Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Lockwood and Co’ is a supernatural drama that follows the story of a group of teenagers who work as ghost hunters. Set in an alternate reality, it paints the picture of a world plagued by all kinds of ghosts. Young people with the talent to sense ghosts are the only ones who can train to become hunters. The first season of the series explores this new setting, giving the audience the characters that they can root for. Worldbuilding is the main prerogative of this season, which means that a lot of secrets are left hanging by the end, tempting the audience to stick around for the second season. Here we take a look at the events of the final episode and address the mysteries that have been left unresolved. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Lockwood and Co Plot Synopsis
It’s been fifty years since the Problem completely changed the world. The world has been infested with ghosts, who become powerful during the night. Their mere touch kills a person, and this has killed off most of the population. There are kids who show an inclination towards specific powers which make them fit for guarding against this new terror. Lucy is one of them. She is a listener and trains to become a hunter. However, a hunting incident goes wrong, with almost all of her teammates killed and her best friend in a coma after she is ghost locked.
A distraught Lucy runs away from her manipulative mother and arrives in London to complete her training and find a job as a hunter. After getting rejected by the prestigious agencies, she finds a place at Lockwood and Co, run by Anthony Lockwood. George is the only other employee at the moment, and Lucy joins them too, with no other option in sight. As they solve cases, Lucy discovers new things about her colleagues while also finding out some very shocking things about her own powers.
Lockwood and Co Ending: What’s Inside Lockwood’s Secret Room?
When Lucy is hired by Lockwood, he shows her around the house, which he reveals he’d inherited from his parents. From the kitchen to the library to the basement where all the weapons and relics are kept, Lockwood familiarises Lucy with every part of the house, except one room. This room is on the first floor and is kept locked at all times. Both George and Lucy are prohibited from entering it or even talking about it. At one point, Lockwood reveals that it is part of his family history and he doesn’t want to talk about it.
Due to his intense secrecy, Lucy and George are always interested in finding out more about the room. Somehow, it feels like the key to really understanding Lockwood and who he really is. While he knows everything about them, they barely know anything about him. And they feel that the answer to this enigma is behind that locked door. It is this curiosity that the Skull in the Jar later feeds on. To make her trust him, he gives her cryptic messages. To get her interested, he talks about Lockwood and the dark secret that he has been keeping inside his room. However, he doesn’t reveal exactly what it is.
After a while, it becomes clear that Lockwood hasn’t had a very easy childhood. He was orphaned at the age of six, and the nature of his parent’s death is also something that Lucy and George know nothing about. From the small things that are revealed over the season, we gather that it must be something traumatic from Lockwood’s past, something bad, something that he blames himself for and doesn’t want to address because it isn’t something he wants others to know. It is somewhat like the incident with Lucy and her previous teammates, which she doesn’t want anyone to find out about because she feels ashamed for letting her friends down and it’s a black spot on her CV.
The show, much like Lockwood, keeps the cards close to its chest, but those who have read the books can guess what the deal with the secret room is. In the books, the room belonged to Lockwood’s sister, Jessica, who was killed by a ghost some time ago, and he carries the guilt of his sister’s death. This is a huge piece of the puzzle for Lockwood’s character as it explains a lot of things about him. It remains to be seen whether the show follows the same track. Even though it remains fairly true to the books on which it is based, the show has made some changes to the story. It is possible that something else entirely might come out as the real secret inside that room.
Who’s the Man With the Golden Blade?
Speaking of the things that the show changes from the books, the man with the golden blade is an original character created for the Netflix series. He seems to be inspired by one of the characters in the books but has his distinct arc, which makes him rather intriguing. He is first introduced in the scene where Lucy and Lockwood break into the Fittes library to find Mary Dulac’s book. This follows a confrontation where it becomes clear that the mysterious man is a highly trained hunter.
Over the next few encounters, it becomes clear that the man works directly for Penelope Fittes and doesn’t follow the same agenda as other ghost-hunting agencies. He’d been sent to retrieve the Bone Glass, but Lockwood foils his quest both times, which develops a rivalry that will surely become a central plot point in the coming seasons. There is also a reason to believe that this man knows Lockwood more intimately than the latter expects. He called Lockwood by his first name, Anthony, which is a rarity, because everyone else refers to him by his surname.
The man also refers to his parents in the final episode, calling them and their deaths inconsequential in the grander scale of the plan. This means that this man knows something about Lockwood’s family, and might even have been involved in the murder of his parents. He says that Lockwood has no idea who he is, twice, which means that there is a strong connection between Lockwood and this man. At this point, the man with the golden blade appears as nothing more than Penelope Fittes’ henchmen, but we believe that there is much more to his story, and his connection with Lockwood will become a decisive revelation in the future.
What Happens to the Skull in the Jar?
There are many intriguing things in ‘Lockwood and Co’, but the one that takes the cake is the skull in the jar. It is first presented to the audience and Lucy, in the first episode, when she appears for the job interview at Lockwood and Co. At that time, it is just a relic, a rare one, which she later discovers was stolen by George from Fitte and Rotwell. It is contained inside a silver jar and George experiments on it. It isn’t until much later that Lucy finds out that there is a ghost trapped inside the Skull and it is a Type 3. She discovers it by mistake, when she unscrews something in the jar, allowing the Skull’s voice to come out and reach her. This is also when she discovers that she has the same power that Marissa Fitte had. She can talk to ghosts, making her quite a rarity in the ghost-hunting world.
The Skull is glad to finally find someone with whom it can talk. It uses this opportunity to try and manipulate Lucy into freeing it, but she is smarter than that. It turns out that he was the disciple of Edmund Bickerstaff, which makes him very helpful in the search for the Bone Glass. Still, he can’t be trusted completely because he keeps some very important things from Lucy. In the end, however, he does end up helping Lockwood and Co, which is what makes his uncertain fate a cause for concern for Lucy as well as the viewers.
In the final episode, Joplin holds George captive and forces him to look at the Bone Glass and tell her what he sees. Knowing that this will kill George, Lucy offers to take his place, but when the time comes to look in the mirror, she places the Skull in its path instead. It is he who takes the brunt of the dark effects that the mirror has on a person who looks into it, and Lucy is saved. The Skull screams about the mirror being a trap. Later, when the mirror is broken, the souls of the seven people whose bones were used to make it are released. Everyone comes back home safe and sound, except the Skull.
Before the season wraps up, we discover that the Skull hasn’t talked since it looked into the mirror. Does it mean that it’s gone for good? We don’t believe so. In the books, the Skull becomes an important part of Lucy’s story, which means that there is still a long way to go in its character arc. However, the show might take a different route than the books, which does put a question mark on the Skull’s fate.
Because it was already dead when it looked in the mirror, it is clear that he isn’t technically dead. Looking into the mirror does have adverse effects on whoever sees it, and it is possible that the Skull is suffering from the same and that’s the reason for his silence. Another explanation is that the ghost has crossed over from the mirror, which was a window, into another world. We still don’t know what the rules of this other world are, but we expect the ghost to come back in the next season and go back to its source, bringing the Skull back to life.
Read More: What Happens to Joplin? Does She Die in Lockwood & Co?
