Previously: Bucket water.
—
The Curse of the Dark Storm
Marines: Nancy and Ned are asleep in his bed. Ace is biking through town, a storm brewing in the sky above him, and passes Bess’s parked van. She’s in there, meditating. Ace keeps biking and passes George’s house, where she’s busy trying to wash the red paint off her steps. Ace offers to help her, but she just glares. And then, it starts to pour so Ace sasses that she got some help anyway.
Ned wakes up to his garage/room leaking. He jumps up to put a bucket on a shelf, under the leak. He tells Nancy to stay in bed while he grabs coffee. Nancy gets up anyway. She tries to clean up some of the mess and, of course, easily spots the burner phone on Ned’s shelves. She grabs it, sees the missed call from her own phone, and those final text messages from Tiffany Hudson. Nancy figures that the car in question is her mom’s car, which Ned so conveniently and helpfully volunteered to fix for free.
Sara: It pleases me deep within my soul when an issue from a previous episode is wrapped up thirty seconds into the following one. Thanks for doing such a crap job hiding your burner phone, Ned!
Sweeney: Yes!! That seemed like the kind of cliffhanger that other (lesser…) stuff we’ve recapped would have tried to milk for WEEKS so the fact that this loop was closed before we even got to the intro was satisfying.
Mari: Ned comes back with their coffee, straight into a trap Nancy has laid out– calling the burner phone she’s so nicely left out for him to find. Nancy spells out everything we know so far about the Ned/Tiffany connection and asks if Ned was using Nancy to get to her mom’s car and the mysterious package. He says he would never, but Nancy doesn’t believe him. She says if there is ever going to be any trust between them, he has to show her what he took from Mama Drew’s car. Ned says he can’t. It’s not for Nancy. She grabs her things and leaves with a “my dad was right about you.”
NANCY DPEW.
Drew Domicile. Papa Drew [PD] tells Nancy that he waited up for her the previous night. She tells him that he doesn’t have to do that anymore, because she’s not a kid anymore. Nancy quasi-lies that she spent the night at a friend’s house and Papa Drew asks for some honesty, which is an interesting strategy, considering he is a lying liar who lies. Nancy turns the tables on him and asks where that suspicious, bloody dress from the attic went. Papa Drew says he threw it away because it was just a silly joke! Nancy went through the garbage, though, and knows he didn’t throw it away. Papa Drew says the garbage came that morning, which seems like a lie Nancy could easily disprove, but it’s fine. Papa Drew turns the tables on her by reminding her she got arrested for breaking and entering and should probably be on her best behavior.
Sweeney: I still feel pretty convinced that the show is going to give Papa Drew some Perfectly Good Explanation for being suspicious AF but put me on the record for saying “I fucking hate it” because at this point any explanation beyond he’s a murderer feels inadequate to explain his blatantly lying to her. The thing I said about the cliffhanger they mercifully resolved immediately? This feels like the opposite of that. Something they’re dragging out needlessly and I hate it.
Mari: Agreed. Very few explanations for keeping the bloodied dress of a murder victim are innocent.
Their chat is interrupted when Ryan Hudson arrives to talk to Papa Drew. Down in his office, PD asks Ryan about estate planning. Ryan and Tiffany had a pre-nup and basically what was hers was hers, what was his was his, but it should all be his now, following the confirmation that she died of natural causes.
Sara: He makes such a big deal about specifying that he only gets the money if she DIED FROM NATURAL CAUSES!!1! I feel like it’s weird to have that laid out so specifically in your pre-nup, but also I am not a Rich Person so what do I know.
Mari: Meanwhile, Nancy is snooping and it’s hilariously obvious. Very Kim K.
Claw. George is supposedly crankier than usual, but honestly, I feel like she’s just always cranky? (S: Yes.) Nancy comments on it to the other Bovine Besties and Ace tells them about the blood bucket. Nancy says George doesn’t believe in curses, though. Ace thinks maybe she’s worried about the nor’easter that’s coming, on account of how the locals say that the nor’easter blows restless spirits to shore. Nancy is over this and jumps at the chance to help the customer that just walked in.
Except it’s Karen. And she’s not here for food. Karen says that Nancy is looking real suspicious after her B&E, but they’ve got a new suspect– one that Nancy might be able to give them info on. Nancy realizes they are talking about Ned. If Nancy rats Nick out, then she’s off the hook for her felony charges. She has until the end of the day to decide. Karen tells the other Bovine Besties to stay safe in the nor’easter, and leaves. (S: I get the feeling that you secretly love typing nor’easter.) (M: I’m not not enjoying it…)
Of course, the Bovine Besties were all eavesdropping and swarm over with lots of questions about Ned, his juvenile record, and whether or not he killed Tiffany. George, for one, is stoked because it means they are off the hook. (S: This is a highkey sociopathic reaction to the idea that your friend’s boyfriend might be a murderer, George.) Nancy is torn. She gets a text message and we cut to her meeting Ned in the back room of the Claw. Turns out the cops just tossed his place. They triangulated some recent activity on the burner phone. Nancy pulls the burner out of her locker, revealing that she took it and deactivated it. Ned says he didn’t want to get rid of it because he’s been studying every text message from Tiffany. Ned pulls out the package he retrieved from the car and shows Nancy what was inside: a little clock. He has no idea what it means and Tiffany told him not to trust anyone. NDVO wonders if she solves this, if it’ll make her want to help Ned or put him away.
After a break, Nancy is looking at the clock, saying that either there is something inside or it’s meant to lead them somewhere. Nancy ask Ned a bunch of questions and we get a ton of backstory with flashbacks mixed in: Mama Drew was Ned’s social worker. Ned knew who Nancy was when they met, but he totes wasn’t using her just to get to the car. Mama Drew asked Ned to meet Tiffany while he was in jail, which was weird, seeing as how she testified against him. He agreed, but had a hard time talking or listening to Tiffany when she visited, so instead, Tiffany started giving him books and that’s how they communicated.
Sara: Literally none of this made sense when I watched it, and I was kind of hoping your recap would clear things up but nope. It just doesn’t make sense.
Mari: Correct.
Out in the restaurant, another new person arrives. George greets the woman with a pot of coffee in her hands, which just randomly explodes. Bess offers to talk to the woman, who is there looking for a job. George heads off to get a dustpan, and a decorative fishing spear just falls from the ceiling. Ace pushes George out of the way in time, and is like man, what a curse. George still doesn’t believe she’s being Final Destination-ed.
After one second of looking at the clock, Nancy notices that the top part comes apart and there is an engraving on it. Nancy guesses that if books were their secret language, maybe the engraved numbers on the clock are an ISBN. Nancy and Ned get ready to leave, but out in the restaurant, Ace and Bessie are laying a salt ward around George.
Back at Ned’s place, he shows Nancy a copy of the first thing Tiffany ever gave Ned: The Count of Monte Cristo. We head back into another jail flashback, during which Ned confronts Tiffany about her lying during her testimony. We don’t get to hear her response, because we’re back as Ned goes through all the books Tiffany brought him. Nancy finds the one that matches the engraving: Under the Lilacs. The code also points them to page 170, chapter title “A Boy’s Bargain.” Ned starts rambling about the meaning of a bargain and how Tiffany loved puzzles and escape rooms and plays on words. She also loved some place in town called the Lilac something… Nancy remembers seeing some paperwork on her dad’s desk when she was Kim K’ing: an application for landmark status for The Lilac Inn. Nancy knows where to go, but first they are going to need some help.
Nancy and Ned head back to The Claw. Karen is parked a little bit away and watches as the kids run into the Claw. A second later, they run back out and get into the truck, except I think it’s pretty obvious to us, the viewer, that it isn’t Ned and Nancy. Karen doesn’t notice, though, and tails the two kids in a truck, pulling them over shortly thereafter. She’s pretty annoyed when she finds Ace and Bessie dressed in Ned and Nancy’s raincoats. Sorry, girl. Be a better detective.
Mari: Nancy and Ned drive toward the Lilac Inn. Nancy is smirking and wearing her Crime Beanie. (S: TM) We cut to Nancy and Ned running into the inn and then to Papa Drew asking Ryan about the inn. He doesn’t know much about it — just that it was a pet project for Tiffany, and she was dumping a lot of money into it. Money he could use right now. Ryan seems v worried about money and also about the noises he hears coming from upstairs. He leaves Papa Drew talking to himself and lets himself upstairs to investigate. He follows the noises all the way to Nancy’s room. He throws the door open, but it’s empty. Papa Drew finds him and asks what tf is going on. Ryan says he heard something and the storm must be getting to him.
They had back downstairs and the whole time, Papa Drew is trying to tell Ryan that the Lilac Inn is about to become a public landmark, but Ryan can’t stop freaking out about the footsteps he hears upstairs. We hear them too, but Papa Drew does not. Ryan says that before Tiffany died, she would wake up in the middle of the night claiming to hear things and feeling like someone was watching them. Ryan thought it was her anxiety medication but now he’s thinking… Lightening flashes and in the illumination, we see Dead Lucy, up in the corner of the ceiling behind Papa Drew’s head. It’s a total jump scare BUT IT WORKED AND I HATE OH MY GOD. IT SCARED ME. I GOT ALL LIGHT HEADED. I’M SO WEAK, WHY AM I WATCHING THIS.
Sweeney: I am very sorry that this is happening to you.
Mari: I’ve got wine now. It helps.
Sweeney: Good because I also have to confess that I want this show to become full on GHOST SHOW and I am both sorry for your fear and not sorry for my dreams because I contain multitudes.
Mari: -_-
Ryan also freaks the hell out after seeing Dead Lucy, and Papa Drew asks what the hell is going on. Ryan is like, “I”m out of here.” That is the best option, Ryan. Papa Drew says Ryan can’t drive because he’s been drinking. Ryan is like fine, you drive me to the Lilac Inn.
Wait, what? Why are they going… to the Lilac… Never mind, fine.
Sweeney: TRULY. THIS. IS NOT. EXPLAINED????
Mari: IT’S FINE.
Ace and Bess drive by her van and see that the storm has caused a branch to fall on it and break the window. Bess freaks out, but doesn’t out herself to Ace.
Nancy and Ned find a bunch of covered paintings hanging on the walls of the Lilac Inn. They are all of authors. Nancy starts asking questions about the whole manslaughter thing again, which upsets Ned. Nancy presses, though, until Ned snaps. It was self-defense! A couple of crazy kids who got into it! Does Nancy think Ned is capable of killing in cold blood? Nancy doesn’t say anything and is saved from having to do so when she hears a car approaching. She checks it out and sees her father’s car. Nancy says they need to hide, but Ned’s just figured out the painted author clue. I realized I’ve done a very hand-wavey job of recapping whatever these clues are supposed to be, but trust me, it’s for the best.
I guess the gist of it is that a portrait of Edith Wharton reminds Ned that Tiffany once gave him House of Mirth, which makes him think they should check the kitchen. They find a cupboard and hide in there. I’ll go ahead and admit that I was very confused by this “cupboard,” which is truly a pantry/closet with dishes and spices stored on shelves but also wine in the back. Idk, man, I’ve only ever had small, poor people kitchens.
Papa Drew and Ryan walk into the inn. PD says it sure is strange that Tiffany included a “dying of natural causes” clause in their prenup. (S: OMG, HI PD, AND I KNOW, RIGHT?) Ryan says that Tiffany was paranoid and on a bunch of mood stabilizers and sleeping pills. Ryan doesn’t know how she died, but he wonders if maybe Papa Drew thinks she could’ve been haunted. Like vengeful spirits haunted. Ryan knows that Tiffany believed in ghosts and that was probably why she was always trying to do good. In that case, PD suggests leaving the Lilac Inn as it is, but Ryan can’t. He needs money. PD asks who Ryan owes, but Ryan replies that those are bodies left buried.
Sweeney: Well that’s not ominous or spoken like a fucking murderer at all!
Mari: In the cupboard, Ned starts freaking out because he’s not a fan of enclosed spaces post-jail. Nancy tries to calm him down, but what finally does it is when he sees a particular bottle of wine: Amontillado. In the Poe story, A Cask of Amontillado, someone is entombed alive in a wall. Ned clears the other wine bottles and uses a knife to pry the bricks out of the wall, revealing a safe. It requires a key, so Nancy figures that’s where the clock comes back in. She uses the hands of the clock to enter the date and time of the night Ned killed someone, and it opens a little compartment with the key. Unfortunately, while Ned is opening the safe, he knocks over a bottle of wine.
Sara: How much time did Tiffany have to plan this? This is just so much. Also, I did an escape room once, and I failed miserably so everyone, please do not leave me a scavenger hunt after you die, all your work will have been for naught.
Sweeney: I, on the other hand, would love a nonsensical scavenger hunt. I mean, I have no idea if I would be any good at it, but I’m very into this for no other reason than it because it seems zany and fun. What I’m saying is I’m totally gonna have a nonsensical scavenger hunt for my assets. Unfortunately, my assets are basically nonexistent and consist of a car that has seen better days, some travel souvenirs, and a fairly solid collection of cozy sweaters. Sorry future scavenger hunt participants hoping to find riches. At least you’ll be warm when it’s all over.
Mari: I feel like I should participate as your best friend, but I live in Florida.
Ryan and Papa Drew both hear the crash of the wine bottle. Nancy and Ned quickly grab what’s in the safe, cover the safe back up, and run out before they are caught. Papa Drew blames the fallen bottle on the wind (in a closet, my friend?) but he does see that there is a footprint in the wine.
Nancy and Ned get back home and Karen is waiting for them there. Ned asks what’s going on, so Nancy explains the deal Karen is trying to cut… right in front of Ned. Which seems like a weird way to do this police business, but okay. Ned is kind of upset, but then Nancy shows Karen The Count of Monte Cristo with the inscription from Tiffany. She tells Karen to look at Ned’s jail visitor logs and see that Tiffany visited him weekly. They were friends, in the end. And Ned wouldn’t hurt a friend. Karen says she hopes that’s consolation when Nancy is being arraigned for criminal trespassing. Damn, Karen. That’s harsh.
George is still sitting in her salt circle. The random woman from earlier who was looking for a job, Rita, tells her that her friends are trying their best, but the protection only works if George believes in it. Above her, the light fixture starts rocking. More lightening and thunder and suddenly the light comes down, too. Ned and Nancy walk in at that moment, and Ned is in time to grab George out of the way the murderous light fixture. And Rita is gone. Ace and Bess run in and ask what’s going on.
We cut to Ned showing everyone the box he got from Tiffany’s safe. He knows that he’s been private and everyone has reason to suspect him, but he figures if they all open this together, it will mean building some trust. Ace asks what happened, though, with that one time he killed someone. Ned explains: there was this guy named Austin. They used to go at it on the field and it carried over off the field. One time, at a party, Austin was drunk and high and started being inappropriate with Ned’s friend. Ned hit Austin, but Austin wouldn’t stay down and wouldn’t keep his hands off Ned’s friend. The last time Ned hit him, Austin went through a second story glass pane and died. The Bovine Besties are all very gracious and forgiving. They tell him and Nancy to open the box themselves, but share with them what was inside later.
Later, George grabs the spear that almost killed her and gets it out of the way. While doing so, she notices that one of the newspaper clippings on the wall inside the Claw is a story about a tourist that got decapitated during a boating accident. It’s Rita.
Sara: As an addendum to my last request, if anyone would like to leave me five million dollars worth of bearer bonds after they die, I will have no questions or complaints.
Mari: I will follow whatever god damn clue you leave for five million in bearer bonds, to be clear.
Nan gets a text from Ace asking for her help. Ned still seems upset, so Nancy promises to check in with him later. Nancy meets with Ace who says he called because he doesn’t want Bess to be embarrassed. Ace leads Nan to Bess’s parked van and leaves her to take it from there. Inside the van, Bess is cleaning up from the broken window and storm. Nancy knocks and Bess lets her in.
At the Drew Domicile, Papa Drew gets home and notices that Nancy’s shoes are at the front door. And they’ve got wine splatter on them. He tries to call Nancy but it goes straight to voicemail. Papa Drew heads up the stairs, but very slowly, which means there was 100% a ghost sighting somewhere in the rest of this scene, but truly I’m guessing because I looked away. I’ve suffered enough this episode.
Back in the van, Nancy invites Bess to stay at her place, at least until she gets the van fixed up. Bess accepts and starts packing her bag. In the shuffle, though, Tiffany’s stolen ring falls out of Bess’s stuff. Nancy picks it up without Bess noticing as NDVO asks if she just invited a killer to sleepover.
I love that we end every episode with a new prime suspect.
Sweeney: It does remind me, though, of the unavoidable comparison between this show and Veronica Mars. I think it’s more fair to compare it to PLL, which is a comparison that does this show a lot of favors, but this reminded me that one of the reasons the first season of VM is so good is that we were still establishing characters and as V goes through all the twists and turns of the story, we wondered if each of these people in her life was capable of murdering Lilly. Season 2 wasn’t bad, but the show was all downhill from there because it could never again make us seriously believe that say, Logan or Weevil caused the bus crash. The show needed to introduce a bunch of new characters to the fold in order to have enough plausible suspects for a new mystery. In that regard, this show is failing. It’s both that we know it’s too early in the season to reveal shit like this (#goodattv) but also that no, I don’t buy that Ned or the Bovine Besties, or Nancy’s Dad are responsible for Tiffany’s murder. I just don’t. So on the one hand: I’m having a ton of fun with this show. On the other: it’s failing as a compelling mystery.
Mari: Excellent points to which I will only add that I also barely care about who killed Tiffany. Tiffany who, honestly. And for as much as I hate ghosts, the only way this is interesting at this moment is if the ghost did it.
Next time on Nancy Drew: Sorry, Bess. It’s your turn to be a suspect in S01 E04 – The Haunted Ring.
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.