Locke and Key season 3 recap guide: All 8 episodes explained

Locke and Key season 3, episode 8 recap: Farewell

Tyler, Kinsey and Ellie make it out of Gordie’s head in the knick of time at the start of Locke and Key season 3, episode 8, but unfortunately, so does Gideon. They emerge into Gordie’s living room where two cops have arrived and pull guns on them. The cops are, obviously, mystified by the strange phenomenon of Gordie’s mind entrance disappearing and reappearing out of thin air.

But then Gordie dies and Sam also dies while trapped inside his mind. It seems implied that he died peacefully, though.

While the cops fight with Gideon, Rufus takes the others into the garage where they find Gordie’s real body. They take back the Mind Key. Now they have that and the Creation Key, which is about to come in handy since Tyler and Kinsey are on the run from Gideon. Rufus and Ellie sneak out and head to Josh’s house to lie low for now.

Kinsey and Tyler sprint through town and end up in a dead end. Enter the Creation Key, which Tyler uses to create a door into the back of a bar. Then he makes a lock for the door to hold up Gideon for a few seconds. That gives them enough time to get back into the street where Kinsey draws them a motorcycle to escape on.

Even better is Josh coming out of nowhere to drive his car into Gideon. But for some reason, Josh just hangs around instead of getting back into his car, so of course Gideon shoves him over and steals it, almost running him over in the process.

What follows is an intense chase as Gideon drives (terribly) after Kinsey and Tyler on the motorcycle. At one point, Tyler makes a sharp turn and Gideon tries to mimic the movement, sending his car careening off the road where it spins out of control and explodes into a ball of fire. Since he’s a demon and basically invulnerable, Gideon is fine and now he’s more pissed than ever as he continues running after the siblings back to Keyhouse.

At least the crash gives the Lockes a second to regroup. They use the Creation Key to make some new weapons and hatch a plan to force Gideon back into the Wellhouse. Tyler hangs out inside and taunts the demon. Gideon knows he can’t step foot back into Wellhouse, but what he doesn’t expect is Bode in a giant forklift to come from behind and shove him in using the heavy machinery.

But the demon manages to resist and even tears off the metal armature, using it to destroy Wellhouse once and for all. Tyler jumps out an opposing window so as to not get crushed by the Wellhouse caving in and returns to the house. They’re running out of options when Kinsey realizes something they haven’t tried on the Harlequin chest, magic! She uses the Creation Key to draw a simple door into the chest and it works!

They have access to the keys again, including the Alpha Key. Gideon storms into the house again on a rampage and Kinsey goes straight for him, but he grabs her and tries to throw her in the portal first. With some assistance from her family, Kinsey turns the Alpha Key and they shove Gideon back into the portal, killing him once and for all.

The portal closes up a little, but not all the way. Tyler notices this and theorizes that each key they toss inside will make it close more. He tests this theory with the Mind Key, much to a devastated Bode’s surprise.

Tyler, Kinsey, Nina and Bode have a family meeting after. Everyone is in agreement that it’s time to get rid of the keys to close the portal and keep it that way. They’ve lost so many people due to their magic that it’s not worth keeping them anymore. The keys do more harm than good. Bode is the only one against it, until Kinsey asks him what he wants, which we’ve known all along.

Bode asks them to use the Time Shift Key one last time, and then he’ll agree to get rid of them all. Together, the Lockes use the key to return to a time when Rendell is still alive and they spend one last beautiful, emotional afternoon together. Rendell even gives them his blessing, adding that by getting rid of the keys, they’re doing something he was never strong enough to do himself.

Once they return to the future, the Lockes use the Memory Key one last time to ensure they don’t forget everything that happened and then they throw all of the keys into the portal, one by one, until they’re all gone and the portal has vanished entirely.

After that, Locke and Key season 3 wraps up basically all the major plotlines nice and neat (a little too neat, in my opinion, but I digress). The Splattering 2 premieres to rave reviews and Scot even comes home from England to surprise his friends. He and Kinsey finally share a kiss and Kinsey hints that she might try to come to England soon if she gets accepted to RISD since they have a great global exchange program.

Duncan and Brian return home from their honeymoon and the entire family has breakfast together, complete with Josh and Jamie. Josh doesn’t remember anything that happened with Gideon, but Nina is surprisingly okay with it.

Bode even offers to help Josh test-drive some new cars, which shows a lot of growth in their relationship and Bode’s acceptance of his mom moving on. Duncan asks Nina what she plans to do with the caved-in Wellhouse. She might turn it into a greenhouse. She promises Duncan that they will always keep a room for him at Keyhouse anytime he and Brian want to visit.

Ellie decides to return to Matheson as the track coach after all and everyone is happy to have her back. The school also renames the theater to the “Gordie Shaw Theater.” Rufus finishes his comic book. It looks like they’re staying put instead of moving!

Things are also going well for Tyler and Carly. He packs up to return to Montana. Carly got him his job back, but first they’re going on a road trip together. Tyler promises he will return in the fall for Kinsey’s birthday celebration, which Kinsey already invited Carly to. “What? We text!”

And in the final moments of Locke and Key season 3, Bode asks his family if they hear something… What is it? “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

But then they close the door to Keyhouse and we hear some indistinct whispers… so maybe there are still some keys out there (so says Netflix’s subtitles!). And no, no Locke and Key season 3 post-credits scene to be found, so sorry if you were hoping for one!

What did you think of Locke and Key season 3?