What is the connection between Lucy and Ryan Hudson?
This is the question Nancy realizes needs answering thanks to clues dead Lucy gave her in last week’s episode. So Nancy goes to visit Ryan, and in typical Nancy Drew fashion, she lets herself in… Lucy seems to be there. She provides a clue in the form of a bird on a card that says the “velvet masque.” They are some sort of underground group that “brands townies,” according to George. Not to be confused with the band… Velvet Underground. Anyone else think about the old rock band when they first heard the name of the club in the episode?
Nick is still going hard after Owen. That’s what you get for flirting with his girl. “Don’t let this guy pull any of his rich and charming crap on you.” Haha. Nancy assures Nick that rich and charming isn’t her type, ohhh burn.
The underground velvet masque
Nancy asks Owen a series of questions. She wants to know if he is familiar with the velvet masque and what his affiliation with Ryan Hudson is…but he evades and then invites her sailing.
When Nancy gets back home, she nearly jumps out of her skin when Ryan pops out from behind the front door. He looks sincerely scared and claims that someone is trying to kill him.
See, this show, it is consistent for one thing and that is for causing mental whiplash.
Ryan says he owes money to people and he can’t pay them off because his father cut him off. He says that he wants to sell his antique coins at some kind of underground auction…you guessed it, the velvet masque. She offers to get the coins for him if he will take her to the auction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUbkfQZGpYo
Ace gives advice
Ace lets Bess know what not to talk about on her upcoming date with Lisbeth. Basically, she shouldn’t mention anything about living in a van, her family, or the fact that she believes in ghosts or sometimes steals things. Haha. It’s a bit of comic relief needed during what is often a super dark show.
Anyway, Lisbeth shows up at The Claw, and Ace tries to help with the awkwardness. He’s hilarious but helps to get her to stop talking about vermin. Yep. Vermin.
Lucy Sable went to the velvet masque the year before she died. So Nancy flat out asks him, and his response makes it seem like he has no clue why she would be asking. Nancy finally tells George and Nick, because they show up at her door while Ryan is there, that she is being haunted by Lucy Sable, which is why she needs to help Ryan. And what do these punks do? They get all butt hurt about the fact that she didn’t tell them she was being haunted sooner. Not that they were dealing with anything over the last six weeks. Idiots.
Sinking ships tell stories
When George and Nick leave Nancy’s house, they bond over the fact that Nancy doesn’t trust them. So they look into the Roman burial coins. Those coins happen to be on the manifest for a sunken ship. The coins could prove the Hudsons are complicit in a dozen murders. Ryan doesn’t seem to know this part though. Looks like his family has been up to no good for a long time, but it also seems he is innocent or just aloof?
Nancy gets the Bonny Scot ship Roman coins, and when she returns him to give them to Ryan, she sees Lucy Sable hurting him. It appears that she burns his wedding ring into his hand. Ryan tells Nancy that when he was a teenager, he dated Lucy and he’s the one who took Lucy to the velvet masque. He’s clearly hiding something.
What a mask can tell us
George tells Nick that if he wants to stay in the game, with Nancy, he needs to be just as relentless. They decide to get help from Tandy, so that they, too, will get into the velvet masque. So, they approach Tandy’s beau, Ace. Then they invite Bess along and ask her to help them steal the coins. Looks like the whole crew will be crashing this supposed underground party. They wonder why everyone is looking at them, but then realize that maybe they should be wearing masks like everyone else.
Nancy finds the masks she is looking for, the medusa, the kraken, and the king. There seems to be a riddle in the last poem that Lucy Sable wrote, where she claims she saw Medusa embrace the Kraken instead of her King. Interesting.
Hmmm. Owen shows up. He’s looking for the Roman coins. Apparently, they belong to his family. He tells Nancy to leave. He claims he is trying to protect her, but she won’t leave until she finds a Pegasus. She is given directions on where to find it, but then she runs into Nick. He tells her that he, George, and Bess are there to steal the coins. However, when George screams to activate the plan to steal said coins, Bess is making out with Lisbeth and is late to the game. Bess is caught red-handed, but for some reason, Owen gets her out of trouble. Hmm. Maybe he can be trusted after all?
Lucy shows Nancy the past
When Nancy finds the Pegasus, she begins to piece together what happened to Lucy Sable. Ryan’s mother was wearing a Medusa mask, and Lucy saw her kissing someone who was not her husband. Oh, the plot thickens!
Nancy, not knowing when to be quiet, tells Mrs. Hudson that she knows Lucy found her in a compromising position. She says she knows Nancy will be discreet, just like her father. Oooo. What does that mean?
Ryan sees Lucy Sable’s ghost; he looks happy to see her, and she smiles when she sees him. They kiss. Nancy shows up, and then Lucy’s mean ghost comes out and burns Ryan’s hand again. He shares that he was away at boarding school when she was murdered. He was told by his father to never speak about her again, it sounds like he really liked Lucy. Sadly, she never told Ryan what she witnessed. Ryan says his family “handled it” by using Carson Drew, her dad.
No place like home
When Nancy gets home, she gets a call from her lab assistant helper. He tells her that there are two sets of DNA on Lucy Sable’s crown, her own and a mystery woman. This provides relief for Nancy who was thinking that her dad had been the one to kill Lucy.
Owen finds out that the auction he bought were not real Roman coins because Nancy swiped them back before leaving the velvet masque. He shows up at The Claw just as Nancy was attempting to reassure Nick that she is not interested in Owen. She tells Nick she will take care of it, and she heads outside. Owen then asks Nancy to have dinner with him; she tells him she is not available. She says her heart belongs to a certain mechanic. Well, Nick is watching their conversation from inside the diner, and he looks angry. He clearly does not trust Nancy or Owen.
Lisbeth shows up at The Claw with pizza and asks Bess if they can have a second chance. The two kiss again and vow to keep fewer secrets from each other.
The episode ends with the coins slowly moving on their own.
If you’re brave enough to catch the next episode, tune in on the CW next Wednesday at 9 p.m. or check back here for the recap.
