Nancy Drew is going into its midseason break with a surprising amount of momentum, considering the episode it had last week. You know what? Let’s not talk about last week’s foray into mysticism and hope the show can move past it. After all, Nancy has a proper mystery to solve this week. George’s sister Ted disappeared from the office at the end of last week’s episode. George calls the only person she knows with a track record of finding missing people. Nancy, Nick and Bess all split up to look for clues. Nancy is the only one who thinks to check the office she disappeared from. Inside, she finds a strange symbol drawn into the floor in wax. Turns out it’s the same symbol she found when she investigated a kidnapping back when she was 12. Back then, she found the girl behind a hidden staircase. The symbol was never made public. See, this is what I want from a Nancy Drew TV show.
Nancy starts by asking questions of the people involved in her last case. First, the kidnapper, Nathan Gaumber, who insists she was wrong six years ago. Now, the guy was convicted, there’s no question he did it. But it looks like he wasn’t acting alone. Nancy calls the kid in question to ask if she remembers anything from the incident. All she remembers is some weird dreams where Gaumber was talking to a “tall thing in the dark.” The strange thing is Nancy remembers it too. And she’s pretty sure the tall thing wasn’t human. She traces her memories back to the seance with the burial coins, remembering she saw the tall thing then too. Whatever evil spirit that was, bringing it back into the world allowed it to find another human accomplice and kidnap another child.
Kennedy McMann as Nancy and Scott Wolf as Carson — Photo: Shane Harvey /The CW
The gang narrows down a suspect pretty quickly. There was a woman at the restaurant the previous day who just drank coffee but left a huge tip. She had a strange tattoo on her hand, the same one that Gaumber has. They get a name, Moira Baker, and Chief McGinnis gets a search warrant for her apartment. Finally, we get to see him do something other than be an awkward stereotype. He calls Nancy to see if she can piece together a bit of evidence he found. It’s written in code, so he can’t quite read it. It’s not Nancy who figures it out, though. Nick is the one to piece the code together. It tells of a demon named Simon and a ritual involving sacrificing a child to get something.
Nancy decides to check the warehouse she solved the first case in for clues. When she refuses Nick’s help, he calls her dad who decides to help his daughter rather than see her get another breaking and entering charge. This is maybe the smartest thing the episode did. It tried to move their relationship forward last episode, but it just felt forced. Like, it was literally the result of a character telling them to go outside and work on their issues. It sucked. Here, Carson follows Nancy into a scary situation to make sure she’s safe. It’s clear he still cares deeply for his daughter, and she appreciates that. And we get all of that without the characters having to tell us out loud how they feel.
Scott Wolf as Carson and Kennedy McMann as Nancy — Photo: Shane Harvey /The CW
As they search the warehouse, Carson talks about his memories of the day Nancy found the missing girl. She was oddly distant, he says. He and her mom tried to get her to open up, but she insisted she was fine. Even a therapist wasn’t able to get any answers. As they explore further in, Nancy’s memories start coming back. She remembers how scared she was and is horrified that she didn’t remember any of it. They find her old journal and everything starts coming back to her. She realizes why she can’t remember anything about this place. Simon has an effect on kids. He makes them delirious, so they forget what happened to them or write it off as a dream. Nancy and Carson find Simon’s shrine and burn it down. Gaumber, who was counting on Moira performing the ritual with Ted to get out of prison, will stay there for the time being. Strangely though, he implies Simon is still around. Honestly, this mystery was so much fun, I wouldn’t be opposed to them bringing it back.
Meanwhile, Nick and George do the work of finding the missing kid. It’s weird watching someone other than Nancy solve the main mystery, but I see what they’re doing here. In the books, Nancy didn’t do all the work herself. Her friends were just as adept at finding the pieces, it’s just Nancy who put them all together. This episode was about building the team and getting them used to the idea of working together. Handled right, it could lead to much better mysteries in the future. It’s also setting up a relationship between George and Nick. After they find Ted and chase off Moira, there’s a look between them that, well, anyone who’s watched even one hour of CW television recognizes. This episode’s format allowed us to see two sides of the same mystery, and both were interesting and just a little scary. It’s just weird that we saw Nick and George solve a mystery together before we saw Nancy solve one on her own.
Alvina August as Karen and Scott Wolf as Carson — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW
This is the show I wanted Nancy Drew to be from the beginning. The series wisely took a break from the Tiffany Hudson/Lucy Sable murder to give us a tight, standalone case. The episode was so much more fun for it. We still got all the supernatural stuff mixed with real-world crimes, but we got a full beginning, middle and satisfying end. I realize this was done to give us some sense of closure before the winter hiatus, but I want to see more episodes like this when the show comes back in January.
The way the episode built the relationship between Nancy and Carson also proved to be crucial. I’m so glad it didn’t just rest on the forced awkwardness of last week’s episode. This one put Carson and Nancy through something scary and dangerous together. They had to rely on each other to get through it. By the end, Nancy trusts her dad again and realizes how much he means to her. And that’s why the episode’s ending works so well. When Nancy realizes one of her journals is missing, she goes downstairs. The police have it and they’re using it as evidence to arrest her father for Lucy Sable’s murder. Nancy just got her relationship with her father to a point where it’s better than it’s ever been, and it’s taken away from her. It’s just a gutting moment to end this part of the season on, and it wouldn’t have worked without all the work this episode did for their story. Nancy Drew still has its problems, but this was it’s most promising episode yet. We’re heading into the winter break, and the show feels like it’s just now finding itself. Makes me look forward to January, if nothing else.
Nancy Drew airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW
Previously on Nancy Drew:
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 8 recap
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 7 recap
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 6 recap
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