Nancy Drew won 2019’s Fall TV Poll. Dear ole Nan has ties to the very first posts here on Snark Squad. Let’s see what new shenanigans the people at The CW have in store for the best girl detective.
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Pilot
Marines: Precipice. A girl looks down at the sea as creepy children’s voices sing a little ditty: Lucy Sable / once was able /to look upon the sea / But someone got her / in the water / now that’s where she’ll always be. To be clear, there isn’t actually anything creepy about these children voices, except that a group of children and a nursery rhyme will always be creepy.
Sweeney: Amen.
Mari: Lucy is in a bloodied formal dress. We cut to a view up from the water and see her pageant crown fall. A second later, Lucy also falls with a scream.
Nancy Drew’s Voice Over [NDVO] explains that Horsehoe Bay’s most infamous “Sea Queen” was queen for only one night. People say she still haunts the town. The Creepy Children finish the rhyme: Count to five / enjoy the view / Hope the killer doesn’t get you. Their voices melt into teen voices: two girls spin Nancy Drew around and tell her she’s the Sea Queen now, so she’s got to do the thing. The Thing is putting her Sea Queen crown on Lucy Sable’s grave.
A Basic CW Dude jumps out from behind the gravestone, scaring Nancy. She laughs it off and kisses him. In the distance, shrouded by mysterious fog, Nancy thinks she sees something. Bland CW Dude says Nancy looks like she saw a ghost, which in this case is a v accurate description. NDVO assures us she doesn’t believe in ghosts, just looking for the truth. Sounds like something someone who is about to see a ghost might say.
Sweeney: One of the most important things I’ve learned from being good at TV is that there’s no sense in actively saying I don’t believe in anything. I like to keep all my belief options open, just in case.
Mari: We flashback even further to Kid Nancy, standing in the backyard, watching her parents dig up a large crate in their backyard. Mommy Drew spots her and tells her it’s aaaaaall a dream, carrying her back inside the house. NDVO knows it wasn’t a dream, but what was it? Ever since that night, she’s been chasing shadows, and Horeshoe Bay has a lot of them
Sara: At this point, I don’t even know what mystery we’re solving, but I’m already certain that Nancy’s parents are the culprits.
Mari: A fine guess.
Forward to Pre-Teen Nancy. The town is out in force, searching for a missing child. During the search, Pre-Teen Nancy notices a man brazenly not searching for the missing child and carrying a bag of groceries. She follows him to an abandoned building and ends up finding the missing girl behind a hidden staircase.
We see a newspaper clipping of the story. NDVO says she was grounded after that. For finding a missing child? Even though she was out with the volunteers trying to locate said child? Okay. The point is that this incident hooked Nancy on solving mysteries.
Sweeney: And that her parents have suspicious values.
Mari: And also might be killers, probably.
Recent, But Not Today Nancy: Nancy is applying to Columbia when she hears crying coming from downstairs. She overhears her dad telling her mother that they will get a second opinion. Nancy asks what’s going on, and everyone just looks sad. The montage continues through a time jump as we see a gravestone for Katherine Drew. NDVO tells us that she doesn’t detect the shit out of things anymore.
Present Day. Not Your Mother’s Nancy Drew is making the bed rock with Not Your Mother’s Ned Nickerson, who goes by “Nick.” Like, I get it because “Ned” but also, it’s kind of weird to go by Nick. Anyways, Ned and Nancy were doing a clothes on quickie thing. Nancy says she never does this, but Ned says she says that every time. The rest of their post-coital banter reveals that Nancy is not interested in who Ned is as a person, but very interested in how he distracts her from her sads.
Sweeney: Nancy got her flirt on throughout the books, but I’m really glad that in 2019, she’s actually getting some. Good for you Nancy! I know there’s a hint of “this might not be healthy for her,” but I support you, Nancy.
Mari: It’s only taken 89 years.
Nancy runs to work, passing by girls in their summer festival formal attire, allowing NDVO to think about how that was her not so long ago. Now, this is her, working at a diner called The Claw. As she runs in, George berates her for being late. George likes to remind Nancy that they aren’t in high school anymore, and she’s in charge here.
George yells at Nancy to get a move on, so she goes into the kitchen and slaps together a bowl of clam chowder without washing her hands, even though those hands were all over Ned’s Nickerson. I am appalled.
NDVO introduces us to Ace, who works in the kitchen and is a man of few words. She also tells us that she tanked her grades after her mom died and abandoned her college applications. Out in the restaurant, we see another server hand out a salad fork and a dinner fork and ask if anyone is interested in an amuse-bouche. George snaps at her that everyone gets one fork, and she should keep her bouche shut, because it amuses no one. NDVO fills in the rest: this is Bess Marvin, rich girl taking a gap year from the city and living with her rich aunt nearby. She’s not good at the waitressing thing.
Bess and George are canonically Nancy’s best friends. I called them the Bovine Besties in The Nancy Drew Files because their names are Bess and George. If we don’t find a better name for Nancy’s friend group, this is sticking…
We cut out into the town for a bit and see the start of the summer festival parade.
Claw. Nancy flips the sign to closed. She sets up her cell phone on a window ledge. Bess asks what that’s for, and Nan explains that she’s recording the fireworks. This is the first year since she was little that her family hasn’t watched them all together.
Sara: I recognize the sadness of this, but seriously, if I die and someone tries to make me watch their dull fireworks video on their phone, I will rise up from the grave just to sigh loudly at them.
Mari: Fair. In that case, not even the thought counts.
There’s a banging on the door. Bess starts to say they are closed, but George cuts her off, opens the door and greets a Mr. Hudson. He’s with two other dudes and they need a quiet table for a private conversation. George grabs menus and whisper-tells Bess to do her fork thing. NDVO fills us in: this is Ryan Hudson, heir to his family’s fortune. Important enough to keep diners open later for.
George takes their orders. Hudson asks her to bring something out to his wife, Tiffany, who is waiting in the car. George is surprised to hear that his wife is here, but in a way that makes it seem like she totally knows his wife. Now is a good time to remind you that I am also a real good girl detective.
Sweeney: I’m gonna get you a Detecting The Shit Out Of Things button for Christmas.
Mari: I want at least a mug.
George asks Nancy to bring the food out to Tiffany, because she needs a minute. Nancy is suspicious of this, mostly because George never asks for help. I mean, she does order people around a lot, seeing as how she’s the manager, and this is how we established her character, but okay Nan.
Nancy brings Tiffany her food as she’s on a phone call, trying to describe Horsehoe Bay: like the town in Jaws, but with no shark to make it interesting. She asks Nancy for an oak-y glass of white wine. Nancy smirks; she knows just the vintage.
Cut to Nancy pouring boxed wine. It’s running low, so Bess offers to go check in the storeroom for more. Ace has a crush on Bess, and he thinks he’s growing on her. “Like a fungus,” Nan offers.
The lights flicker and go out. Ryan and the other dudes just keep talking. Ace announces that the whole marina is out. Nancy grabs that light pour of wine and says she’ll be back. She grabs her phone from the ledge, turns on the flashlight, and heads outside. She calls for Tiffany, but there is no answer. The fireworks start and distract Nancy for a second, before she steps on Tiffany’s fallen plate of food. A few more steps and Nancy sees Tiffany’s dead body. She checks for a pulse and calls for help. The rest of all the teen characters join her, including Ned. And just then, we hear sirens because the police have already been called.
The sheriff walks into The Claw and asks a very Promotional Still shot of our cast what they have to say for themselves.
George was in the bathroom in a single stall, alone.
Ned closed up the repair shop and was headed here for dinner, alone.
Ace had just delivered the food to Hudson.
Nancy found the body, alone. She was the last person to see Mrs. Hudson alive, except for the killer, of course.
Ace and Mr. Hudson and Co. are free to leave. The rest of the cast has to go to the station.
Station. They all wait, prettily. Ned says the cops are probably trying to figure out if they have enough to charge them. A detective walks out, and Nancy greets her warmly, but then the Sheriff is back to give us big Don Lamb vibes. This becomes clear when he calls them the town screw-up, an ex-con, a city girl and Nancy Drew.
There, Nancy says there were no signs of trauma, so maybe it wasn’t even foul play. The Sheriff is pretty sure it was, because Tiffany placed a 9-1-1 call before she died. He asks where Nancy was when this call was placed and either the show is misdirecting us on the timeline or I’m not understanding why Nancy doesn’t just say “in the kitchen with Ace, before the lights went out and I went to go give Mrs. Hudson her wine.”
The friend detective, Hart, knows Nancy didn’t do this, but they have to solve this case quickly. Nancy thinks back, and remembers that Tiffany was wearing a ring when Nan served her dinner, but not when she found her dead body. The Sheriff says a nice ring could be a game changer for anyone, help pay some medical bills, say. Nancy is like WOOOOOOW, because he just brought her dead mom into this. She’s had enough. The Sheriff tells her not to go too far because she and her friends are still suspects. The part Nancy wants to object to here is the “friends” part. They are so not her friends.
Sweeney: Genuinely baffled as to why she never once – on the drive to or once at the station – thinks about the video on her phone? I’m not mad, just disappointed, Nancy.
Mari: Nancy’s dad shows up at the station, though she’s not happy to see him. Through their exchange we learn that he’s been phoning the whole dad thing in, and even though he wants to try now that mom is gone, Nancy isn’t up for giving him that chance. She won’t even let him drive her home.
Instead, Nan walks home, the empty streets littered with parade leftovers. The creepy children are singing again. Something spooks Nancy. A sign in a nearby store flickers and she gets closer to the store front window. That mysterious fog rolls in again, and it suddenly looks like Nancy’s reflection is wearing a pageant crown. She turns around, but no one is behind her. And when she looks forward again, her reflection is normal. Of all the spooky things to see in a reflection, a crown ain’t bad!
Drew Domicile. Nancy is looking at pictures of her mom. NDVO apologies to her mom for not recording the fireworks, but as she plays back the video, she realizes she instead recorded the murder. In the video, Tiffany drops her food. Behind her, a shadowy something appears. There are nefarious static noises, and the video cuts out.
Sweeney: I mean OK idk maybe it’s for the best that she did not show this possibly supernatural video to the law enforcement personnel.
Mari: The Sheriff doesn’t strike me as a believer.
The next day, Nancy shows the video to the Bovine Besties. They are all like, yep, ghost. Ace thinks it’s Dead Lucy. Lucy’s story is repeated, including the fact that she went missing in 2000.
Ned bangs on The Claw door. George lets him in, as he loudly announces that Nancy usually brings him coffee in the morning, but she didn’t today. Maybe because he has a criminal past? Nancy said she thought he would wait for her at the police station to explain everything. As it is, she doesn’t want to talk about any of this in front of the Bovine Besties. George bitterly reminds Nancy that she had no problem discussing George’s sex life in high school. Nancy says she never spread rumors about George, but George correctly guesses that she never shut them down either.
Ned brings it back around to their relationship. Nancy formally announces to everyone that she is seeing Ned. He seems happy with the public announcement, despite the fact that they are still all murder suspects. Nancy wants to investigate Ryan, the husband. They need to break into the Hudson home and find a motive. She runs down a list of things they might find, from a new will to an insurance policy, and then remembers that she doesn’t even investigate anymore. George and Ned watch as she runs off. He wonders if she’ll do any investigating, but George doesn’t know. She’s been different since her mom died. Ned looks pensive.
Cut to Nancy breaking and entering into the Hudson home. She’s got a very specific crime beanie she wears. I hope it’s tradition and this isn’t actually supposed to be functional in any way.
Sweeney: We love a good staple crime wardrobe, though.
Mari: Inside, Nancy almost drops a vase, and we see a motion sensor go off.
Ned is parked outside the house. He sees when the security company rolls up.
Back inside, Nancy finds a drawer with a secret compartment hiding a necklace and a note. A ghost calls Nancy’s name (I’m serious) (it has to be a ghost), and then she hears the security guards. She sneaks downstairs, only to find that Ned has come inside to find her. He pulls her out a back exit, and they make a run for it. Nancy loses her Staple Crime Beanie in the process.
Sara: RIP Crime Beanie, we hardly knew ye.
Mari: Gone but not easily forgotten.
Once they are in Ned’s truck, he points out the foolish badassery of breaking into the home of someone she thinks is a murderer. Nancy is defensive, so he also thanks himself for helping her, even though he does have a record and getting caught could’ve been real bad for him. Nancy asks why he crime-d, then. He says he crime-d for her. Something like that.
Drew Domicile. Ned thinks Nancy’s dad is home, but it’s her mom’s non-running car that is parked out front. Ned offers to be there to listen whenever she wants to talk about her mom. Nancy panics and says that it’s not smart for them to do this because she’s eventually going to leave for college. Ned gets mad and drives off. Nancy yells after him that this is why it’s better not to talk.
Claw. Nancy asks for George’s help, primarily because she comes from a long line of fishermen. George adds alcoholics and fertile teenaged moms to that line. Ignoring that, Nancy shows her the necklace. George immediately identifies it as a mariner’s good luck charm. Seadudes used to leave notes in the necklace and then when they left to sea, their girlfriends would dissolve the seal in salt water, revealing the note. George wants to know where Nancy got it, and she hesitantly admits that she broke into the Hudson home. At first she thinks the Bovine Besties are being judgey about her B&E, but they are all actually impressed. Nancy shows them the note also. It says “For your protection” and it’s signed H.G. George snatches the necklace, saying they have to open it. NDVO says this is why she works alone. Girl, please, they just gave you answers.
George, Bess and Nancy open the necklace.
Medium. I hate it already. Nancy just wants to ask some questions, but the Medium wants to do a seance. Bess is in because she believes in ghosts. George is in because this shit was expensive. The medium directs them through some breathing and chanting. She invites Tiffany to speak. The medium’s voice comes out all Trelawney (if you know what I mean) as a spirit tells them to find the dress. Bess freaks and breaks the circle, ending the seance. The Medium tells them to get out. That wasn’t Tiffany Hudson. Bess thinks it was Dead Lucy. I appreciate this scene for being well lit and not as upsetting to me as it could’ve been.
Drew Domicile. Karen found the Staple Crime Beanie at the crime scene and knows it’s Nancy’s. (I didn’t mention earlier, but Hart was Mama Drew’s BFF.) Papa Drew is worried about Karen putting her job in danger, but then thanks her for helping Nan. And then kisses her! Nancy walks in on them kissing and is very upset. Her dad tries to give her a stern talking to about breaking and entering, but this is not the time. Nancy grabs her Crime Beanie and storms out. Papa Drew follows her and admits that he was hiding the fact that he’s been dating her dead mother’s best friend, but now that she knows, they can totally talk about it! Nancy nopes out of this conversation by literally running away.
Sweeney: I am slightly confused on the timeline here. Was it an exactly one year later time jump? So, like, one year ago almost-to-the-day, her mom was still alive? And if that’s the case, she seemed a little too healthy to have just kicked it that day. How long has mom been dead? How long after his wife of many years died did he make a move on his dead wife’s best friend? These are my questions and I need them answered. In any event, #IStandWithNan.
Mari: My read is that a year ago they found out her mom was sick? So the death was more recent. Who knows though because teen shows aren’t good with time.
Nancy goes to Ned’s place and they bang. I mean, she tells him that he’s the only good part of her life, and that she has so many questions for him, but she doesn’t ask any questions. They just bang.
Sweeney: I love that for her.
Mari: The next morning, we catch the tail end of Ned telling Nancy about not being able to play college football. She asks about the timeline here, in relation to jail. After an awkward silence, Nancy says she can wait for that bit of the story until he’s ready.
When Nancy gets inside, her dad warns her off seeing Ned. Nancy deduces that Papa Drew was Ned’s lawyer. He neither confirms nor denies, and then leaves to work.
Nancy breaks into her father’s files and finds Ned’s. Turns out Ned was charged with manslaughter, and he was convicted on the testimony of a single key witness: Tiffany Hudson.
Mari: Nancy hears something outside. It’s Ned with a tow truck, offering to get her mom’s car running again. Nancy calls, “great!” and then heads back inside to cry. Ned is a criminal with a motive. And Sara called him the culprit.
We head into a montage: Nancy takes investigation notes and VO’s about secrets. Bess let herself into the van she’s living in. George goes to Ryan’s house because WHAT is a CW show without an adult/teen relationship? And before anyone age-ain’t-nothing’s me, it is implied that this married grown ass man was seeing George while she was in high school. Weirdly, it’s in this scene that the actor who plays Ryan Hudson looks incredibly familiar to me. I’m not saying it’s from this, but he was the love interest in the DCOM Motocrossed.
Sweeney: He was also in the one season CW show Life Sentence and many other things. Honestly, whenever I see him, I’m convinced he’s David Gallagher from 7th Heaven, probably both because he legit looks like him but also because 7th Heaven and Motocrossed are stored in similar places in my brain.
Mari: Brain neighbors, for sure.
Ace takes pictures of George and Ryan and texts them to the Sheriff. Ned takes off the seat cushion in Nancy’s mom’s car and finds a mysteriously wrapped package. Bess takes Tiffany’s ring out of a baggie and tries it on, happily.
Sara: Ace did it! Ned did it! Bess definitely did it!
Mari: And back at home, Nancy’s work is interrupted when all the lights cut out, like the beginning of the episode. She grabs a flashlight and looks around. There’s a loud crash (I hate it) and the stairs to the attic drop down by themselves. Nancy takes this as an INVITATION to go up there. She looks around a bit until she hears wallpaper ripping. Then she spots it: a piece of wallpaper lifting. She pulls. The Creepy Children singsong the Dead Lucy rhyme to us again as we see that it is scratched into the wall behind the wallpaper. Nancy spots a trunk and flashes back to seeing her parents dig it up in the yard. She opens the trunk and inside there is a bloody formal dress. She puts the flashlight down to hold the dress in both hands, and this lights up the background. The Soundtrack Man yells at us with music, in case we didn’t see that there is a person shaped something standing behind Nancy.
End of episode.
This was a pretty info dumpy pilot, and I know, it’s a pilot! It’s supposed to exposit! But it’s also a mystery and a show that uses a voice over, which are two open invitations to just straight tell you so many things. I can’t say that I was overly wowed by anything here, but I’m not mad at it. It isn’t Gotham or Inhumans (so far), so good job voters! I’m excited to keep watching.
Sweeney: This was fun! I haven’t yet shouted about how pleased I am that Nancy is out of high school! She is out of high school and a detective, which means this show can do all the plot shenanigans of a Riverdale or a Pretty Little Liars, but in a way that makes a lot more in-world sense! I know there’s the one age inappropriate relationship, but that guy got a smarmy edit from the jump. I think I’m just really delighted that we have taken student/teacher relationships off the table. Simple blessings.
Sara: This was a pretty good pilot, but I’m more excited to see what’s to come because of my love of Nancy Drew, the character. I like the big mystery setup, and it will be fun to see how they give us clues as we get through each episode. I’m also down for a more grown-up Nancy. Nancy still has all of the qualities that we know and love, but making her older is fun and gives it that good CW vibe. I’m curious to see if there actually is going to be paranormal activity at play, or if this is a Scooby Doo situation in the end.
Next time on Nancy Drew: Tiffany Hudson’s corpse is being moved in S01 E02 – The Secret of the Old Morgue.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something with three kids who spends an embarrassing amount of time watching teen television dramas. There's a whole lot of Internet out there, and I plan on reading all of it before I die.
