Lockwood & Co. — Season 1 Episode 4 “Sweet Dreams” Recap & Review

An Unmarked Grave

Lucy wakes up in her room and sees a glass of water kept by her bedside at the start of Lockwood & Co episode 4. She heads downstairs but no one is home. She finds a note that says they’ve gone wraith hunting. When she sees the basement door open, she goes towards it but on second thoughts, closes it.

George and Lockwood come home arguing about a case of a ghost that turned out to be a cluster of ghosts. They ended up being rescued by Quill Kipps and his team. Lockwood is even angrier about the fact that Kipps pretends as if Combe Carey Hall never happened.

But they are also worried about Lucy, who they claim to have found unconscious in the basement and carried up to her bedroom. She slept for 14 hours but she says she feels absolutely normal.

Someone knocks on the door and it turns out to be a man and a woman. They are Sebastian Saunders and Pamela Joplin from Sweet Dreams Excavations a.k.a gravediggers. Lockwood tries to pass on the opportunity but Lucy insists they need work. As per DEPRAC rules, the excavators need an agency to come and deal with the problem of an unmarked grave that seems to have a Type Two visitor. They say the Sensitives working on the site felt extreme nausea near the grave. Lockwood & Co. take the job.

On the way to Kensal Green Cemetery, Lockwood and Lucy talk about relic men who steal ghost Sources and sell them on the black market. They also encounter protests near the cemetery by cults who believe ghosts should be welcomed instead of hunted.

At the cemetery, they see security guards, gravediggers, members of the night watch and sensitives. A lot of them are protesting against Saunders, saying they won’t go near the grave until it is marked safe. Lockwood turns his charm on and assures them their safety is the team’s first priority.

They head inside the chapel where Saunders tells them about the incident — a mistake in timing led to the gravediggers having an exposed casket around sunset. The sensitives all saw and heard things but their accounts vary. He tells Lockwood that they will work on the grave alone. When Lockwood reminds Saunders what he said about them having support, Saunders waves the contract in his face and walks away.

They reach the unmarked grave and use their senses. Lockwood can’t see any death glows but Lucy hears a sort of vibration. They put iron chains around the grave and draw straws, leading to George being tasked with opening the casket. Lucy suddenly gets nauseous and around the same time, Joplin arrives in the area. George tells them the coffin is made out of iron. Lucy can hear the sound of flies now and George feels nauseous too. Lockwood says they need to get done with it.

Lucy gets distracted by certain flashbacks. Lockwood’s voice draws her out of it but she takes out her rapier too quickly and ends up with a cut on her hand. The pain in her head and the flashbacks get more and more intense.

Meanwhile, Lockwood and George clear the debris around the casket and manage to get it open. Lockwood points his rapier at the decomposed body inside that shows a skull with a hole in its head. George looks at the mirror in the body’s arms and gets enraptured, Lockwood is forced to hold him back. His shouts break Lucy out of her flashbacks and she throws an iron net onto the body.

With the source sealed, the other teams get back to work. Lucy still feels weird and George says the mirror’s blackness was pulling him in. Lockwood says it’s all over now. He goes with Saunders to get their payment. Lucy gets distracted with a headstone nearby. It’s shaped like a skull and she finally remembers that the skull in the jar spoke to her and that’s why she passed out.

Meanwhile, Joplin is asking questions about details on the body and George takes her closer to the casket to inspect it. He ends up stepping inside the iron chain and shifting the net on the body. A smoky apparition erupts from the body. Lucy throws her rapier into it, George puts the iron net back on and the ghost disappears.

Without waiting for the other two, Lucy rushes back home and unlatches the lever on the skull jar. It seems pleased to be talking to her and uses promises of great knowledge to persuade her into opening the jar. He then tells her that Lockwood is keeping secrets and has something dangerous in his locked room. When she draws closer to the jar, it senses power that she has been near a great power and claims that death is coming.

George and Lockwood arrive home in the midst of an argument. Lockwood is berating him for putting himself and Joplin in danger while George is more concerned about the mirror, the inscription he found on it and what it can reveal about the Problem. Lucy storms in with the ghost jar and tells them they spoke. Both, George and Lockwood don’t believe her. When she mentions what the ghost said about Lockwood’s room, he gets angry. She says he just can’t stand the fact that the spotlight is on her. He tells her that if she ever mentions the room again, her stint at Lockwood & Co. is done.

Upset, Lucy watches a tape of Marissa talking about her experience conversing with a Type Three and how they defiantly refuse to move on from the mortal realm.

A rightly ashamed Lockwood comes up to her room and offers to dress the cut on her hand. She lets him. He apologises for his behaviour, admitting that the past is hard to talk about and that’s exactly what’s behind the door. He also admits it’s difficult for him to realise he is meant to put the spotlight on someone else. She realises he believes her. He promises they will figure it out together.

They go looking for George but realise he translated the inscription on the mirror and left home.

George returns to the chapel in the graveyard to find crime scene tape all over the place. Inspector Barnes turns up and tells him someone stole the mirror from the body. Quill Kipps and his team are on the case. Lockwood and Lucy arrive by then too.

Kipps’ researcher, Bobby, tells Barnes that the iron casket was used in breweries. Citing the labor disputes during the era, he says this is probably the body of the owner of a brewery who was hastily killed and buried.

George refers to the inscription on the mirror that translated to “The truth lies beyond” as proof that the casket was used to trap something evil and ghostly, despite it being done before the Problem started. He claims the body is Edmund Bickerstaff, the son of the graveyard owners who was known for digging up graves. When Bobby asks for proof, George gives him Bickerstaff’s staff and tells him to look for an inscription. Sure enough, the Bickerstaff crest is on there. Barnes puts both teams on the case and tells them to find the mirror as soon as possible.

Outside, Kipps taunts Lockwood, saying this case is beyond him. They exchange insults and decide to race each other to find the mirror. The loser will have to quit the industry forever. They shake hands on it.

The Episode Review

This is the first episode in the season so far that feels a tad slow. After the swift pace of the previous episodes, it feels like not as much happens. But that makes sense since the show is setting the scene for a new case (based on the next novel, so the need for exposition is even clearer). Despite that, there’s a whole lot to find interesting. The ghost jar and the mirror being the two main points of intrigue.

Regarding the former, I am not so impressed. That may have to do with the fact that the book set up a lot of expectations for the ghost jar. But the visuals, at the moment, are not very compelling. That said, he hasn’t had a lot of screen time yet so I’m reserving opinions till I’ve seen more of him.

Can I also just point out that while Lucy and Lockwood’s relationship is quite understated in the books, of course Netflix needed to add in a scene where he plays doctor and binds her wound. As much as I enjoy seeing more of Lockwood’s faults (shout out to that conversation about wanting the spotlight) and some fissures in their group of three, that particular scene is just one step too close to mainstream. Of course, Stokes and Chapman do a great job of it which is why even I can’t deny that sparks are indeed flying.

Quill Kipps, played by Jack Bandeira, is brilliantly easy to dislike. The setup of the race between the teams should up the stakes considerably and hopefully, make things even more interesting in the next episodes.