Character page for Nancy Drew.
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Main Characters
Nancy
Nancy Drew
- Portrayed by: Kennedy McMann, Eden Summer Gilmore (7th grade), Emma Oliver (4 years old)
- Amateur Sleuth: Naturally.
- Batman Gambit: Nancy derails Temperance's plan to use hex seals on the kids in the youth center by having them transferred to her so that Temperance will have to stop them from being used.
- Cool Car: Nick fixes up her mom's vintage roadster, a 63-64 Alpine two-seater convertable, dark blue, later powder blue.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Nancy learns that she's the child of Ryan Hudson and Lucy Sable, the latter having given her up to the Drews after being threatened by Ryan's parents. This more falls under Deceptive Legacy, since Nancy never knew that she was secretly adopted.
- Deadpan Snarker: Especially in her voice-over narration.
- Defective Detective: Although great at mystery-solving, Nancy begins the series burned out, friendless, and depressed.
- Determinator: Nancy will solve her cases, come hell or high water. And in Horseshoe Bay, she'll get both.
- Experienced Protagonist: Nancy did solve some mysteries as a kid, but had to put it on hiatus due to her mom passing away from cancer.
- By the final season, she creates her own PI agency.
- Heel–Face Reincarnation: The last few episodes of the series reveal that one of Nancy's past incarnations was Horseshoe Bay founder August Pritchard, an evil man who kidnapped and fatally experimented on many Native American children to create the town's Sin Eater.
- In the Blood: The revelation of her true heritage causes Nancy to spiral into worrying that she is just as manipulative and uncaring as her paternal grandparents.
- Kid Detective: She solved her first case when she was in the seventh grade, and at the time she got away with it because it was seen as cute. Nowadays her amateur sleuthing serves only to annoy people and make her into a social pariah. Even the police question her motives in looking into the murder of Tiffany Hudson.
- Like Father, Like Son: Nancy lays into her father for all the illegal things he did around the time of Lucy's death. He responds that she's just like him, breaking the law if she thought it was the right thing to do.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: After solving her first case Note Nancy was grounded, but she didn't mind so much because she became hooked on solving mysteries.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: For Nancy, laws are optional. This is something she picked up from Carson.
- Shared Family Quirks: According to Ryan, Nancy has some of these in common with Lucy, such as a similar facial expression when figuring something out. Another one is from her paternal grandfather, Everett Hudson, with both of them folding their arms and tapping their right fingers when confronted.
George
Georgia 'George' Fan
- Portrayed by: Leah Lewis
- Adaptational Jerkass: She is more of a jerk in the show, especially toward Nancy. Where she was her friend in the books, George now has a grudge against Nancy that she has held since high school. George later teams up with Nancy to solve the Dead Lucy mystery.
- Adaptation Name Change: Her name was George Fayne in the books but it's changed to George Fan in the show, probably due to the change in ethnicity.
- Adaptational Personality Change: George has gone from being Nancy's best friend in the books to her high school nemesis.
- Big Sister Instinct: Her full level of this is achieved when her younger sister Ted is kidnapped.
- Deadpan Snarker: George is the snarkiest in a World of Snark.
- Hidden Depths: In "The Trail of the Missing Witness", George was able to recreate her grandmother's clam chowder on her own without researching for recipes.
- In the final season, George was spending time to prepare for being a lawyer in Horseshoe Bay.
- Race Lift: George in the books is white, whereas the George in the show is Asian.
- Tomboyish Name: George is something of a tomboy and goes by this rather than Georgia.
- Twofer Token Minority: Due to her Race Lift, George is now an East Asian girl.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: She and Bess are cousins in the books, but in the show, they are not related in any way, due to the change in George's ethnicity.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Her mom Really Gets Around and is The Alcoholic, leaving George to raise her sisters and run The Claw.
Bess
Bess Turani Marvin
- Portrayed by: Maddison Jaizani
- Adaptational Sexuality: She's a Lipstick Lesbian on the show.
- Ambiguously Brown: Here her ethnicity is unclear, with Bess being played by a British-Iranian woman.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Constantly breaking glasses at The Claw.
- Fake American: Invoked. It turns out that Bess isn't actually American. She is actually British, and her credentials are fake.
- Hollywood Genetics: The casting director was obviously very careful seeking out actors in the Marvin family who would match Jaizani's coloring, such that Owen and Diana are significantly darker than the rest of Horseshoe Bay, thus averting this trope.
- Hypocrite: "You stole her* jewelery?!" Said the girl who took her diamond wedding ring.
- Impoverished Patrician: Implied. She is described as a "rich city girl," wears an expensive watch and shoes and is said via narration that she is crashing with a rich aunt in a mansion. However, near the end of the first episode, Bess is revealed to be living in a van.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Bess, who has long hair, with a feminine clothing style and manner, is also a lesbian. She's shown looking for dates with women by a dating app, and gets a girlfriend in the early half of the show.
- Mysterious Past: She supposedly has a mysterious past, according to the official write-up, which is probably the reason why a supposedly rich city girl is living in a van.
- Race Lift: She's a white blonde in the books, but in the show Bess is played by an actress of Iranian descent.
- Transparent Closet: Early in the first season, she's not really open about her sexuality, but coming out is such a minor event it feels more like this trope, though she's at least open about it with her friends. That said, the closet is so transparent that Lisbeth immediately clocks her and flirts with abandon.
- Twofer Token Minority: As a result of her Race Lift, she's Ambiguously Brown (played by a British-Iranian woman).
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: She and George are cousins in the books, but in the show, they are not related in any way, due to the change in George's ethnicity.
Nick
Ned 'Nick' Nickerson
- Portrayed by: Tunji Kasim
- Adaptation Name Change: Goes by Nick instead of Ned in the show, which, according to Nancy, is the right call.Nancy (narrating): No offence to all the Neds out there.
- Alliterative Name: His name is Ned Nickerson. Or, if you'd rather, given the name he prefers to go by, his name is Nick Nickerson.
- Bookworm: His garage is filled with literature given to him by Tiffany, having taken up the interest while he was in prison.
- Just Got Out of Jail: Spent time in prison for manslaughter when he was still a minor. Tiffany Hudson was the witness who testified against him.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The reason he went to prison. At a party, Nick defended a girl from a jock who was harassing her. The jock escalated the situation to violence and Nick ended up killing him in self-defense. Unfortunately, Tiffany's inaccurate testimony got him sent to prison for murder.
- Revenge: Implied to be Nick's motive for murdering Tiffany. It is later revealed that Nick is not the murderer and bore no ill will toward her, and in fact, considered her a friend.
- Race Lift: He's white in the books but is black in the show.
Ace
Ace H.
- Portrayed by: Alex Saxon
- Canon Foreigner: He doesn't exist in the books, only as a character for the show. Though, there is a fan theory about him being a Hardy boy. Especially since his last name has never been revealed and he has a secret half-brother. The series finale confirms that his initials are A.H. (it couldn't be more explicit than that because the Hardy boys only entered the public domain shortly after it was filmed).
- Dissonant Serenity: Ace is always calm, collected and easygoing. It really takes a lot to rattle him.
- The Heart: Ace is definitely the sweetest and most non-judgemental member of his friends. He's always there to help or offer a shoulder to lean on. Ace is also the only one who can get through to Nancy when she's being stubborn.
- The Informant: In early Season 1, he was spying on the other suspects to Tiffany's murder for the police chief in return for McGinnis keeping him out of trouble when he was caught hacking into a federal database.
- Informed Judaism: There are occasional brief mentions of Shabbat dinner with his family, along with mentions that his grandparents spoke Yiddish, his mom offering him "a nosh", and a bin decorated with Hanukkah stickers that he uses to temporarily store Dead Lucy's bones, because Ace thought using the Halloween bin would've been "too on the nose." He obviously doesn't keep kosher otherwise.
- Just Friends: He claims he and Nancy are this when his new girlfriend questions their relationship after sensing a "vibe" between them. By season 3, they are confirmed soulmates.
- Known Only by Their Nickname: Everybody just calls him 'Ace,' which is apparently all a part of his 'Zen and the Art of Dishwashing' thing.
- Nice Guy: Ace is incredibly nice and friendly.
- Oh, Crap!: In "The Witch Tree Symbol", Ace is one of the four people in Horseshoe Bay to have parts of Charity's soul. Which means that he's the last target of Temperance.
- Only Sane Man: Is definitely the least emotionally damaged of the Drew Crew, but at the same time he's the most free-spirited and always up for hijinks and shenanigans.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Sometimes shares this role with Bess. He's usually the one to lighten the mood.
- The Quiet One: He's the most soft-spoken and quiet of the Drew Crew, but when he does speak it's either helpful and informative or something silly and off-beat.
- The Smart Guy: Shares this role with Nancy. While everyone in the Drew Crew has their own set of skills; Ace is a brilliant hacker, is very knowledgeable and knows multiple languages.
- The Stoner: Is said to take a lot of smoke breaks and even has a Weed Guy as a contact on his phone. The "Weed Guy" in question is actually the chief of police, whom Ace is spying for.
Family Members
Carson
Carson Drew
- Portrayed by: Scott Wolf
- Amoral Attorney: How the residents of HB viewed him after he was recruited to help the Hudson family. He later stepped down from the role due to implications of Tiffany's 911 call records broadcasted live during her funeral.
- Papa Wolf: All his actions, good and bad, were intended to protect Nancy from learning the truth about her past. Too bad for him that Nancy was so curious and that the ghost of her biological mother was haunting her.
- Secret-Keeper: As a lawyer this is expected for his job. He also led his fellow town mates to believe that Nancy was his biological daughter with his late wife Kate when they moved back to Horseshoe Bay when Nancy was an toddler, since her birth mother wanted her to be protected from her birth father's side of the family.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: "Keeping the secret changes everything, too," after Nancy tells him that she finally understands why he never told her about being adopted, but not letting the person who is unknowingly the secret themselves know in a reasonable timeframe changes their relationship with The Secret Keeper.
- Those Two Guys: From the second season onwards with Ryan when they talk to Nancy as they are both her biological (Ryan) and adoptive (Carson) fathers.
Katherine
Katherine Drew
- Portrayed by: Sara Canning
- Missing Mom: Died prior to the start of the series’s main events however her absence has a prominent effect in Season 1.
Victoria
Victoria Fan
- Portrayed by: Liza Lapira
- The Alcoholic: Claims that it helps with her clairvoyance, but also claims that being involved with supernatural terrors makes her drink.
- Named by the Adaptation: Here she's given the first name Victoria. In the other adaptions, George's mother's name is never stated.
- Psychic Powers: Her clairvoyance, which seems to have been prominent among the Fan women who came before her.
- Really Gets Around: Four daughters, all with different fathers, none of whom stuck around.
Temperance
Temperance Hudson
- Anti-Villain: Tunji Kasim said that she's a very complex character
who doesn't do bad things because it amuses her. - Crazy-Prepared: "The Danger of the Hopeful Sigil" reveals that she foresaw several ways that Nancy and Ace might try to break their love curse and went to the trouble of sabotaging them beforehand.
Rich Families
Ryan
Ryan Hudson
- Portrayed by: Riley Smith
- The Atoner: Partially because of his family's malignant influence, Ryan was initially a rather callous individual. As the show went on, he gave the impression that he sought to at least be better than his father. The revelation of Lucy's fate, him being Nancy's biological father, and George confronting him over their relationship forced him to undergo a lot of self-reflection. He's got a ways to go, but it's clear that he is trying to be a better person.
- Big Damn Heroes: Everette Hudson is interrogating the Drew Crew over their trespassing on his property and things look fairly bleak. Cue Ryan Hudson sliding in to save his daughter by providing a cover story. He then proceeds to distract his father further by threatening to sabotage his current business venture.
- Canon Foreigner: He doesn't exist in any of the books.
- Daddy Issues: With his father Everett. Which only escalate after finding out that his father was the one who spread the rumors about Lucy, which led to her suicide.
- Disappeared Dad: Since he never knew that Lucy was pregnant until he read her journal 19 years later. Although he knows that Nancy is his biological daughter he still missed out on fatherhood with her.
- Good Feels Good: Ryan says that being a good person and a father to Nancy (even though he doesn't live with her) feels good, which he felt over time he spends time with Nancy to help in her cases.
- Those Two Guys: From the second season onwards with Carson when they talk to Nancy as they are both her biological (Ryan) and adoptive (Carson) fathers.
- Unable to Cry: Was never able to mourn for Lucy properly for fear that it would make him a suspect in her murder. He's finally able to do so more than nineteen years later when the details of his relationship with her and the circumstances of her death come out.
Tiffany
Tiffany Hudson
- Portrayed by: Sinead Curry
- The Atoner: Testified at Nick's trial for manslaughter and has regretted it ever since, enough so that she kept in contact with him and even left him five million dollars in bearer bonds.
- Bookworm: Implied to be a huge lover of literature. It is this shared interest that built the friendship between herself and Nick.
- Murder by Mistake: She was poisoned by mistake, it was intended for her husband Ryan, by Lucy's brother as revenge for the belief that Ryan caused Lucy’s death.
- Posthumous Character: Is killed within minutes of appearing in the pilot episode, and subsequent appearances are via flashbacks.
- Rich Bitch: Implied to be a very picky eater and drinker, and describes Horseshoe Bay as "the town from Jaws, but without the shark." Subverted by the third episode, when it's revealed she has been keeping contact with Nick, left him a lot of money, and applied for an old B&B she owned to be listed as a landmark site.
- Riddle Me This: Seems to be a huge fans of puzzles and riddles, as she posthumously has Nick (with Nancy helping him) follow a series of clues that leads them to one of her properties, an old B&B, where they find the huge stack of bearer bonds she left for Nick.
Everett
Everett Hudson
- Portrayed by: Martin Donovan in Season 1, Andrew Airlie in Season 2
- Abusive Parents: Deliberately tried to break-up his son's relationship with Lucy Sable.
- Archnemesis Dad: Or rather Archnemesis Granddad. He is currently the closest thing the show has to an overall villain and has pretty much devoted his life to killing anyone that catches his ire. He arranged the death of Sebastian Marvin due to his affair with Celia Hudson and his actions directly contributed to the death of Lucy Sable. And the truth of Nancy's heritage as the daughter of Ryan and Lucy is kept secret because he explicitly threatened her while Lucy was pregnant.
- Turns out he's using accounts that he set up in Ryan's name, starting when he was a teenager, for use in his illicit business practices. Ya don't get much scummier than framing your own child for murder.
- Big Bad: Out of the non-supernatural threats on the show.
- Start of Darkness: By all accounts he truly loved his brother, Josiah, and was devastated when he died of alcohol abuse. Except that's not how he died. Everett confronted him and murdered him.
- Would Hurt a Child: Destroying the life of seventeen-year-old girl for falling in love with his son certainly qualifies. And if it didn't then threatening her unborn child, his own grandchild, definitely does.
Horseshoe Bay Police
Chief E.O. McGinnis
Chief E.O. McGinnis
- Portrayed by: Adam Beach
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Has a secret deal with Ace that forces him to spy for the chief. When he threatens to rescind the deal it's implied to be very bad for Ace if he didn't comply.
- Hidden Depths: Chief McGinnis is a believer in First Nations supernatural stuff. It's just that he doesn't show it publicly to show that he's a rational police officer.
- Jerkass: The police chief who pins Nancy and her friends as suspects.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As much of a jerk as he is, the police chief is not without justification in suspecting Nancy and co: They were all in close proximity to the victim when she died and only one of them has an alibi. Also, in Nancy's case, she was the last person known to have seen the victim alive.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Compared to his replacement in "The Haunting of Nancy Drew".
Detective Karen Hart
Detective Karen Hart
- Portrayed by: Alvina August
- Dirty Cop: She teamed up with Joshua in his plan to poison Ryan Hudson by stealing poison from HB police lockup. Unfortunately, the poisoned salad meant for Ryan was delivered to Tiffany instead.
Detective Abe Tamura
Detective Abe Tamura
- Reasonable Authority Figure: When Season 2 started, he said that he didn't have time for "amateurs". But he softens the tone over time.
Recurring Characters
Tom Swift
Tom Swift
- Race Lift: Traditionally depicted as white in his book series, was African American in the Drewverse.
Hannah Gruen
Hannah Gruen
- Portrayed by: Carmen Moore
- Adaptational Job Change: Goes from being the Drews' live-in cook/housekeeper in the books to historian and record keeper in the 2019 series.
- Race Lift: Traditionally depicted as white, here portrayed by a Canadian First Nations actress.
Nelson Park
Special Agent Nelson Park
- Canon Foreigner: Was created for the CW series
Paranormal Entities
Dead Lucy
Lucy Sable, aka Dead Lucy
- Portrayed by: Stephanie Van Dyck
- Bloodstained Sea Queen Dress: Her dress was covered in blood the night she died, and the dress has been in the possession of Carson and Kate Drew ever since, until Carson destroyed it. This is because Lucy called Kate the night of Lucy’s death, Kate came with Carson and they were present when Lucy gave birth to Nancy, which stained her dress. After Lucy fell to her death, Carson found only her bloodstained dress.
- Canon Foreigner: She doesn't exist in any of the books.
- Creepy Children Singing: The first lines of the show are a creepy nursery rhyme about Dead Lucy, spoken by the equally creepy voices of children.Children's Nursery Rhyme: Lucy Sable once was able to look upon the sea. But someone got her in the water, now that's where she'll always be. Count to five, enjoy the view. Hope the killer doesn't get you! One, two, three, four, five. You'll never get out of here alive!
- Jump Scare: Everywhere. Lucy in particular seems to enjoy using these.
- The Lost Lenore: She's this to Ryan Hudson, who is shown to still love and miss her even twenty years after her death.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: The last scene in the pilot is one of these appearing right behind Nancy — it's implied to be Dead Lucy.
- Wight in a Wedding Dress: Well...it's not a wedding dress, but Dead Lucy was wearing a white dress of a "Sea Queen"Note when she died, and as a ghost, she appears wearing the same dress.
Simon
Simon
- Portrayed by: Kyle Strauts
- The Man Behind the Man: Simon willed Nathan Gomber to kidnap Rose when Nancy was still was young.
- Would Hurt a Child: He wants someone to kill a child on his behalf.
Gorham Wraith
Gorham Wraith
- Parasitic Horror: It feeds from the life force of anyone it comes into contact with.
- Would Hit a Girl: The specter would target anyone who is scared of it, male and female alike.
Odette
Odette
- French Jerk: While Odette is far less dangerous than the Aglaeca, this doesn't keep her from being grumpy, rude, snarky, and contemptuous of Nancy and her friends.
- Symbiotic Possession: As of "The Quest for the Spider Sapphire", Odette is living in George's body.
- Averted as "The Siege of the Unseen Specter". George's being warned that her soul is slowly merging with hers and it'll not end well for her.
Grimathorn
Grimathorn
- The Dreaded: Anyone who knows of its name will be killed.
Copperhead
Sin Eater
