Summary
“Death Is Coming” is a strong character-driven outing that expands the setting even further, introducing new elements to London’s ghost hunting underworld.
This recap of the Netflix series Lockwood and Co Season 1 Episode 5, “Death Is Coming”, contains spoilers.
In Episode 4 of Lockwood & Co., Anthony made a wager with Quill Kipps. “Death Is Coming” sees that somewhat immature competition between the boys heat up, and the recklessness that stems from it helps to make this one of the better character-driven chapters in the season thus far. For all his arrogant bluster, Anthony is fraying at the edges, putting himself above his friends, and potentially risking not only his own life but theirs to prove a point that barely matters. Whatever unspecified trauma that has defined him thus far continues to, and in a way that’s proving dangerous.
Lockwood and Co Season 1 Episode 5 Recap
The competition also gives a bit of shape to the plot as we enter the back half of the season. The search for Bickerstaff’s missing mirror is the order of the day, but it also ropes in intriguing new characters and worldbuilding elements to help give everything more texture. When Anthony stumbles across the corpse of an old friend named Danny, a “relic man” with ocular tissue under his fingernails, suggesting that whatever he saw in the mirror forced him to claw his own eyes out, we’re introduced to a seedier part of London’s underground criminal contingent.
Who is Flo Bones?
Enter Flo, Anthony’s associate, a Thames mudlark with charisma to spare. It turns out there’s a pretty huge black market for magical items like the mirror, and she’s a way to access it and the dangerous men like Winkman who operate within it. She also has a fondness for Anthony, though not a romantic one. In fact, she seems much more attracted to George, which I suppose seems unlikely, but “Death Is Coming” is the first episode to really let him loose, and he gets a lot more solo focus that’ll pay off down the line.
Of particular note with George is his relationship with Joplin, a lady he met in the previous episode. George is a classic teen-drama archetype, the socially-inept but academically brilliant sidekick, and Joplin is basically the adult version of that. They’re two peas in a pod, despite their obvious age difference; they’re the perennially overlooked and underappreciated assistant types realizing they can do things on their own.
This, the widening of the worldbuilding scope, and the acknowledgment that Anthony’s refusal to listen to advice is becoming rather dangerous and annoying, especially as he becomes increasingly obsessed with beating Kipps to the mirror, all make this an important chapter in the story that is rooted in character and setting rather than totally beholden to the machinations of the plot.
The ending
But there’s plot here too! Anthony, against Flo’s advice, breaks into Winkman’s place and finds himself captured, with Lucy not far behind him. Their attempts to escape form the bulk of the episode’s tension and action. But it’s the ending that reveals the biggest development. Earlier, with Flo’s help, Anthony had left a message for Danny’s partner, Carver, in the hopes he would respond to it and help them track down the mirror. And he does, eventually, but not in the way anyone was expecting — he turns up at the office with a knife in his back, and croaks the words, “Bone glass. Seven, not one,” before expiring on the floor. Lucy hears a whisper saying, “Come with me,” as the episode fades out, leaving things on an interesting cliffhanger with the sudden fatality raising the stakes as we head into the final few episodes.
You can stream Lockwood and Co Season 1 Episode 5, “Death Is Coming” exclusively on Netflix.
Additional reading:
- Lockwood and Co Season 1 Episode 6 Recap
- Will there be a Lockwood and Co Season 2?
- Who is Bobby Vernon in Lockwood and Co?
- Where is Netflix’s Lockwood and Co filmed?
