Hey, Nancy Drew solves a mystery for a change. Two weeks have passed since last month’s midseason finale, and they haven’t been kind to Carson Drew.
He’s being held in jail while the DA tries to get Nancy to testify against him. For some reason, he’s also not explaining any of the evidence against him. Possibly attorney-client privilege, but either Nancy doesn’t think of that or the show wants us to think it’s something more.
Nancy, meanwhile, is in a depressive spiral, not talking to anyone and forgetting things like Ace’s first day back at work after the accident. She’s also not thrilled about the attention the town showers upon her for finding evidence implicating her “killer father.” That’ll put anyone in a bad mood. She’s not even excited about new leads, as the last few she followed hurt people she loves.
Even one as seemingly safe as finding out what poison killed Tiffany Hudson. It’s particularly rare variety that makes the death look like a cardiac arrest. She looks into it and finds the last case in which the poison was used. And it involved Ace’s father. Of course it did. Instead of leading to more hurt, it leads to a new mystery! Thankfully.
I was so happy when we finally got a standalone episode-length Nancy Drew mystery in the first half of the season. I was worried it wouldn’t become a habit. What better way to welcome the show back than by giving us everything we want out of Nancy Drew stories in a single episode?
Maddison Jaizani as Bess, Leah Lewis as George, and Tunji Kasim as Nick. (Photo Credit: Bettina Strauss / The CW)
It’s not that I’m not interested in the Tiffany Hudson and Lucy Sable mysteries. They’re still intriguing, and I enjoy the occasional updates and twists. But they’re season-long stories. One mystery per season isn’t going to cut it for a show based on the Nancy Drew books.
Even if it’s exploring a red herring in Tiffany’s murder case, I’m glad Nancy gets to do something else for an hour. It’s a fun mystery to bring back the show with, too.
Nancy and Ace visit his father and look through his files on an old serial poisoning case. When Ace’s dad got some positive press, the killer started sending him strange codes. Nobody could figure them out. Nancy, now with the power of Photoshop, figures out the codes were always a decoy. The real message was hidden in a layer mask in the photos. Combining them, Nancy realizes the killer was sending messages with the names of the victims.
Ace’s father feels guilty over his failure to save the victims when he had a name the whole time, but Nancy sees it as an opportunity to catch the killer after all these years. She makes a video challenging the killer to poison her. The killer sends her a new message containing a different name: Claire. “My game, my rules,” it says.
All they have to go on is a first name, but when Nancy, George, Ace and Nick all cross-reference the new name with the previous victims, they find a commonality: They all went to the same high school. One that closed down years ago. She tries involving the cops but gets a message saying, “I told you no cops” with a picture of the closed school’s scoreboard counting down. Now, she has even less time to save Claire.
Leah Lewis as George, Tunji Kasim as Nick, and Alex Saxon as Ace. (Photo Credit: Bettina Strauss / The CW)
She breaks into the old school by herself, but George, Ace, and Nick aren’t far behind. That’s what I really love about this episode. The friendships in this series have come a long way since the pilot, and this episode was all about how much they’ve come to depend on each other.
It lessens the frustration of watching Nancy, ostensibly this brilliant detective, make dumb decision after dumb decision. She is smart and she’s great at solving puzzles and putting together clues, but she’s impulsive. She has massive blind spots, and that’s what her friends are for. The best Nancy Drew books always made mystery-solving a team effort. This is the best episode of the show so far, and it has the same vibe. I love watching these people help each other out and open up to each other. It’s so much more fun than pouting and catty anger.
They search the school and find evidence of a person being dragged through the hall. Nancy figures the culprit must be a woman who wears size 7 shoes. Nancy finds Claire tied to a chair in a classroom. As soon as she rushes into save her, the doors electronically close. Nancy is separated from her friends and poison starts to come in through the vents.
This whole sequence is fun and scary as we get to see the mystery solved from two different angles. The more Nancy talks to Claire, the fewer things add up. Claire says she was attacked by a man, which contradicts the evidence Nancy saw outside. Meanwhile, Nick and George find the chemistry lab where the poison is being made and pumped into the vent. They also find VHS tapes of previous killings. They watch one, and it shows a dying woman answering questions as she succumbs to the poison. The same kind of questions Claire is asking Nancy.
Tunji Kasim as Nick, Maddison Jaizani as Bess, and Miles Gaston Villanueva as Owen. (Photo Credit: Bettina Strauss / The CW)
It’s a fun twist, and this is exactly the kind of story I’ve been wanting from Nancy Drew since the beginning. As the truth dawns on Nancy, Ace follows the wire from the automatic doors back to the computer that controlled them. He’s able to unlock the doors just as Nancy passes out from the poison. Claire makes her escape, but Ace catches her and hands her over to the police.
Meanwhile, just before the doors opened, Nancy deduced that the antidote to the poison must be on the pearl ring Claire wears, as it’s missing one of the pearls. With that, George and Nick are able to administer the poison and save her life. Oh and because we can’t have an episode with no ghost stuff at all, Nancy sees the ghost of Lucy Sable as she’s about to die. The end of the episode implies that she brought the ghost back to Horseshoe Bay. So there’s going to be more of that.
I’m so glad Nancy Drew returned with an episode this good. I hope it’s a sign of things to come for this show.
I don’t mind that the whole thing was a detour. The poison being the same that killed Tiffany was just a coincidence. Claire bemoaned the artlessness with which that poisoning was carried out. It let the entire gang team up to solve a mystery. Just like I’ve wanted them to do all series.
Next week will probably return to the one or both of the big mysteries at hand. Ryan Hudson is holding onto an urn that ties his family to the ship accident, and refuses to help the Marvins implicate his father. (Oh yes, Bess is officially a Marvin, and everyone’s cool with it. Nice.) Then there’s the matter of getting Nancy’s father out of prison.
Yes, the show will continue to explore the big season-long questions, but here’s hoping for more detours like this along the way.
Nancy Drew airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.
Previously on Nancy Drew:
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 9 Recap
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 8 Recap
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 7 Recap
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