Tonight’s Nancy Drew episode begins with a recap of its own. We go back to when Nancy was visiting her Mom’s grave for the first time. She takes that time to continue grieving and to fill her Mom in on all that has happened since she died. We’re also reminded about the time Nancy, her Mom, and her Dad stayed in Europe for a year after Lucy was murdered.
In short, Nancy isn’t sure who she is supposed to trust anymore.
The red wax spiral
If you recall from the last recap, George’s sister Ted went missing from The Claw. She enlists all of her friends to help search, and one thing I notice is that she isn’t wearing all that dark, heavy makeup. Why does this matter? Because George is always acting older than she is, and looking older too with that vamp getup, but today, while she’s searching for her sister, she’s just George- a vulnerable young woman who feels scared.
As everyone scatters to look in different areas around The Claw, Nancy and Nick go back to where Ted had last been playing. Nancy walks into the room and then turns to Nick to ask if he smells burnt matches; sulfur. When they move Ted’s coloring book from its spot on the floor they see a red spiral design made with wax. Nancy tells Nick that she has seen that pattern before. It turns out that when Nancy was in second grade, she found a missing child, Rose, behind a hidden staircase. It’s the spiral design that prompts Nancy to tell the others that she thinks Ted has been kidnapped.
When the police come to question everyone at The Claw, Chief McGinnis realizes that Nancy isn’t there to be interviewed. This is when the scene cuts to a view of the local prison. Yes, of course, Nancy is already investigating on her own and the first stop she makes is to see Nathan, the man who had kidnapped the missing child from all those years ago. However, the man behind bars does not wish to speak to Nancy. It could be the fact that she is supremely self-righteous when talking to him and ruined her chances of getting any sort of information. What he does say is that he was not the hidden staircase kidnapper and she was wrong all those years ago.
The tall thing
After leaving the prison, Nancy calls Rose on the phone. She asks if there had ever been anyone else with the kidnapper, perhaps he hadn’t worked alone. Rose says she doesn’t remember seeing another person, but that she recalls having weird dreams about the kidnapper talking to a “tall thing.” In a flashback, we see Nancy remembering Nathan talking to someone or something in the shadows of a warehouse. There is a tall figure with a creepy masked face who Nathan refers to as Simon. The thing is that Simon doesn’t look human.
Nancy’s Dad is at the police station with his girlfriend police officer, Karen. They find out that Nancy went to visit the previous kidnapper, Nathan, in jail. In finding those visit logs, they also find that someone named Moira Baker has been visiting him in jail every month, like clockwork.
The warehouse is the key
As Nancy and her crew of friends from The Claw begin to break down what they know about their latest mystery, they realize that something about the warehouse must be the key. Both Rose and Nancy remember an entity at that warehouse, although it is foggy, almost like a dream. They also know that for months prior to kidnapping Rose back in 2013, Nathan was also obsessed with the warehouse and became unbalanced. This tip is thanks to Owen, the realtor guy who is stirring things up between Nancy and Nick. Gah.
Nick reminds the gang that they have run into an entity of some kind before, using Ted’s dragon game. *light bulb moment* What if their seance, which we know brought back all types of spirits, brought back something evil? Nancy presumes that the evil spirit has taken over a human accomplice and she asks Bess about the people who were waited on at The Claw while Ted was there. Bess begins to describe a woman, with a fresh but ugly manicure, and a tattoo on her hand. Does anyone want to guess what the tattoo looked like???
You betcha.
The spiral design. Two spirals to be exact, the very same tattoo that kidnapper Nathan has on his hand.
Okay next question, who is this woman? You only get two guesses.
EXACTLY! It is Moira Baker. Dun Dun Dun.
Figuring out the cipher
When Chief McGinnis is at Moira’s apartment, he finds a tiny piece of paper with a code on it. George takes a look at the photo and asks Nick if he has ever seen anything like it. (Just as a sidenote, these two are totally getting together. It is so obvious that George has a thing for Nick and I’m thinking it’s not too long until he decides she’s not so bad herself.)
While the crew takes time to figure out the cipher that will crack this code, Nancy heads to the place where all of this began six years ago: the warehouse. Nick asks Nancy if he can go with her, he says he feels it could be a traumatic experience. He’s being nice, but she’s bent out of shape still from him breaking up with her, so she declines the offer (again, this is only going to further push Nick into the arms of George, but that’s just my theory). Anyway, Nick being an upstanding guy calls Nancy’s Dad, and when she gets to the warehouse her Dad is already there waiting. Thank goodness. I’m glad he decides to play Dad today because that is what she needs.
Admittedly, when they do some banter about their wardrobe choices I did have an “awww” chuckle moment. You don’t get many of those with this show, or on any of The CW primetime shows for that matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWsDCfVFfec
The hidden staircase
Nancy and her Dad go into the warehouse and she begins to remember things from the night when she rescued Rose. She is able to locate a shelf which triggers a hidden door leading to a staircase to open. Nancy is visibly struggling with the memories that follow. It’s as if she is back in second grade again. She is shaken to find these memories had been buried all this time. Her Dad helps talk her through by explaining that memory repression is a survival mechanism.
The wood grain of the door in this area of the warehouse has a familiar pattern. When Nancy shines the flashlight on the door she sees the two spirals that are tattooed on both Nathan and Moira. That tattoo is what they used to remember where to find Simon. It leads to an area where they see small burlap dolls hanging off of a bare tree. Can you say creepy?
Back at the claw
While George and Nick field calls offering tips, George starts to break down. She’s done well in my opinion, I’d have been screaming at everyone from the very beginning if my sibling had been kidnapped. One of the tips seems to offer a decent lead. Moira Baker has relatives nearby who own an antique shop. George and Nick go to check it out after she finds a crowbar and shares that Ted is the smartest of all her siblings.
At the antique shop, we see a woman hiding in the shadows holding a knife while George calls out for Ted. The woman is hiding behind a glass shelf, so in my opinion, she’d be somewhat visible, but it’s dark so I’m running with it. While this is happening in the store, Nancy and her Dad are still at Simon’s shrine and they decide that perhaps Moira’s connection with the entity can be broken if they are able to remove the blood. It seems far fetched, but hey I’m writing about demons and rituals right now, so again, I’m running with it.
Next we see Chief McGinnis at the prison talking to Nathan. Nathan screams out in pain, as if the blood being removed from the ritual stand via fire, is physically burning him. This means, yes, back in the shop Moira also screams out in pain. Perhaps this means the evil is leaving their bodies? George yells at Moira, demanding she tells them where to find Ted. She locks Moira in a storage room and then Ted pops up looking unharmed, but sleepy. She’s surprisingly chipper when she sees George. Well, kids are resilient after all.
Simon says you will pay
Nancy and her Dad hear a low growling, a breeze kicks up in the enclosed shrine area. Looks like Simon is not happy. They both hear a voice, it says, “I will find another child.”
This triggers Nancy to go a little batshit crazy, not that I blame her. She picks up something and begins breaking down the shrine. She’s having flashbacks of herself as a young girl while she cuts down the tree, which then catches on fire. Nancy breaks down and says she was so scared (her young self) and that she thought she’d never see her Mom and Dad again. Thankfully, since Nick called Mr. Drew, he is there to calm her and let her know that she is okay. It’s a tender moment.
Do I think Simon is really gone? Mmm… no. I’ve seen enough of these types of shows to know better. Nancy goes back to the prison to visit Nathan and she lets him know that she sent Simon away. He creepily tells her that he can still smell Simon on her, eck. So. There’s that.
The northeast corner
Nancy finds her old blue notebook. It had fallen out of her bag when she was a child. Later we find out that the importance of this notebook is a letter inside it which had been written by Nancy’s Mom. Apparently, Nancy asked a lot of questions about death and mortality after her Mom got sick for the first time.
Nancy had asked her Mom what part of heaven she would be in when she died. Her mom’s answer was, “the northeast corner.” The letter has a map drawn on it, which is meant to help Nancy find the northeast corner of heaven should she need to someday. (No, I’m not crying, my eyes are just adjusting to the light of the tv.) Dad and daughter embrace, it’s a warm moment.
Speaking of notebooks…where is the one that had been laying on Nancy’s bed? The one Karen saw when she was in Nancy’s bedroom earlier?
Because, it’s never that easy
Bess calls Nancy to let her know that Ace woke up from his coma. She is with Owen at the time and she lists all of the things that are going well or working out. They found Ted, Ace woke up, the bad guys are in jail… you know what I’m thinking? Something really crappy is about to happen, because it’s never that easy.
It is at this moment that Bess tells Owen that her Mom always told her she was related to the Marvin family. “Hey Owen, I think I’m related to you and your wealthy family, would you mind giving me some saliva?” While he looks skeptical, he does agree, which is pretty decent of him since this really is an odd request from some random girl.
Then the ball drops, shit hits the fan, and the daddy-daughter embrace moment from before gets squashed.
Karen comes to the door looking kind of somber, and my stomach sinks. She took Nancy’s journal, and in Nancy’s note was a whole hell of a lot of evidence linking her Dad to Lucy Sable’s murder. Nancy cries out, her journal is just circumstantial, there is no physical proof. Then, Chief McGinnis drops the bombshell. Carson Drew’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon. They matched the prints he left on a glass at the police station earlier.
Good grief, this show is a roller coaster! And that is how it ends my friends.
If you’re brave enough to catch the next episode, tune in on the CW when the series starts back up on January 15, 2020 at 9 p.m. or check back here for the recap.
