The Hardy Boys (2020) – Season 1 Episode 7 Recap & Review

A Figure In Hiding

The Tall Man receives a damning call from his contact, telling him he’s been sloppy. Episode 7 of The Hardy Boys begins with him vowing to bring the object back and more determined than ever to make up for amends. Whoever this person is on the other end of the line, they’re not messing around. However, the Tall Man is clever and phones Kanika, asking for protection and tries to make a deal with her instead.

Joe meanwhile decides to try and wear a wire to gain crucial evidence but it’s still a work in progress right now and not 100% complete. Still, his art of deception is still intact as he fools Trudy into leaving the house for a sea cadet meeting with Phil. Together, they make it to the front door but obviously all of this was a smokescreen for Joe’s real mission.

He meets Biff and with the missing fabric in hand, decide to work together and find the “dirty cop.” Well, from what we’ve seen, this appears to be Ezra. Anyway, first port of call is Jesse’s house where they look through her wardrobe but find nothing to link her to what’s going on.

Back at Wilt’s, tension mounts between Callie and Chet as they decide to head up to Rosegrave Prep with Frank to look around campus. It’s quite the illustrious place and both Callie and Frank head in to see Dean Paul. They have questions about his romance with Laura but apparently they didn’t keep in contact after she left.

They’re rudely interrupted though by a man named Stavros who decides to show them around. When they leave, it’s obvious that Paul is a little rattled. Well, he soon catches Frank snooping around as he evades Stavros and starts looking around.

Paul catches him red-handed but Frank is enraged. Given the evidence on his desk, it seems to hint that Laura was with him several weeks before she died. Paul continues to deny it but eventually shuts the door and starts berating Frank. However, he writes on a slip of paper “Meet me in the greenhouse in 20 mins” and hurries away.

Eventually he meets Frank in secret and admits the truth. He and Laura dated for a while and both were from rich families and had their future mapped out. Gloria was orchestrating Laura’s future all this time but she decided to turn her back on everything. When Paul didn’t, she saw it as an act of betrayal. When Paul finds out about Laura’s murder, he seems torn about it and apologizes for what happened.

Afterward, Frank speaks to Callie and realizes that there’s something bigger going on at the Prep School and that it’s clearly a front for something involving his Grandmother. Quite what though, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Kanika learns that someone called Victor died but his “piece of the eye” has gone. With him dead and seemingly part of this “other party”, she wonders who could be involved in all of this. It seems to hint toward this secret society but for now that’s still unknown.

While investigating Ezra’s house, Ezra returns prompting Joe and Biff to jump out the back and scramble away. In the bin though happens to be the torn fabric from the jacket. It’s now clear that the kids know Ezra is the buyer – something many of us would have figured out beforehand. Realizing that he’s corrupt, the kids contemplate what to do next.

That evening, Joe and Frank reconvene and share what they’ve found out. Now it seems clear that a lot of people are involved in this conspiracy and even worse, Dean Paul has gone missing from Rosegrave thanks to a “family emergency.”

In the greenhouse though, Frank finds a letter from Paul telling him that the answers are in Laura’s past. But what part of the past? Well Joe believes Gloria is grooming Frank into becoming the leader of this society. Suddenly, they’re cornered by the Tall Man who shows up and starts chasing the boys. That soon comes to a crushing stop though when he’s hit by a car.

The Episode Review

With the truth starting to come out, it seems likely now that there’s numerous forces at work looking to track down this artifact or the “piece of the eye” that holds the key to everything going on. How does it give out good luck? Is it part of the demon summoning story we heard about at the carnival? We’ll have to wait and see but the mystery is just starting to deepen now.

The romance angle between Frank and Callie does feel shoehorned into this though and to be honest, I can’t help everything here would have worked a lot better if all these kids stay friends and focus on the mystery at hand. It’s clear there’s going to be some melodramatic rumblings in the near future between this lot.

The pacing remains a bit of a problem too and some of the clues are a little too obvious from what we’ve seen. Still, despite all that this one remains very watchable, flaws and all.