The Hardy Boys (2020) – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Where The Light Can’t Find You

We begin episode 2 of The Hardy Boys on a plane as a strange man begins freaking out and acting erratically. A tall man sitting next to him shakes his head in disapproval before realizing that this is all an act. Realizing he’s been robbed, the Tall Man rips open the bathroom door and finds nothing. A disguise lies on the floor and with a parachute, this thief looks to have jumped.

Back in Bridgeport, the kids discuss this story about the plane while Frank finds a vital clue in Laura’s box of belongings. A solitary scribble of a love heart on a lined piece of paper piques his interest. Shading in with pencil reveals the name of the boat that was invaded by armed guards. As they contemplate what this means, Fenton arrives and tells them they should stop looking into this.

Fenton meets his old partner who reveals details about Kanika Khan. She’s ultra rich but no one seems to knows where her money is coming from. Organized crime? Crooked politicians? Either way, things have certainly taken an interesting turn and it doesn’t look good. Anyway, Fenton’s job to track down her nephew seems to coincide with the earlier plane incident.

Back home, Joe and Frank work together to break into Fenton’s briefcase but they don’t get much time to work with before he shows back up again. Frank calls his Father out over what he’s hiding and even drops Khan’s name too. Fenton remains guarded though and refuses to give up any information.

Joe greets Biff at Wilt’s but notices that she’s taking an order including shaving foam somewhere. He decides to follow her and heading through the trees, spies her from afar handing it over to a stranger. He senses Joe is nearby and tells him to come out into the open. He claims to have jumped over the boat with a radio but has a pretty busted leg too. It’s pretty clear that this could well be the guy from the airplane at the beginning of the episode.

Anyway, Joe doesn’t trust him and wants to know exactly what he’s hiding. Well, it turns out he’s stashed away a gold idol we saw on the boat at the beginning of last episode. Biff is agreeing to help him ferry essential goods in exchange for cash.

Eventually this man comes clean to the kids, admitting that he wasn’t on the boat but read about the boat in the paper. He’s a delivery guy but doesn’t know who his buyer is so he needs a working radio to try and pinpoint exactly where to go.

When Joe fixes the radio for him, he manages to decipher the Morse code message coming through which happens to be directions on both a latitude and longitude scale. Biff and Joe seize their opportunity to hustle and haggle with him over more money to help him with his drop.

Fenton meanwhile continues to search for evidence, eventually uncovering a newspaper cropping with Laura scribbling “things are moving faster” from Rupert. Unfortunately he’s blindsided but manages to thwart the threat and get away.

Scrambling to a phone box that evening, he rings Bridgeport and tells Frank that he’s found something. He doesn’t want Joe to worry though and asks Frank to lie to him.

When Fenton hangs up the phone, someone steps out a car and begins walking toward him. As we soon see, he’s not the only one looking as the Tall Man from the plane is alive and well, doing his best to hijack the radio broadcast and work out what it means. He receives a call and now it’s revealed that a survivor from the boat is currently holding out in Bridgeport.

Joe and Frank gain the support from the other kids in town to work on this case. At home, Joe finds a letter with a code on and sets to work trying to decipher it. As he does, Callie and Frank head up to meet Shauna in a bid to find Ernie, the guy from the boat. She claims not to have seen him though and refuses to give anything up.

Anyway, the kids follow Shauna down to the basement and eventually find Ern hiding. They ask him about the symbol and he starts to divulge exactly what happened that night on the boat. The box we picked up also had that same symbol Frank’s deciphered and goes on to give a detailed description of the trench-coat wearing man on the boat. The kids promise to help him and eventually phone the police.

Just as he does, the Tall Man shows up and walks purposefully past the kids and straight toward Ern. Thankfully they manage to get away after trapping him behind a shelf.

Meanwhile, Aunt Trudy returns home to find the house empty and the kids gone. Joe meanwhile, happens to be out watching the local residents suspiciously as the chief of police shows up at the drop point. That’s not all, he also finds the strange man by the coastline has disappeared when he heads back.

Trudy heads over to see Gloria, believing the boys are with her. Only, they’re definitely not and as she frantically tries to find where they are, Frank and Joe both return home and head upstairs as if everything is normal.

Inside Joe’s room happens to be the man from before and he feeds back what’s happened, knowing that he’s a fugitive given the parachute found on the beach. Anyway, the fugitive soon leaves and convinces Joe not to say anything given he’s essentially an accomplice now.

That evening, Joe and Frank begin sifting through old items up in the attic. Among the belongings happen to be a newspaper cropping for the Astghik and a book called “The Strange Tales Of Bridgeport.” The day Laura died, she happened to be in town and together, Joe and Frank bring all the clues they’ve uncovered thus far and look over the symbol, realizing that this holds the key to everything. Outside their house though, the Tall Man happens to be watching them.

The Episode Review

As The Hardy Boys continues to unravel crucial clues from the past, there’s a distinct 90’s vibe hanging over this one given the lack of cellphones and electronics. There’s a lot of archaic investigative work here too, with the newspaper clippings and code deciphering but it does work quite well in the context of the series.

With the other kids getting involved too, there’s definitely some Stranger Things/The Famous Five vibes going on but The Hardy Boys does quite well to keep things intriguing. Although the scenes with Trudy seem like filler and there’s a danger this could start to become a consistent trend, there’s enough enjoyable to be had with this one to keep things watchable.