The characters of Nancy Drew have all had their lives derailed somehow. George was forced to be the only adult in her home, with the only place she had any control being the restaurant she manages. Nick did time for manslaughter, and his only mentor and benefactor was murdered at the beginning of the season. Bess lived out of her van while trying to find proof of her ties to a wealthy family. Now that she’s got that, she struggles with the expectations they put on her. And Nancy’s mother’s death basically put adulthood on pause for her. All of them, except for Ace who’s apparently living the stoner dream, know their lives could be so much better if things were just a little bit different.
Nancy gets to see exactly how different in this week’s episode. Picking up right after last week’s cliffhanger, we see Nancy in the dreamworld where her mother’s still alive and everything’s perfect. She’s visiting home from college, and her dad asks her to help out with a case. One of his wealthy clients just bought a house and there are some strange things wrong with it. His client: A nice young man named Ned Nickerson. She meets Nick at the Claw and asks him about his house. The conversation doesn’t get too far before George runs up and hugs her. They’re best friends in this world. Meanwhile, Bess is still living in her van, but by choice. She’s an Instagram influencer now.
Kennedy McMann as Nancy — Photo: Jack Rowand/The CW
But Nancy, always on the lookout for clues, notices that nothing seems right. The fire alarm goes off in the restaurant, but there’s no smoke. She starts piecing together the inconsistencies, and it comes to her. None of this is real. She’s actually passed out in the Whisper Room in an abandoned wing of the town mental hospital. No one quite believes her, but Nick at least thinks its strange when she tells him the location of the mental hospital. It’s the house he just bought.
Even though the episode largely takes place inside Nancy’s head, it still gives us a fun mystery. Nancy looks over Nick’s house, and quickly finds that the strange noises he’s hearing are just his old radiator and pipes. Then, she finds a strange door in the attic. It’s the door to the Whisper Room. Nancy is suddenly convinced that she has to get inside to wake up. The problem is Nick doesn’t have the key. And when he tries to find it, a strange ghostly figure with burned hands appears and rushes toward Nancy. The ghost stuff works really well in this episode. There’s a lot of it here, but the episode picks its moments well. It’s always tied to something happening in the story, and they’re used to provide jump-scare catharsis in scenes that are effective and creepy on their own.
Alex Saxon as Ace, Leah Lewis as George, Tunji Kasim as Nick and Madison Jaizani as Bess — Photo: Jack Rowand/The CW
Nancy and Nick decide to ask the person who sold the house about the room. That person is, of course, Ryan Hudson. Ryan is a good guy in this world. After Nancy exposed his family as a bunch of shady criminals, he turned them in and is now devoting his time and money to charitable efforts. And Tiffany’s still alive. It turns out he had that room locked and Nancy hid the key somewhere, giving him cryptic clues to follow in case anyone needed to open it again. It feels like a classic Nancy Drew mystery, which is why the episode is so much fun. It hits all the right notes, and is a great example of what the show can be at its best.
Nancy figures out that the clues refer to gravestones, meaning she hid the key in the graveyard somewhere. Of course she did. Before she can go find it though, she faces some serious temptation. In this world, her mom finds out she’s completely cancer free. All her tests came back negative. Later that night, Nick comes over and the two have the same chemistry they do in the real world. As it starts to rain outside, Nick convinces her to put off the graveyard hunt and bone in front of the fireplace instead.
Tunji Kasim as Nick and Kennedy McMann as Nancy — Photo: Jeff Weddell/The CW
Nancy finds it hard to leave this perfect world, but her friends in the real one are able to get a message to her. They’ve made it back inside the asylum and found her lying on the floor in the demonic-looking Whisper Room. They can’t carry her out, because whatever force is keeping her unconscious starts to kill her faster when they try. All they can do talk to her, which rain down in her house on blue envelopes. That’s enough to convince Nancy that she has to find the key. Her perfect world friends help her search, and she eventually figures out that they’re inside a hollow oak try. Nancy grabs it, but the burned ghostly hands reach out and grab her. Her friends pull her away with the key, but it’s a pretty scary scene anyway.
The key and the strange door turn out to be a giant red herring, though. Maybe it was something to keep Nancy occupied, to keep her from figuring out the real exit. All that’s behind that door is an empty attic room. It’s not until she talks with her mom that she remembers a conversation they had when she was a nervous little girl. She made her mom draw her a map to heaven so they could find each other if Nancy’s move ever died. Nancy finds the map behind the newspaper article about the first mystery she solved. It’s a constellation. Following the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, she finds a closet. That was the exit the whole time. Her mom suddenly appears behind her and offers her one more chance to stay. Nancy says she raised her to always look for the truth. Even though it would be nice, she can’t stay here. She steps into the closet and wakes up back in the Whisper Room surrounded by her real friends. And she has they key-card she came for.
Sinead Curry as Tiffany — Photo: Jack Rowand/The CW
This is the last episode of Nancy Drew we’ll have for a couple weeks, and at this point, I was so worried the show would end on a cliffhanger. I was pleasantly surprised to find the show had answers for every question it raised. In the dream world, her dad was volunteering at the historical society. She checks out the logo and finds that elements from the symbol on the key-card she found in the Whisper Room are hidden inside it. When she visits the historical society, she finds the caretaker’s hands are burned just like the ghost’s in the dreamworld. The key-card, it turns out, opens a lockbox belonging to Tiffany Hudson. The door in the dream world was a dead end, but the mystery still contained useful clues. It’s a cool way to make a dream sequence matter.
Inside the lockbox, Nancy finds a video Tiffany recorded three days before she was poisoned. In it, she’s being haunted by the ghost of Lucy Sable. The ghost even appears behind her as she speaks, and it’s the scariest she’s ever been. Tiffany says the ghost has been haunting her ever since she found… Then the video cuts off. Nancy’s suspicions are confirmed. Tiffany found something revealing the circumstances surrounding Lucy’s death. Whatever it was, it was important. Well, now I’m extra excited for the show to come back.
With Nancy Drew taking a short break, this was the perfect episode to leave us on. It found a way to have Nancy solve a fun, self-contained mystery that still had an effect on the larger story. IT made an episode-length dream sequence matter. Most importantly, it made the ghosts truly scary. Nancy Drew has definitely improved since its first few episodes, and it’s been getting consistently better ever since it came back from the midseason break. Finally, the main mysteries have enough going on to carry the show. I just want to find out what happens next.
Nancy Drew airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW
Previously on Nancy Drew:
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 12 recap
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 11 recap
- Nancy Drew Season 1 Episode 10 recap
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