Welcome back, Drew Crew! It feels great to be back in Horseshoe Bay, doesn’t it? The supernatural never stops in this seaside town, though it does have its ebbs, flows, and lulls as evidenced on Nancy Drew Season 4 Episode 1, the premiere episode of the fourth and final season (an absolute bummer!).
Nancy (Kennedy McMann), who now spearheads Nancy Drew Investigates out of Icarus Hall, has been taking on minor cases that veer into “normal” territory—think locating a missing cat—to pay the rent, all while the case of the missing bodies (the cliffhanger for season 3) and the curse placed on her and Ace (Alex Saxon) looms over her head.
That’s a lot for anyone to take on, and then you add in Ace’s arrest in the case of the grave robbery, and well, Nancy feels an immense amount of guilt for letting the case get cold as she thinks she’s somehow led to this moment and this is all her fault.
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Of course, the Drew Crew is on top of it, dethawing the situation almost immediately as their friend’s fate is in their hands.
There’s, naturally, much more to Nancy’s guilt as she’s still grappling with the fact that she had to shatter Ace’s heart into a million pieces due to the lover’s curse Temperance placed on them. She hasn’t told Ace about it because she knows he’d do anything to break it—even something potentially deadly and dangerous—but it’s the big elephant in the room that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
From my experience, when someone tells you that you can’t have something, it makes you want it even more, and in this case, forcing herself to stay away from Ace is driving her crazy.
And it doesn’t help that Ace continues to be in Nancy’s orbit, which is to be expected because he’s in her friend group, but it almost feels like the curse is purposefully pulling them together in order to be extra cruel by reminding them that they can’t be together. Throw it in their face, why don’t ya?
I was surprised that Nancy clued in her dads about the curse as Carson (Scott Wolf) barely even knew that the supernatural existed in the past. Though, I don’t mind having him in the loop. Nancy is an adult and on her own now, so it’s nice that she has this open relationship with both of them and that they both get along so swimmingly. The supernatural is literally Nancy’s life, so it wouldn’t make sense to keep Carson and Ryan (Riley Smith) in the dark.
Sometimes, I forget that Ryan is Nancy’s dad simply because of his age. And it doesn’t help that he’s now buddied up with Bess as it makes me think he’s just a part of the Drew Crew.
Nancy fights her feelings for Ace as best as she can, but as I mentioned in my review of the Nancy Drew Season 3 finale, Ace is perceptive, and he’s not just going to take Nancy’s rejection at face value, especially because every time they’re around each other, you can feel the chemistry, not to mention that both times they got super close, something in the vicinity shattered. That doesn’t just happen for no reason though it definitely adds a little oomph to the forbidden love/attraction plot.
He doesn’t just believe her when she says she doesn’t have feelings for him, and he has the little note she wrote in the bottle with his name on it as proof.
There’s also no one that knows Nancy better than Ace, so he knows when she’s lying. His arrival at Icarus Hall is his way of essentially testing his hypothesis, and Nancy finally gives in, telling him they can’t be together because they are cursed. While that isn’t something anyone wants to hear, it does give him hope! Curses can be broken with the right spell—but now he knows for certain that the girl he’s in love with loves him back! And there’s no better motivation to find a solution.
The writers know they can’t end this series without finding a way to bring Ace and Nancy together because they are endgame!
In the end, Nancy found a way to exonerate Ace by proving to the new sheriff in town—who definitely didn’t believe in the supernatural at first but now has no choice and is probably questioning accepting this job in the first place—that he didn’t steal the bodies from the graves, they merely got up and walked away on their own. Yep, Horseshoe Bay can now count zombies are residents. Nancy was able to prove that they were responsible for moving themselves around town, however, she still has no idea why, and that’s the piece of the puzzle that she absolutely needs because it seems as though they are on a mission to take over Horseshoe Bay, and it may or may not have something to do with the curse. The blood pouring through the town lines was ominous, to say the least.
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The imagery (including the costumes), the scenery, the perfectly timed jumpscares, the new chapter of everyone’s lives that are still—and even more than ever—intertwined by the mystical and supernatural, and how everyone just knew their place in this mystery-solving machine—lent itself to one solid premiere. No one skipped a beat, nothing fell through the cracks—they’ve done this before, and they’ve done it well, and again, I can’t emphasize that, it’s a shame it’s all coming to an end.
George (Leah Lewis) had her doubts about her decision to study law, which Carson put to rest. He may not be involved in all of the investigations, but he’s the group’s dad dad, and it’s nice to see him involved in some capacity. George also got closure with Nick (Tunji Kasim), who explained that he sold the engagement ring out of necessity, with George giving him permission to move on and date one of those thirsty women in town throwing themselves at him. It will be weird to see Nick with anyone else when he finally does decide to put himself out there, but George wants to navigate the single life, it’s not fair to ask him to wait for her.
Bess (Maddison Jaizani) and Addy are still going strong, though I’m standing by my theory that Addy is somehow connected to something menacing. Bess, as the new leader of the Historical Society, is finding that being in possession of dark artifacts comes with a plethora of responsibilities, and when she turns down the odd Glass couple, who Ryan owes, she witnesses their persistence and vengeance firsthand. They really meant to do harm to Ryan and Bess for not getting what they wanted by placing the talisman on his engine. Thankfully, the duo walked away from the car accident unscathed, though the Glasses’ wrath seems like just the beginning.
And caught in the middle of all of it is Tristan, the Glasses son, who has taken a liking to Nancy Drew. I feel the sparks there, though, to be fair, I think Nancy can have chemistry with any person—dead or alive—but I’m not interested in exploring this because I’m team Ace. We all are, actually, so back off! We don’t need yet another obstacle standing in the way of Nancy and Ace finding their way to each other.
Ryan, and now Bess, need to be very careful around this new family as they won’t hesitate to do harm to get what they want, it seems. And how will Tristan play into this?
And finally, there’s the end of it all, closing in on us quickly. I mean the end of Nancy Drew, of course.
The premiere—which tapped in perfectly into the franchise but also what fans love about the series—proves that Nancy Drew is one of the shows that deserves to live on for several seasons—and it’s a damn shame that its biggest curse was The CW.