‘Lockwood and Co.’ Ending, Explained: What Was Pamela Joplin’s Plan? What To Expect From Season 2?

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The Netflix series “Lockwood and Co.” makes us privy to a conflict between psychic agents and ghosts, where the former are constantly trying to contain the latter so that they don’t disrupt the balance of things in the mortal world. Based on a novel by Jonathan Stroud, the fictitious world had changed after an incident that the residents referred to as “The Problem.” Despite the fact that people had learned how to contain evil spirits, there were still many mysterious forces beyond the mortals’ comprehension. Amidst this, there was an agency called Lockwood and Co., run by a bunch of children who, in spite of having talent and courage, lacked experience and, moreover, despised the authoritative nature of adults. So, let’s see if “Lockwood and Co.” are able to make their mark and whether they are able to overcome the challenges that come their way in the sinister world.

Spoilers Ahead


‘Lockwood & Co.’ Plot Summary: What Is The Series About?

Lucy Carlyle’s mother had taken her to the Jacobs and Co. agency, and she wanted her to work there as an employee. Lucy was a listener, i.e., she had the power to hear things from the supernatural world that the others couldn’t. Lucy didn’t want to join the agency because she was scared of her own powers, but she wasn’t given an option. After an unfortunate incident where she lost her friend Norrie, who got ghost-locked due to the negligence of her boss, she decided to escape to London without telling her mother. Lucy tried applying to each and every agency, but because she didn’t have the qualifications, she was rejected by most of them. As a last resort, she went to an amateur agency named “Lockwood and Co.” to try her luck. The agency was owned by Anthony Lockwood and had just one other member, George Karim, who worked as a researcher. Lockwood selected Lucy, and together they began containing the spirits, who were referred to as “visitors.” Lockwood was an ambitious boy who often bit off more than he could chew. In one of the first cases that he handled with Lucy, they burned down the entire house, and a fine of $60,000 was imposed on them. Lockwood was desperate to find new clients, and though he had proved his worth after solving the case of Annabel Ward, he still couldn’t reap the benefits of solving such a high-profile case because DEPRAC (the Department of Psychical Research and Control) hadn’t allowed the news to be published in the newspaper due to security reasons. Inspector Barnes had a soft corner for Lockwood, but he didn’t like his nonconformist behavior. The Annabel Ward case made sure that they were able to pay off the fine that was levied on them, but they still needed money to keep up with their expenses.


Were Anthony, Lucy, And George Able To Identify The Grave?

Lockwood and Co. needed to develop a strong clientele so that they could keep their agency running. When they received an elderly client with an unusual request, Anthony became ecstatic. Sebastian Saunders and his business partner Pamela Joplin ran an excavation and clearance business named “Sweet Dreams Excavations.” They were basically gravediggers who were engaged in an operation in the Kensal Green Cemetery, which was London’s most prestigious cemetery and owned by the Bickerstaff family. Joplin told Lockwood that she wanted them to dig a hidden, unmarked grave, which probably had a Type 2 inside it. Saunders told them that they would get all the assistance they needed in terms of manpower. Lockwood took the job because a sense of danger gave him an adrenaline rush, and the proposition of identifying what seemed to be an extremely powerful Type 2 was irresistible to him. Lockwood, Lucy, and George reached the scene, and they were met with a hostile crowd at the entrance.

The relics, belonging to certain ghost cults, were protesting, as they wanted these agencies to welcome the visitors instead of vanquishing them. They were analogous to the liberals in the contemporary world, who wanted equality to prevail but had absolutely no idea about the ground realities or the kind of threat the visitors posed to the people living in the mortal world. After reaching there, Lockwood realized that they were all by themselves, and Saunders had somewhat bluffed when he told them that they would be ably assisted by the Night Watchers and the Grave Diggers. George and Lockwood set up the parameters around the grave, and Lucy went into her zone to try to listen to the visitor. Lucy started feeling nauseated, and she realized that the visitor was indeed a very powerful one. The coffin was made of iron, and Lockwood didn’t seem to understand that if the burial happened before “The Problem,” then how did the people know that iron could trap visitors, and how had they known the correct method to do it?

Lockwood realized that there was a hole in the casket, and they needed to seal the source before the Type 2 spirit became a threat to them. They contained it with great difficulty by putting up a net made of silver and iron, but George slipped and once again exposed the grave, allowing the visitor to rise. Lucy used her rapier to contain it, but she was in a very chaotic state of mind. In one of her visions, she saw that the skull inside the jar that was stolen by George was calling out her name. She went there to find out that she could actually communicate with the Type 3s, just like Marissa Fittes. The skull in the jar told her cryptically that death was coming and that Lockwood was hiding things from them and that he had a secret room that nobody was allowed to enter. George and Lockwood didn’t believe her and thought that she was just delusional because of some toxins in her blood. The probability of a Type 3 being in the jar and, additionally, of Lucy being able to have a conversation with it was so bleak that anybody would have felt that it was all made up. But Lockwood did go to apologize to Lucy later and told her that he believed in her. The grave that they had contained at the Kensal Cemetery held a bone glass in its hands, and it had symbols engraved on it. George translated the symbols and wrote the phrase “truth lies beyond” on a piece of paper, which later Lucy and Lockwood also noticed. George knew that he had to go back to the crime cemetery and search for more hints. He met Inspector Barnes there and got to know that somebody had stolen the bone glass.

The team from Rockwell and Fittes arrived on the scene and claimed that the grave was that of a brewer who had been buried by his own subjects. But George knew that it was not true. He told Inspector Barnes that the evil spirit was that of a wealthy occultist named Dr. Edmund Bickerstaff, who existed a hundred years before “The Problem” and was infamously known as the pervert who indulged in necrophilia. The Bickerstaff crest, engraved under the clasp of the ferrule of the walking stick, corroborated whatever George said. Still, Inspector Barnes asked both teams to stay on the case and find the missing mirror. Lockwood and Quill Kipps entered a bet where it was decided that the losing team would stop working altogether and get a full-page congratulatory note published in the Times.


‘Lockwood and Co.’ Season 1: Ending Explained – Did Anthony Lucy, and George Find The Bone Glass? What Was Pamela Joplin’s Plan?

Lockwood and Lucy were trying to decipher how the perpetrators would have entered the premises and stolen the mirror without anybody knowing. That’s when George found a dead body floating in a nearby lake. The deceased man was Danny Clough, who was a renowned agent before he turned into a relic. Barnes wanted both teams to act quickly, knowing perfectly well the disaster that would take place if the bone glass fell into the wrong hands. Lockwood knew that there was only one person who could give them some valuable intel, which is why he went to meet a woman named Florence Bonnard, a.k.a. Flo Bones, who was considered to be the best relic hunter. She made a living by dealing with the dead, and she didn’t have any qualms about it. Through Flo, they came to know that Danny had a partner named Jack Carver, who was out there and had the mirror in his possession.

Carver was a dangerous man, and Flo warned Lockwood about the consequences of dealing with him. Flo told them that Carver and relics like him traded the goods they stole through a person named Julius Winkman, an antique dealer based in Bermondsey. Lockwood had a habit of going on suicidal missions, and this time he took Lucy with him. They both trespassed on Winkman’s property and were taken as hostages. Julius Winkman tortured them until Lucy tricked them and made a near escape with Lockwood. Lucy realized that Lockwood had left a note for Carver in the cafe they were sitting in earlier with Flo. She feared that Carver might arrive at their house and do something bad to George, who was alone at home and had no clue about what his partners were up to. Lockwood and Lucy reached their destination in time, and that’s when they heard somebody knock on their door. Jack Carver entered the room, and before he could utter a word, he fell to the ground. Carver had been stabbed by some unknown person, and once again, the agents were left stranded and didn’t know in which direction to proceed.

The acolyte that was contained in a jar once again started speaking with Lucy. As only she could hear it, the others waited in curiosity to know what she was being told. The skull told her that the glass, apart from being a dangerous relic, could be used for a totally unique purpose. He referred to Bickerstaff as his master and told Lucy that he knew his master would return to complete the unfinished business. The skull urged Lucy to take her to Bickerstaff’s house, and in turn, he would reveal what the glass bone actually meant to do. Lucy found a diary in which Bickerstaff had written about certain rituals and experiments that he was trying to do. The trio came to know that Bickerstaff used to kill his own patients and try to use their body parts, which he severed, as sources. The kind of trauma and pain that was inflicted on the patients made their ghosts forever bound to their bones. George realized that the occultist was trying to capture seven such ghosts so that he could create the bone glass. George had found out that Bickerstaff was an expert in psychology and that he used to keep secret meetings in his house in Hampstead. One of the guests, named Mary Dulac, had gone missing after she had attended the communion.

Through his research, George came to know that she had emerged out of nowhere, approximately ten years after her disappearance. Mary Dulac had become mentally unstable, and George suspected that the bone glass had something to do with it. George was aware that Mary Dulac’s confession diary was safely stored inside the Fittes agency’s Black Library. Lockwood and Co. had been invited to a ball dance party, and they decided to use the situation to their advantage. The plan was to enter the black library and steal the diary of Mary Dulac. Meanwhile, Flo, who had arrived unannounced at Lockwood’s home, informed him about a private auction that was being organized by the Winkmans, and she suspected that the bone glass would be displayed there. Lockwood and Lucy were able to steal Mary Dulac’s book and then later secure the bone glass from the auction. The anonymous man with the golden blade, who seemed to be working for Penelope Fittes, attacked them and asked them to hand over the bone glass. But Lockwood and Lucy managed to keep it in their possession by throwing it in the boat in which Flo and George were waiting for them. Towards the end of the 7th episode of “Lockwood and Co.,” we saw that the bone glass was in George’s possession, and he was having second thoughts about handing the relic over to Barnes at the DEPRAC office.

Through Mary Dulac’s diary, Lucy and Lockwood came to know that she had killed Bickerstaff, and she said that it was an act of self-defense. Mary stated in her confessions that when the occultist doctor held the bone glass in front of her, she felt that she would go insane. Mary wrote that even after killing Bickerstaff, she could see him in her dreams. It was at that moment that Lucy realized that the bone glass was influencing George and that he felt an incessant need to know more about it. George had been meeting Joplin frequently, and both of them had become close to each other. After he decided not to hand over the glass to DEPRAC, he called Joplin, and together they went to Bickerstaff’s mansion. Joplin had been deceiving George all along. She portrayed it as if she understood and loved spending time with him, but in reality, she only wanted to use him as bait. George found Quill Kipps inside the house, and Joplin handcuffed him and blocked his vision by covering his face.

George didn’t understand why Joplin had brought handcuffs with her, though it was blatantly clear that, had Kipps not been there, she would have done the same thing with George. George still felt that it was all part of an academic experiment, and that Joplin didn’t have the intention to harm him. The skull had told Lucy that the bone glass probably led to another dimension altogether, and a person could only look into it through the eyes of someone weak and vulnerable. Lucy had a hunch right then that her friend George was in grave danger. Joplin had figured out that young people had a greater ability to see beyond, and that is why she had been targeting George. Joplin was the one who had killed Carver also, as the man had realized the value of the bone glass and refused to hand it over to her. Lucy came to rescue George and begged Joplin not to make him see through the bone glass. She told Joplin that she was more powerful than George and that her chances of surviving were much higher compared to his. Joplin agreed and unleashed the bone glass, but Lucy turned the other way and made the skull face it. The skull writhed in pain and screamed that it was not what he had expected it to be. George seized the opportunity to push the stand on which the bone glass was placed, and Joplin got paranoid as she thought that it had broken. She looked into it, and she realized that though it was cracked, it still possessed its powers. There was a huge blast, and Joplin either died there or her spirit got stuck inside the glass. The seven spirits that Bickerstaff had captured inside the bone glass centuries before got their freedom. Bickerstaff’s spirit, which was contained by the iron chains, also escaped, but Lockwood arrived just in time and saved his friends.

Anthony Lockwood, Kipps, Lucy, and George survived, and the bone glass was taken by DEPRAC officials, who intended to melt it in a furnace. Winkman and his gang were arrested by the DEPRAC, and though Lockwood won the bet, he acted magnanimously and told Kipps that there was no need to get a congratulatory note published in the Times. The two groups ended their rivalry and learned to coexist in harmony.


What Should We Expect From ‘Lockwood and Co.’ Season 2?

Season 1 of “Lockwood and Co.” does not provide enough information about The Golden Blade, who has been after the trio since the time they entered the Black Library in the Fittes building. He was clearly not an agent, and he had time and again referred to the broken glass as an inconvenience. The golden blade said that there were other, greater forces at play, and in front of them, agents like Lockwood were insignificant. He was working for Penelope Fittes, and throughout the first season, we weren’t told what her real intentions were. In the second season, we would get to know why she was interested in taking the bone glass and what was on her mind. Lockwood had decided that they wouldn’t keep any secrets from each other because he had realized that harboring unnecessary doubts and suspicions about each other was not helping their cause. Lucy had once been told by the skull that Lockwood was hiding something very precious inside the room. Towards the end of the eighth episode, we saw that Lockwood took his friends inside the locked room, and though we weren’t shown what it was that lay inside, we think it could have something that either had great sentimental value or was so volatile that it needed to be kept hidden from the public eye. Whatever it was, one thing is for sure: it would have the potential to have an impact in the larger scheme of things.


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Sushrut Gopesh
Sushrut Gopesh
I came to Mumbai to bring characters to life. I like to dwell in the cinematic world and ponder over philosophical thoughts. I believe in the kind of cinema that not necessarily makes you laugh or cry but moves something inside you.

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