Netflix 'Locke & Key' series finale: Connor Jessup remembers early frustrations, celebrates filming in Toronto

The hit Netflix show Locke & Key, based on the comics by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, has come to end with Season 3 and Canadian star Connor Jessup, who plays Tyler Locke, is reminiscing about the series finale (spoilers ahead), his early frustrations with the character and celebrating filming in his hometown of Toronto.

“It's kind of strange because we wrapped almost a year ago now, so it feels for us, I think, more like a reunion than...a goodbye,” Jessup told Yahoo Canada. “I feel like we said our goodbyes and now it's just a nice excuse to see friendly faces, and to remember the experience of making the show.”

“This was such a big experience in all of our lives and such a big amount of time, and it's nice, for myself at least, it's just been a really nice moment to reflect on how meaningful the show has been for me.”

At the end of Season 2, Tyler said goodbye to his sister Kinsey (Emilia Jones), brother Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) and mom Nina (Darby Stanchfield), about to turn 18 when, as an adult, he’ll forget magic. In Season 3, Tyler returns to Locke House when his uncle Duncan, played by Aaron Ashmore, is getting married. But as villain Frederick Gideon (Kevin Durand), a soldier from colonial Massachusetts possessed by a powerful demon, is on the hunt for all the Locke keys, Tyler ends up sticking around, battling his loss of magical memories to understand what’s happening.

“I felt like he started Season 3 in such a different place than he's ever been before, because he's forgotten magic, and because of that, he has radically changed relationships with everyone in the family,” Jessup said. “The dynamic that we've come to know and that I've come to know over the last two seasons has been reconstructed and rearranged.”

“Getting to work with Emilia and Jackson and Darby again, but having to completely question those relationships, was really fun because by that point, we were all so close.”

Tyler ends up having his magic memory restored to help his family keep their keys safe but what we found out in the end of the series, in order to protect themselves, the Locke family has to completely let go of the keys, dropping them into the portal that Gideon came from to close out the story.

“I think my first thoughts were, ‘how are we ever going to shoot this episode?’ Because the last few episodes or so, it's like one continuous action sequence and it's so much bigger than anything we've done before,” Jessup said about filming the finale.

“I think part of it, as I was reading the seventh and eighth [episodes], I was like, it still feels like there's still so much to resolve and we're still so in the middle of this chaos, and then, as eight turned along, our writers had really beautiful ways of not only bringing the story of the season to conclusion, but I think…bringing the emotional journey of this family, over the course of all three seasons, to a really satisfying end.”

Toronto is 'one of the best places to shoot in the world'

When Locke & Key hit Netflix in 2020, it exemplified the international streaming giant’s commitment to filming content in Canada, shooting in both Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and Toronto. For Connor Jessup, who’s from Toronto, he loved the experience of being able to film the show at home, stressing that it’s “one of the best places to shoot in the world.”

“I'm from Toronto, I live in Toronto, Toronto is my home, I got to work at home, which is, for an actor, pretty rare,” Jessup said. “I got to go home every night,...I got to work with crew members and actors who are from the place that I'm from, and in that way, it didn't feel that different than shooting a film for a friend of mine down the street, just on a much bigger scale.”

“Especially through the pandemic when we were all trapped together, to be able to shoot for a year at home was such a gift… It's not an exaggeration to say that Toronto is one of the best places to shoot in the world… I'm so grateful that we shot at home and not in Atlanta, no offence to [that city], I'm sure [it's a] great place to work, but it did make it special for me.”

'I think I was more frustrated by Tyler in the first couple of seasons than I realized'

Spending years developing and embodying Tyler Locke for Locke & Key, Connor Jessup’s relationship with the character has certainly evolved as the story progressed, with the actor highlighting that he’s come along way from the “mopey teenager” we saw in Season 1.

“I just felt like he started as such a mopey teenager and by Season 3 I felt like he just was more of an adult, he felt weightier and calmer, and he just felt more mature to me, especially by the end of the season, and that was really satisfying to have travelled that distance with him,” Jessup said. “I think I was more frustrated by Tyler in the first couple of seasons...because he's not always very great at communicating, especially when it comes to the danger that they face, he's not the one who's plunging headfirst into things.”

“That sort of reserve frustrated me a little bit I think. By the end, I felt Tyler has a really good heart and he cares so much, and a lot of his pain comes from the fact that he feels so much responsibility for his siblings and his family… He's not a good liar, he just is sort of a straightforward person…it's something that I feel like I wish I had more of in me, that he looks at things that are happening head on.”