The Most Powerful Keys In Locke & Key Ranked
Not every magic key in Netflix's Locke & Key is created equal. That's something that Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode learn the hard way. For every key that gives the Locke siblings seemingly impossible abilities in their fight against the demon known as Dodge, there's another that's little more than a trifle. In order to become the true Keepers of the Keys, the kids need to find everything, of course, but there's no arguing that some of Keyhouse's treasures are much more useful than others.
So how does each individual key stack up? It goes a little something like this. Here is every key in Locke & Key ranked from least to most powerful, at least far as season one is concerned. As readers of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez's graphic novels know, the Locke & Key saga is just getting started. Some of the best keys are yet to come.
The Flower Key
The Flower Key (or Starfish Key, if you prefer Kisney's interpretation) can be useful if you need to hide something. Simply stick the key in a tree looming on the edge of the Keyhouse cemetery, and you'll be able to stick whatever you want underground. Use the key again to bring those secrets back to the surface.
That's a nice tool to have when you need to keep Duncan Locke from finding his old memories of his brother Rendell brutally murdering his best friend, but it doesn't seem good for much else. Unlike Keyhouse's other keys, the kids don't use the Flower Key more than once. After Tyler and Kinsey use it to uncover Duncan's lost memories, they pretty much forget about it.
Heck, the cemetery isn't even the best hiding place on the Keyhouse's grounds. When it's time to hide the Omega Key, Bode decides to use the Mending Key, not the Flower Key, and calls the cabinet the safest place in the house. Yes, seeing Duncan's memories emerge in brightly lit mason jars is a cool visual. Apparently, that's about all the Flower Key is good for.
The Mirror Key
The Mirror Key is inarguably creepy. When you use it, your reflection becomes mockingly sinister, taunting you whenever you look in the mirror — and that's just the beginning. Touch the mirror, and you'll realize that you can actually walk through, finding yourself in a bizarre alternate universe from which escape is very, very difficult.
However, at the end of the day, creepy is all the Mirror Key is. The mirror sequence in the Locke & Key pilot is one of the few times that the Netflix show plays with the same surreal imagery that made the original comic so dang spooky. Visually, it's a delight. Unfortunately, there's not much more to it than that. The Mirror Key's power isn't useful. It's not fun. It's not even that well explained.
While Dodge is able to use the Mirror Key to blackmail Bode into handing over the Anywhere Key, that seems to be the upper limit of its utility. The Mirror Key is a bargaining chip, and little more. It looks cool, but the end result simply isn't worth it.
The Ghost Key
Want to experience life after death? Just use the Ghost Key on the big skull-adorned door in the Keyhouse study and you're all set. Once you step through, your spirit will leave your body, which drops down dead on the floor, letting you roam around as a ghost. You can fly wherever you want. You can pass through walls and eavesdrop on others unseen. You can even talk with other spirits, provided they're haunting the same grounds that you are.
When Sam Lesser, the teen who killed Rendell, comes to Keyhouse to attack the Locke family for a second time, the Ghost Key stops him, removing his ghost from his body and leaving him powerless. Bode also uses it to reconnect with some of his older ancestors, who tell him all about his father and his legacy.
The Ghost Key is just as much of a blessing as a curse, though. If you don't head back through the Ghost Door, you'll be trapped as a spirit forever. It's also not as convenient as the Echo Key, which also lets you talk to the dead and doesn't require you to be anywhere near a person's final resting place. Good for a lark, and helpful when a serial killer comes visiting. Otherwise, leave this one on the keychain.
The Matchstick Key
The Matchstick Key sets things on fire. Cool. You know what else sets things on fire? Matches. Lighters. Flamethrowers. Blowtorches.
Okay, okay, that's simplifying things a little bit. You're not going to get the kind of instant inferno that the Matchstick Key produces from your run-of-the-mill Bic, and the ability to engulf anything — or anyone — in flames at a mere touch comes in handy during home invasions, like when a Lovecraftian demon is attacking your ancestral home. Burning to death is a pretty gruesome way to go, but if, like Mark Cho, you need to kill yourself and destroy a bunch of documents at the same time, the Matchstick Key will get the job done.
The Matchstick Key has some power, but compared to Keyhouse's other treasures, it simply doesn't feel very special. With patience (and gasoline), you could achieve mostly the same effect without using magic at all. The Matchstick Key is a shortcut, but ultimately little more.
The Mending Key
Now we're getting somewhere. As Nina Locke discovers part way through Locke & Key's first season, the Mending Key is extremely practical. Unlock the cabinet in the Locke's living room with the key, then place a broken object inside. After you lock, unlock, and open the door, you'll find your item fully repaired.
It's easy to imagine a number of scenarios in which this power would be useful. Have an old comic you want to restore to mint condition so you can sell it for big bucks? What about a family heirloom that stopped working years ago, or a valuable treasure you dug out of the trash? As long as it fits in the Mending Key's cabinet, they're all as good as new.
Of course, there are some limitations. As Nina learned the hard way, the Mending Key only works on inanimate objects, so you won't be able to bring a family pet or a deceased loved one back to life. The cabinet isn't that big, either. While it's the right size for repairing broken mugs or ripped-up stuffed animals, you're still going to have to take your car to the mechanic. Still, if you break dishes or drop your phone often, the Mending Key is a must-have.
The Echo Key
Do you miss a long-lost loved one? With the Echo Key, you don't have to. Simply use the key to unlock the wellhouse on the Keyhouse grounds, and you can talk to your dearly departed once more.
Kind of, anyway. The Echo Key doesn't actually resurrect the deceased. It merely creates an "echo" of their consciousness. That's good if you want to have a conversation, but not if you want to do much else. Besides, there are a few obvious pitfalls to using the Echo Key. For one, people are complicated. The conversation that you've been longing for may not go how you expect, and it might not give you the closure you need.
The other risk? You might accidentally bring back the malevolent demon that possessed your boyfriend instead, giving rise to a malevolent force that threatens to shroud your hometown (and, eventually, the whole world) in darkness. Still, though, humans have been trying to find a way to communicate with the dead for millennia. With the Echo Key, they finally can.
The Anywhere Key
Like us, you're probably over air travel. You'd probably love a way to avoid your daily commute. Well, friends, let us introduce the Anywhere Key. The Anywhere Key, the very first key that Bode discovers in Netflix's Locke & Key adaptation, will let you travel through any door you can find to any location you can picture in your mind's eye.
You don't even need to have been to the place in question in person. A simple photo or a postcard will get the job done. The Anywhere Key isn't just convenient, though. On Locke & Key, Dodge causes all sorts of trouble with the ability to be anywhere she wants, whenever she wants. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to stop the Anywhere Key's owner from invading your personal spaces, either. If the keyholder wants to go somewhere, there's pretty much nothing standing in their way.
The Anywhere Key could probably revolutionize the shipping and transit industries, but while it's in Dodge's hands, it'll only be used for mischief. Oh well. Hopefully Bode can get the key back eventually. With his mom gone, Rufus is probably getting pretty lonely.
The Music Box Key
The Music Box Key can make anyone, anywhere, do whatever you want. As long as you're the person who used the key to open the music box, your target will obey your every command, whether they want to or not.
It's mind control pure and simple, and we probably don't have to tell you have powerful that is — or how dangerous. On Locke & Key, the Music Box Key's spotlight scene takes place when Kinsey and Gabe use it to play a prank on Matheson Academy's resident mean girl, Eden, and even then the teens go too far. Just imagine what could happen if the music box got anywhere near a high-powered executive, a member of Congress, or the president.
The Music Box Key is almost too powerful, which is why it's a good thing that the Locke siblings seem set on keeping it out of the wrong hands. If a good kid like Kinsey can't help but abuse the Music Box Key, villains like Dodge should definitely be kept far, far away.
The Identity Key
Making other people do what you want is one thing, but what if you could be someone else, no strings attached? That's what the Identity Key does. With the Identity Key, you can change the way that you look entirely. You can make yourself look like someone you know, someone famous, or someone brand new.
The Identity Key is one of the most powerful weapons in Dodge's arsenal, and she uses it liberally. When she wants to manipulate Ellie, she transforms into Lucas, Ellie's high school boyfriend. When she wants to seduce Tyler or charm Bode, she turns into a beautiful woman. In order to get into Kinsey's good graces, she becomes Gabe and slowly worms her way into the Savinis and Kinsey's heart.
You can even use the Identity Key on other people, like Dodge does when she makes Ellie into a Dodge clone, and frame them for crimes they didn't commit. As Locke & Key shows, the Identity Key is almost too powerful. When it's around, be very, very careful.
The Shadow Key
Forget giving yourself powers. The Shadow Key gives you a whole damn army. Simply unlock the Crown of Shadows using the Shadow Key, then put the ornament on your head, and you'll have a troop of shadowy warriors who'll fight at your beck and call.
There are limits to the shadows' power, of course. Most importantly, your spectral warriors will only be able to attack at night. See, the Crown of Shadows' charges are susceptible to light, meaning a flashlight, a flame, or a toy lightsaber will render them powerless. When using the Shadow Key to attack Keyhouse, Dodge had to cut the power first. Otherwise, the Lockes would've been able to stay safe simply by hiding in a brightly lit room.
Still, though, once those shadowy monsters on the loose, they're just as tough and vicious as you'd expect them to be. Even when they know what's up, the Locke kids have a hard time fighting the shadows off. Catch someone unawares, and the Shadow Key will make you and your army near unstoppable.
The Head Key
There's a reason why the Head Key features so heavily in Locke & Key's promotional materials. Quite simply, it's one of the most interesting keys in the entire series, not to mention one of the most powerful. The Head Key literally unlocks your or someone else's mind, letting you walk inside. Once there, you can do almost anything.
Want to browse through a collection of memories? You can. Eager to uncover someone's most tightly-kept secrets? Go right ahead. But the Head Key does more than pave the way for some psychological tourism. With it, you can also put things inside someone's head, or take things out. Tyler uses the head key to bone up on British trivia by dumping a book in his head. Kinsey decides to deal with her lingering trauma by taking her fear out of her head, making her impulsive and reckless.
Basically, with the Head Key and a little bit of imagination, you can rewrite someone's entire personality. Combined with its other powers, that makes the Head Key Locke & Key's most interesting artifact — and if the comics are any indication, we've only just begun to see what it's capable of.
The Omega Key
It's all there in the name: the Omega Key is, quite literally, the key to the end of the world. It's the only key in Keyhouse that unlocks the Black Door. On one side of the door are the drowning caves, which exist in our dimension. On the other is a parallel universe inhabited by demons, all of whom are dying to pass through the door and wreak havoc.
Dodge, Locke & Key's main villain, is from the other side of the Black Door, and look at all the damage that she did on her own. Now imagine an entire world's worth of creatures exactly like her, roaming Earth and causing trouble. Not a pretty sight, is it? Well, the only thing standing between us and them is the Omega Key. If Dodge gets her hands on it, it's all over.
The Omega Key's apocalyptic powers make it by far the most powerful key in the Locke & Key universe. Keeping it safe is a big responsibility. Let's hope that Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode are up to the task.