Season 1, Episode 10:
The Secret Room
Taking a step farther than their mother did and learning the nature of the object at the heart of the mystery, Frank and Joe’s unity fractures over what to do next. Tensions between Chet, Callie, Frank, and Stacy reach a peak.This episode contains examples of:
- Absurdly Elderly Father: It's implied that Sergei and/or Viktor had kids at an older age than most. Stacy is probably only a little bit older than Frank, but she is the granddaughter of one of the original Circle founders (Sergei), while Frank is the great-grandson of another (George), and George's and Ahmed's grandchildren are/were adults in their 30s or 40s.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Chet doesn't take his girlfriend Callie's suspicions of Stacy seriously at all, and in fact treats it with annoyance, because he's chalking them up to Callie having romantic feelings for Frank that she's refusing to admit to and her just being jealous of how much attention Frank has been paying to Stacy; this is making Chet jealous in turn and leads him to break up with her. Chet is completely right that Callie does have feelings for Frank, and he for her, that they've both just been suppressing because of Callie's relationship with Chet—which Stacy also notices and lampshades—and this was indeed some of the initial reason for Callie's dislike of her. Nonetheless, she follows her instincts, has been doing some good detective work to prove her hunch, and turns out to be more correct than she ever suspected when she and Frank witness Stacy hitting her "aunt and uncle", and she's later revealed to be Anastasia Nabokov.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Joe and Biff heading out to Demon's Paw to try to find an entrance into the mine so they can try to destroy the Eye, only to both fall screaming into a mine shaft hole in the ground.
- Co-Dragons: Stacy's supposed "aunt and uncle" are actually her bodyguards that her father Viktor hired before he died to protect her.
- Comfort Food: Frank finds Trudy preparing to pig out on a whole bag of salt-and-vinegar chips after Jesse stood her up for the plans they'd made. Having just learned that Stacy, his new friend he was sort of into, is not who she's claimed to be, Frank decides to join his aunt.
- Dead Person Conversation: The boys read in George's journal that, when Ahmed used the (full) Eye in the past, it allowed him to "speak" in some way with his brother who drowned in childhood. This makes Frank want to try reassembling the Eye so they can attempt to do the same with Laura, but Joe is very against this, stating that it won't really be her and she wanted to destroy the Eye, not put it back together.
- Easily Forgiven: Even though JB sort-of-kidnapped Joe the last time they saw each other, Joe is happy to see him at Wilt's and glad that he's not in jail after being arrested. He is rather apprehensive and unnerved to hear that JB, who's on a bit of a Power High from his piece of the Eye, wants to try reassembling it, warning him that this a bad idea, but still tells him to be careful (of being caught by the cops) before leaving.
- Elephant in the Living Room: With the multiple Love Triangles between Chet, Callie, Frank, and Stacy heightening tensions between the four of them, Chet finally gets sick of tiptoeing around it and just blatantly spells it out to Callie that she has stronger feelings for Frank than she does for him and breaks up with her. He then confronts Frank about it too, though the latter truly wasn't aware (at least consciously) that the tension between Callie and Chet was related to him, and is dismayed by the whole thing.
- The Fake Cutie: Stacy Baker appeared to be a sweet Girl Next Door type with a crush on Frank; then we learn here that she's really Anastasia Nabokov, who came to Bridgeport after her father Viktor was murdered to try to get information from the Hardys. She was the Tall Man's female employer, and running him over with her car was not an accident at all. Frank figures out that there's more to Stacy than meets the eye when she starts being too obvious about pumping him for info and spies on her with Callie, and once he confronts Stacy and she tells him her true identity, she drops the act.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: Played with. Callie's jealousy of the mutual attraction between Frank and Stacy has made her own feelings for Frank much more obvious to the audience, her boyfriend, and Stacy, but because of her loyalty to Chet, she's still trying to deny it to herself and everyone else until Chet finally spells it out for her and breaks off their relationship, at which point she accepts the truth and doesn't deny it anymore.
- The Ingenue: Stacy Baker, a.k.a. Anastasia Nabokov, has been deliberately invoking this to get Frank to fall for her so she could get info from him about the conspiracy going on in Bridgeport. He eventually sees through her when she plays this up a little too much, giving him bad vibes and making him realize she's Too Good to Be True, and helps Callie investigate what's really going on with her.
- Innocently Insensitive:
- Frank picks up on the tension between Chet and Callie and brings it up to her, telling her to let him know if she ever wants to talk about it, but doesn't realize that he himself is the indirect cause until Chet comes to Wilt's to confront him about being the reason his and Callie's relationship fell apart. Frank has subconscious attraction to Callie that he's buried because of his friendship with Chet, so he's not quite as surprised as he should be to hear about the breakup, but is still quite unhappy that Chet blames him for it, as he considers both him and Callie to be his friends and didn't purposely or even knowingly do anything at all to instigate it.
- In the same scene, Phil arrives too and cannot read the room. He briefly senses tension between Chet and Frank and asks what's up, but Frank offers him a free root beer to get him to go away, and Phil cheerfully goes to get the soda, brings it to him, and tells him to "chop-chop" with making it, not noticing how upset Frank is, and the latter has to stop himself from smacking Phil in the back of the head in annoyance.
- Internal Reveal: JB discovers that the Eye has supernatural powers when he experiences impossibly good luck from the Khan piece he stole, and also learns from Joe that there are a total of three pieces.
- Jealous Romantic Witness:
- Chet has been a slow burn version, as not long after Frank came to town, he's seen Callie gradually fall harder and harder for this new guy, to the point that, ever since Stacy started showing interest in Frank, Callie's own attraction has become blatantly obvious. Chet finally has enough of watching his girlfriend pine over someone else, points out her feelings to her, and dumps her.Chet: I'm not going to sit here and tell you to stop feeling something. I just...can't watch you feel it anymore.
- And then later, Callie is just arriving at Wilt's when she sees Stacy kiss Frank (who doesn't kiss her back, but also doesn't move away from it), is visibly crushed, and leaves without coming inside before either of them see her.
- Chet has been a slow burn version, as not long after Frank came to town, he's seen Callie gradually fall harder and harder for this new guy, to the point that, ever since Stacy started showing interest in Frank, Callie's own attraction has become blatantly obvious. Chet finally has enough of watching his girlfriend pine over someone else, points out her feelings to her, and dumps her.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: After Aunt Trudy made Frank and Joe fill her in on their investigation and they swore her to secrecy, this has damaged her friendship/budding relationship with Jesse since the latter realizes that she's holding out on her, while Trudy is clearly unhappy and uncomfortable about this and not being able to tell her the truth. Frank realizes and apologizes to her for this, although Trudy assures him that she made a conscious choice to make the boys come clean and keep their secrets for them.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Stacy, after revealing to Frank that her father was murdered by someone in the Circle just like his mother was, comments, "Guess we have more in common than you thought."
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Joe deduces that Biff was the one who took the piece of the Eye from where they hid it, because she's the only other person besides him and Frank who knew where it was, and she explains that she did it to protect him after JB "abducted" him. This means that, sometime between reporting Joe missing and him being found, she went back to the movie theater and managed to scale the ladder all by herself to get it, without a spotter, even though Joe almost fell off the ladder himself while hiding it even with Biff spotting for him.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Between almost everybody this episode, right as the season moves into its third act.
- The boys' differing opinions over what to do with the Eye (Joe wants to destroy it, Frank wants to try using it to communicate with Laura) causes Joe's frustrations to finally boil over, and he furiously calls Frank out on treating him like a sidekick. Frank leaves the room distraught after his brother is too upset to even talk to him anymore at this point, and this leads to Joe's drastic, impulsive decision to have Biff retrieve the piece of the Eye so they can destroy it themselves.Joe: MY MOM DIED TOO, FRANK! I'm just as angry as you are! Just as scared as you are! So stop pretending like this matters more to you and I'm just the little brother who follows you around!
- Chet and Callie break up over the latter's feelings for Frank, Chet confronts him about this, Frank has a tense meeting with Stacy about her true identity, and Callie watches her kiss him, all of which makes things very strained and awkward between the older kids.
- Jesse is apparently avoiding Trudy after realizing that she's keeping secrets from her, not showing up for plans they'd previously made.
- The boys' differing opinions over what to do with the Eye (Joe wants to destroy it, Frank wants to try using it to communicate with Laura) causes Joe's frustrations to finally boil over, and he furiously calls Frank out on treating him like a sidekick. Frank leaves the room distraught after his brother is too upset to even talk to him anymore at this point, and this leads to Joe's drastic, impulsive decision to have Biff retrieve the piece of the Eye so they can destroy it themselves.
- Power High: JB realizes the piece of the Eye is magic and becomes interested in getting the piece Joe has as well (and the third one, once Joe tells him about it) so he can put them together and have even better luck, not knowing the scope of what the full Eye can do. Joe, who does know this, tries to discourage him by saying no one who's had it has ever used it for anything good, but JB doesn't really listen.JB: Look, Joey, I appreciate it, man, I do, but honestly, for the first time in my life, I could use a bit of power.
- The Reveal: "Stacy Baker" is really Anastasia "Stacy" Nabokov, daughter of the recently-murdered Viktor Nabokov. She believes someone else in the Circle killed him, and came to Bridgeport with her bodyguards (who're posing as her uncle and aunt) to find out who.
- Room Full of Crazy: Joe certainly feels this way about George's Secret Room:Joe: This whole place screams "I went nuts when I found the Eye."
- Sarcastic Confession: JB realizes the pieces of the Eye have powers after experiencing impossibly good luck from one of them, and asks Joe what else they can do. He quips "Win teddy bears," and JB just chides him that he's serious, but this is indeed exactly how Joe himself figured out the Eye is magic, by winning every single game he played at the carnival in "Of Freedom and Pleasure" and getting several stuffed animals as prizes.
- Secret Room: As the title indicates. The Hardy Boys have unlocked the door behind the Bookcase Passage in Gloria's home and find the hidden office of George Estabrook, where tons of his secrets about the Eye, the Circle, and other mysterious objects are hidden. They continue to use it and find crucial info there throughout the rest of the series.Joe: When I imagined what "secrets" looks like, this is pretty much it.
- Ship Tease:
- Deconstructed: Chet himself has noticed the increasing metric tons of it over time between Frank and Callie and gotten more and more displeased by it, and finally breaks up with Callie here because he knows she'd rather be with Frank, even if she hasn't admitted it to herself yet.
- Frank catches on that Stacy has been purposely invoking this between the two of them to try to get information from him, though it's hinted that it was also partly to mess with Callie by making her jealous (which succeeded).
- Ironically, Trudy and Jesse get a bit despite things being rather strained between them at the moment. When Frank apologizes to Trudy about this, she responds with "relationships are complicated," which technically could be taken platonically as well, but comes across romantically.
