written first, but yes, they do have the same dynamic.
What I don't like about this show is or maybe the right wording is what I'm disappointed about with the handling of this show is that it's become Netflix's victim of cancelling. Lockwood & Co has so much potential to become Netflix's next sci-fi big thing. Amazing storyline, filled with young and talented actors, built-in fandom, and they don't need to produce the show by themselves because another production house took care of that. All they needed to do was distribute and promote the show. But, of course they can't even promote the show properly, and then citing that the reason they canceled the show was the numbers didn't add up to their criteria. However even without a promotion from Netflix, Lockwood & Co was doing pretty good. It stayed for a few weeks in Netflix's Top 10 for a few weeks in Indonesia and other countries. Even the tweet that announced the cancellation was viewed more than 7 million times. A lot of people including the author of Percy Jackson, Rick Riordan, have expressed their disappointment with the cancellation.
The best thing that can be done now is to wait and keep promoting the show on social media in hope of another streaming service picking it up for season 2. Anyway, that's all for my post on this TV Show Talk. See you on another post!
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