What Is Going On With Eden After The Locke & Key Finale?

The season 1 finale of Netflix’s Locke & Key, “Crown of Shadows,” is a rare closing chapter. Usually a finale keeps the action going until the very last second, leaving fans gasping for more. However, “Crown” allows its high-octane monster fighting to end by the midpoint of the episode, giving its characters 20 minutes to decompress.

Although the Locke kids take that time to relax, the lengthy lull should send viewers into high alert. No fantasy series finale ends on a positive note, so some hellish shoe must drop before the credits roll. 

As the last scene of the episode confirms, audiences would be right to worry — and Eden Hawkins (Hallea Jones) is at the center of Locke season 1’s inevitable cliffhanger. Because Eden just might be a demon now. 

Eden’s terrible twist of fate comes down to a moment of selflessness. After the Locke siblings — Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) — seemingly knock out key-hungry demon Dodge (Laysla De Oliveira), they decide to throw her body behind the Black Door in the caves below their new hometown of Matheson. Eden, now Kinsey’s begrudging friend, comes along for the journey since everyone else is doing it. “I’m not about to let some rando demons run through my town,” Eden quips before the Matheson teens are tasked with carrying a supposed demon’s body to a mystical entryway. 

Initially, the Locke siblings’ plan appears to work. They get Dodge’s body into the mysterious dimension behind the door. They even allegedly avoid the bizarre “glowing bullets” that shoot out from behind the door, which Ellie Whedon warned the kids about. No one drowns in the cave. Matheson is saved.  

Then we get to the final set of scenes in “Crown," in which we learn that Kinsey’s love interest Gabe (American Vandal’s Griffin Gluck) is actually Dodge in disguise. The Lockes didn’t trap Dodge behind the Black Door; they stuck Ellie back there after Dodge used a key to change Ellie’s face. At the same time Ellie was unwittingly imprisoned, Eden was hit with one of the glowing bullets Ellie advised against in penultimate episode “Echoes.” 

Eden isn't just Eden anymore.

“Echoes” explains to us what Eden may become after being infected by the material from behind the Black Door. Because, this isn’t the first time a human has experienced such an affliction. Ellie — a childhood friend of murdered Locke dad Rendell (Bill Heck) —  spends “Echoes” explaining her tragic history with Rendell and her teenage boyfriend Lucas Caravaggio (Felix Mallard). The night after high school graduation, the friends opened the Black Door because Rendell was obsessed with it. At that time, Lucas was hit with one of the bullets. 

The teen assumed Lucas was fine. They were wrong.

Following the cave incident, Ellie, Rendell, Lucas and their friends had a sleepover in Keyhouse. Ellie awoke to hear “Lucas” demanding one of the special keys. When Lucas didn’t get the key, he murdered two of his friends. However, Lucas wasn't to blame. “When Lucas got hit by whatever came across the other side, some kind of demon attached itself to him,” Ellie explains in the present. That demon was the creature Locke & Key viewers know as Dodge. 

Now Eden is dealing with a similar problem as Lucas did so many decades ago. Although, it is not the same problem since we’re dealing with an entirely new demon.

It is unclear what Eden's mystery demon wants, although their introduction gives us some hints. The final scene of “Crown” shows us Dodge-as-Gabe joining “Eden” for lunch. By this point, Eden should be fully possessed by whatever demon attached itself to her in the cave (Lucas was fully possessed after a few hours). It has been at least a day, if not more, since Eden was infected. As “Gabe” approaches Eden, we see her table is covered with plates of food, including waffles, pizza, and fries. Eden’s demon is ravenous. “Eden” confirms as much, when Gabe asks how she is feeling.

“So hungry,” she says, sharing the last words of Locke & Key season 1. 

If the series is renewed for a second season, it’ll be time to find out what else could satiate Eden's hunger. An early theory: demonic mayhem and keys.