NOTE: This post contains spoilers for Lockwood & Co. season 1 episode 3, “Doubt Thou The Stars.”
After the attempted robbery in their own home, the Lockwood & Co. gang continue to investigate Annabel Ward’s murder while taking on a perilous job to pay off their debt to DEPRAC. Let’s find out what kind of predicament the Netflix drama puts the Lockwood & Co. trio in and what dangers they face in the third episode.
Money problems
The question on everyone’s mind as the third episode of Lockwood & Co. starts... why was the intruder who broke into the agency after Annabel’s ring in Lockwood & Co. episode two? Well, at least it’s the question on George’s mind as he examines the object and finds a hallmark on it. It’s a reference to Hamlet which further convinces the team that the lover who murdered Annabel is Hugo Blake, her co-star in the play.
But Lockwood has other things on his mind as this only proves Blake was with Annabel, not that he killed her. He takes the ring and puts it in the safe, telling Lucy he will keep the key away from her as she cannot be trusted when it comes to that ring. He then moves on to more pressing matters. Another letter from DEPRAC has arrived and now not only do they owe a fine of £60,000, but they are now forbidden to work without adult supervision. Of course, Lockwood ignores that last part and instead has a plan to make some money.
The team answers an ad from Fairfax Iron requesting help on a dangerous case. They meet with Sir John Fairfax who tells them about one of his properties, a place called Combe Carey Hall in Berkshire, plagued by many, many Visitors. He wants to sell it and needs it free of ghosts as quickly as possible. It’s a dangerous job but if Lockwood & Co. does it, he will give them the money they need to pay their DEPRAC fine, so they make a deal.
Back at the agency, George researches Combe Carey Hall and finds it’s an even more perilous place than they anticipated, filled with a dark past of satanic monks and other evil. He starts wondering if the reward is really worth the risk but Lockwood reminds his team they have no other solution to keep the agency afloat.
The ghosts of Combe Carey Hall
Off to Berkshire, Lucy, Anthony and George are taken to Combe Carey Hall by Ellie, Fairfax’s assistant. At the mansion, Fairfax gives them a brief tour and points them to the Red Room, where the Source of all this haunting is most likely located. After he leaves, Lockwood reveals he smuggled in a bomb although Fairfax forbade it for fear they would set his house on fire like they did at Mrs. Hope’s.
The team starts investigating around the property and notices many different signs that something very wrong is going on there. In the Red Room, they are confronted by a Charger, a powerful ghost that manifests bloody drippings all around them. They narrowly escape and realize the Red Room is only the source of a secondary haunting and that worse things wait for them ahead. They go down a sort of crypt which turns out to be where the evil monks all died, and are attacked by terrifying entities. Lucy is briefly ghost locked and almost jumps down a well, which turns out to be the actual Source. Lockwood throws his bomb in it, and everything goes dark for a moment.
When Lucy and George wake up after the blast, Lockwood tells them he has figured out what is really going on there. He shows them the picture of Annabel and Hugo Blake and says they were wrong about him, pointing to another man in the photograph he identifies as Fairfax himself. Fairfax is in fact the man Annabel was dating, he gave her the ring and killed her! And since there must be records of the commission of the hallmark on the ring, the ring proves the connection between the two, which is why he sent Ellie to try to steal it, and then set up this impossible job to have them killed by the ghosts.
Traps and conspiracies
The trio tries to leave Combe Carey Hall but are stopped by Ellie and Fairfax, who admits everything. As he threatens to kill Lockwood, Lucy shows she has one trick up her sleeve (or around her neck): when Anthony wasn’t looking, she took Annabel’s ring from the agency’s safe room. She takes it out and unleashes Annabel after Fairfax, whom the ghost kills. Ellie tries to run away but falls in the hands of DEPRAC who just arrived on the scene.
Lucy, Anthony and George are arrested by Inspector Barnes for conducting this unauthorized job. They explain everything about how Fairfax killed Annabel and set them up to be killed to cover up their discovery, but Barnes doesn’t know if he can trust them. That’s when, conveniently, the Deputy Commissioner shows up. He gives Barnes non-disclosure agreements to have Lockwood’s team sign if they want to avoid arrest. It turns out that this whole affair is being covered up by DEPRAC and that they want Lockwood & Co. to keep it under wraps, most likely because DEPRAC had dealings with Fairfax.
The episode ends after a funeral scene where the Lockwood & Co. team meet Penelope Fittes, of the famed agency. As Anthony, George and Lucy are back at the house, they are relieved to know their DEPRAC debt is now void. Lockwood rewards Lucy with her Fourth Grade diploma and sends her to put it away in the safe room, but when she does, she accidentally opens the valve to the skull jar that is down there. She starts hearing it talking to her and feeling dizzy, shortly before passing out on the floor.
What’s up with that skull? What happened to Lucy? Find out more in Lockwood & Co.’s next episode.
Lockwood & Co. is now streaming on Netflix.
