How Locke & Key Shows You How to Open the Door of Grief
The moral case for confronting grief head on rather than living in denial of it.
People grieve in lots of different ways.
Some learn to confront it head on, while others become consumed by it to the point they can't find a way beyond it. Still others learn to embrace life and all the pleasures it has to offer, and some end up completely rejecting life in any way for its cruelty. Not to mention those who find a way to deny the idea of grief all together. There are about as many ways in which to grieve as there are people to experience them. At some point however, all of us are confronted with grief because no matter how hard we try, we will lose someone.
The only thing we can do is go through it in whatever way we are able to. Where it becomes a problem is when these ways of dealing with grief clash. If you've chosen to grieve by confronting how it makes you feel but someone else in your family chooses to deny it, each can look like uncaring or insensitive to the other's pain. Such a conflict between two people rarely ends well, at least initially. They end up yelling or screaming or possibly even attacking one another. Blaming them for things which may or may not be their fault. Or bringing up past grievances which were thought to be long since settled and irrelevant.
Particularly if what they're fighting about is the circumstances of the person you're both grieving death. With the person you're fighting about is no longer around, they can't defend themselves or bring a resolution to what's at stake. As a result, those who are still around end up repeating the conflict in order to live with the grief they're both experiencing. A pattern of behaviour that has no end in sight until one or both are able to let go of it. They have to go from one state to another. Almost like walking through a door and finding oneself on the other side.
This is what Locke and Key is about at its core. It creates literal doors for people to walk through which either help or hinder the progress of the Locke family who are grieving the loss of one of their own. In walking through the various doors using the keys available to them, they find a way to unlock the pain and suffering they're going through. Some doors are in the house they've inherited from the patriarch of the family. Others are using keys on themselves or those around them to unlock things they've hidden from each other, or they didn't even know they were hiding from themselves.
Through the discovery of these things, the Locke family confronts their grief and learns to move beyond it.
All of us have been confronted with the reality of grief over the last almost two years now. We've learned that we can't just live in denial forever. It's somewhat fitting that the show became available at a time when we all need it.
Help yourself work out any grief you might be feeling by checking out Locke and Key today.
Season 1 of the show is available on Netflix now and season 2 is available on Friday.
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