Season 3, Episode 3:
A Promise of Trouble
The gang join Callie at Rosegrave with hopes of saving Frank, but they’ll require the help of an old foe, and the power of the Eye.This episode contains examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Joe, not wanting Drew involved in the True Companions' plan to get Frank back, is at his most passive-aggressive and rude with her to get her to leave, which his friends call him out on afterward. So when Drew scathingly takes Joe down a peg on her way out, Phil gets an impressed "Oh no she didn't!"-style Jaw Drop, while Chet is visibly smirking and trying not to crack up.
- Alone with the Psycho: Well, alone together with one. This happens twice to the Hardy Boys in the Crystal.
- George has to be put back into the Crystal to vacate Frank's body, so it's inevitable that the boys will have to face off with him and survive his attempts to kill them and steal the Eye. They succeed in outsmarting and defeating him without too much trouble, and even the part where George briefly Choke Holds Joe is All According to Plan.
- It's actually subverted with Munder, though, who's not there to harm or try to stop them, and only wants to find his brother, which they do.
- Batman Gambit: The Hardys use one of these to lock George up tight within the Crystal's realm. First Joe and then Frank act as decoys to lure him into his office, then lock him inside it. He tries to escape through the trap door in the floor, only for them to reveal that, with their new dominion over the realm thanks to having the Eye, they've blocked off that escape route, and proceed to shut and lock the trap door over him.
- Big Brother Instinct: Joe's entire plan to rescue Frank is one long display of Little Brother Instinct, as he's willing to subject himself to being downloaded into the Crystal to find Frank, work with Ex-Big Bad Munder to do so, and directly face off there with George, a man who's more than willing to kill him. He risks his life and/or his consciousness being trapped in the Crystal forever too, all to save his older brother.
- And as a further example, Joe tells his friends that, if he and Frank aren't both able to make it out of the Crystal during the re-upload, he intends to make sure Frank is the one who escapes while Joe "waits it out" there by himself until they can save him later.
- Frank also plays it straight, being less than thrilled initially to see Joe arrive in the Crystal to save him because he thinks his brother is now stuck there with him, and subtly moves closer and partially shields Joe when Munder first arrives in the realm too.
- Breaking Speech: After having done this to the other kids in the previous episode, George gives Callie hers: telling her that Frank won't be the same guy she knew even if they do save him, asking why she cares when she and Frank had a "fleeting teenage romance" that was doomed to amount to nothing more than nostalgia in the long run, and tells her that their rescue mission for Frank will fail. Like the others did, Callie also gives him a Shut Up, Hannibal! in response, but later admits privately to Joe that George's words did get into her head.
- Broken Record: Enforced on George most of the time that the gang is holding him prisoner. They don't want him to be able to hear their conversations, so they put headphones on him and play the same rock song over and over, very loudly, to drown out their voices.
- The Bus Came Back: Donald Dukay, the Jerkass Bridgeport student introduced in Season 2 who was uncooperative during the kids' investigations, reappears at Rosegrave in the same summer program that Callie and Drew have entered, and is revealed to know that "Drew Darrow" is an alias.
- Choke Holds: George once again does this to Joe in the Crystal realm, this time while trying to take the Eye back from him. Then he sees that Joe has already passed the power to Frank, so George stops throttling him and shoves him aside to pursue Frank instead.
- Cliffhanger: To make it clear that the threat to the Hardys and friends is not finished after they've defeated George and the new Big Bads are taking over, the episode ends with them finding Drew and Donald—last seen when the latter was threatening to reveal the former's true identity—both waking up from being knocked unconscious, and Drew realizing with horror that someone stole her handmade personal computer.
- Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: George to the Hardys when they're all in the Crystal realm together, who are hiding from him in the Crystal-facsimile of the Secret Room. Joe does come out and Draw Aggro to start enacting his and Frank's plan to beat George.George: Come out now. Let's discuss this. Great-grandfather to great-grandsons. We are...family, after all.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: In this case, it stems from Big Brother Instinct. When Frank witnesses a vision of Callie's and Joe's conversation from the first episode, he sees that Callie took the Crystal with her and realizes she suspects what's up and is planning to try to save him, seeming to think she'll find a way to bring him back from the outside. So when Joe shows up inside the Crystal instead, Frank reacts with dismay, clearly worried that his little brother is now trapped in there with him, and then becomes increasingly agitated at hearing how much danger Joe's plan involves, like them coming face-to-face with George and having to work with Munder.
- Continuity Nod:
- Munder tells Joe, Chet, and Belinda that they'll need a second Midnight Machine to properly re-upload the Hardys and ensure they don't both end up in the same body, and notes that Dr. Burelli would still have hers, including the processing chip. Belinda recalls how Brian raided Burelli's storage locker in "A Midnight Scare" and states he kept everything in it, and she and Chet are able to get the chip from him.
- Phil tells Chet he intends to push his emotions about his unrequited feelings for Biff "deep, deep down" and not think about it. Chet responds that he knows from experience that doesn't work, referring to how he did something similar with his past resentment towards Frank and Callie for six months, letting it eat away at him, until he finally let it out in "The Doctor's Orders", and regretted bottling it up for so long.
- Continuity Snarl: A couple of very minor ones relating to the Pensieve Flashbacks Frank sees in the Crystal.
- When Frank saw Gloria receiving George's package and letter in "An Unexpected Return", the codexes were just wrapped in a cloth at the bottom of a box, whereas in this version—which goes further to show what happened afterward—she receives them in a small silver suitcase with four felt insets specifically designed to fit the codexes in them.
- Frank sees the conversation that Joe and Callie had about her leaving in "A Strange Inheritance", but some of the dialogue is out of order from how they said it to each other originally, and some other lines are slightly different.
- Disc-One Final Boss: For all George Estabrook's talk about the Eye "showing me the path" and his plans decades in the making, Joe ends up being right that he's not as in control as he thinks he is, and is taken down by the Hardys and co. with relatively less difficulty compared to their previous foes, after only about a week or so of inhabiting Frank's body. They re-download George into the Crystal, and the boys defeat and re-trap him in there for good this time, leading to a new party taking over as the main antagonists for the rest of the season.
- Disowned Parent: Or rather, grandparent and great-grandparent. In the boys' face-off with George in the Crystal, he somewhat-sarcastically invites them to come out and talk by noting that they're family (despite trying multiple times to kill Joe and planning to leave Frank there inside the Crystal forever). Joe responds that George isn't family and never was, and once the brothers have outsmarted him, they answer his final pleas to work together by decisively rejecting their Estabrook heritage (and, implicitly, Gloria as well as George) one last time and stating that they're Hardys.
- The Dog Bites Back: After how smug and cruel George has acted towards the True Companions, including the Breaking Speeches he gave them, Biff, Belinda, Phil, and Chet enjoy watching him squirm and panic once he's about to be put back in the Crystal, and take turns mocking him.
- Dramatic Irony: As Gloria dismisses William, George's loyal chauffeur, with severance pay and tells him to leave the Estabrook home forever, an upset William protests that this was not her father's will, believing that he's meant to continue serving her until George returns someday and rewards him for his loyalty as promised. William is right that she's not doing what her father wished, but not in the way he thinks; George was lying to him and actually ordered Gloria to kill him to Leave No Witnesses, so she's being merciful by sparing him and sending him away.
- Draw Aggro: Inside the Crystal, Joe and Frank both do this as part of their plan to trap George. Joe gets George's attention, who grabs him and tries to remove the Eye from him, only for Frank to step out from the Secret Room and reveal that Joe gave him the power. George then shoves Joe aside to go after Frank, who sneaks out of the secret room behind him and the boys lock him in.
- Empty Shell: As usual for Project Midnight. The Hardy Boys' bodies are briefly left as this once Joe puts his own mind in the Crystal to find Frank and then George is re-downloaded as well, but the boys' souls are luckily able to properly return to their respective bodies. However, Adrian also loads himself in to try to find Aaron, and once he does, chooses to stay in the Crystal with his twin and let Frank and Joe escape as intended, knowing there's not enough time, or the means, for all of them to get out. This renders his body an empty husk just like Aaron's.
- Enemy Mine: The gang reluctantly forms one—which includes breaking him out of the pysch ward—with Adrian Munder, who put Frank in the Crystal in the first place, since he knows more about the Midnight Machine than they do and they need his expertise to have a better chance of safely rescuing Frank. While Munder only agrees to help with the side agenda of finding out if Aaron is still in the Crystal somewhere too, he doesn't actually double-cross the Hardys and co., and once he finds Aaron, is more than happy to watch Frank and Joe escape unimpeded.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Unlike George, Gloria was too much of a Benevolent Boss to murder a loyal employee in cold blood, and couldn't bring herself to follow his orders to kill William, his chauffeur. Instead, she just fired him with payment, and told him to leave and never return.
- Eyes Never Lie: Once Joe and Frank return from the Crystal, Callie approaches the latter as he wakes up, looks into his eyes, and sees the love and warmth for her there that she didn't see with George in Frank's body, confirming to everyone that he's the real deal.
- A Fate Worse Than Death: Being trapped in the Crystal realm forever, where time doesn't flow properly and there's no way out without possessing the power of the Eye and having the Midnight Machine hooked up to load people in or out of it. George, who was in firm control of the realm during his 25 years there, locked up Aaron Munder in a small corner of it for 10 years since the latter arrived, and once the gang puts him and Joe in there to rescue Frank, George plans to give both of his great-grandsons the same treatment. He gets a taste of his own medicine in the end when the boys trick him into getting imprisoned under the trapdoor of his own Secret Room within the Crystal realm and left there for good, while Aaron is at least set free from the locked room and now has Adrian for company, lessening this.
- Failed a Spot Check: Both Drew and Frank separately call Joe out on taking as long as he did to figure out "Frank" was an impostor (though, notably, Joe was still one of the first people to realize this, and the only one to deduce his identity without being told).
- Fauxshadowing: Between the Hardy Gang's plan being explained in detail onscreen, them working with the same psycho who first put Frank into the Crystal to begin with, and Callie's concern that everything they're doing is part of George's plan (and Joe, when reassuring her, sounding more like he's trying to convince himself), there's a lot of setup for things to go badly wrong with the rescue attempt, or at least for the team to have a lot of trouble. Instead, Joe is right about George and everything does go almost entirely as planned, with the boys taking him down without too much difficulty and returning to their bodies just fine. Even the twist of Munder forcing their friends to load him into the Crystal works out okay, since he gets there after George is defeated, doesn't antagonize the Hardys, and manages to find and reunite with his brother.
- Flat "What": Belinda's reaction when she and Chet arrive at the Sleep Room with the computer processor chip, only to find Munder there with the rest of the kids after Joe helped him break out of the psych facility. Chet can only comment on how things keep going From Bad to Worse.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- George's chauffeur's name is not officially revealed until the fifth episode when the gang discovers it, but it's possible to read "William", and at least the beginning of his last name, on the check Gloria gives to him.
- This same check also shows a written value of "Thirteen hundred" ($1,300). Adjusting this for inflation (if that's in US dollars from 1961, it would be just under $13,500 in 2024 money) and considering Gloria states this is "six months' pay", William was apparently paid pretty low wages, and does beg the question of why he'd be so loyal to a rich man who didn't compensate him well.
- Friendship Moment: Joe and Callie again, having another private talk before Joe goes into the Crystal to save Frank, in which he tells her that he trusts her with his life like Frank would and they come up with a Trust Password that only the two of them know for him to tell her upon returning. And as he's about to be put in the Crystal and is visibly scared, she encourages him and promises that his friends have his back.
- Gilligan Cut: As Joe tells the gang his plan to get Frank back, he reveals that it includes forming an Enemy Mine with Munder. Phil vehemently protests, insisting they're not going to visit him. Cut to Munder being led to the visitation room where Joe, Belinda, and Chet are waiting.
- The Glomp: Frank gives one to Joe when the latter shows up in the Crystal realm to rescue him, and Joe wholeheartedly returns it.
- Heel–Face Turn: Adrian Munder agrees to Joe's request to help save Frank; he has an ulterior motive of seeing if he can save Aaron too, but isn't planning on trying to put his soul into someone else's body this time. He completes this trope when he enters the Crystal after the Hardys to find his twin, and does so with their help. They're willing to try to help both Munders get out too somehow, but Adrian, having gotten what he wanted, assures them that he always planned for his trip into the Crystal to be one-way and tells the Hardys to return without them.
- Hypocrite: Once he's pulled into the Crystal with the boys, George tries to persuade them to come out and talk it over, great-grandfather to great-grandsons, calling them "family", despite having tried to murder Joe several times with Frank's body after previously leaving the latter to rot there. He then attempts to kill him again, but once the boys have trapped him, tries to convince them to work with him and let "the Estabrooks" return to power once again.
- I Choose to Stay: Once Adrian finds his brother Aaron's consciousness inside the Crystal, as he always believed it was, he knows that all four of them can't leave with only three of their bodies present, and chooses to remain behind there with Aaron while the Hardys escape.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Joe mutters to Callie about Drew that he doesn't want a "wannabe detective crossing into our jurisdiction." Her reply:Drew: Uh, hello? Yeah, I can hear you. I'm right here in...my room.
- It's Personal: Downplayed, but it seems Phil took Mr. Munder turning out to be the Big Bad last season more personally than the other kids, as he was the head of the AV Club Phil's in and is implied to have been his favorite teacher, and Phil strongly protests involving him in their plan.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: After this season has confirmed what an appallingly horrible person George is—power-hungry, selfish, and cruel, having ruined countless lives, had many innocent people killed to Leave No Witnesses, and trying to kill one of his great-grandsons while planning to leave the other trapped in A Fate Worse Than Death forever—he finally gets his comeuppance for all of it after spending decades getting away with everything. Said great-grandsons and their friends subject him to this fate instead, likely for eternity, by forcing him back into the Crystal and tricking him into getting locked up tightly within the realm there.
- Karmic Death: Or in this case, a Karmic Fate Worse than Death:
- In addition to everything George Estabrook did in the backstory as part of the Circle, he also stole his great-grandson's body, imprisoned an innocent boy's consciousness (Aaron) far inside the Crystal realm for 10 years, tried to kill his other great-grandson several times, and intends to subject both Hardys to the same end as Aaron. He himself meets this final fate instead, locked under a trap door in his own secret office within the Crystal realm and stuck there permanently; to say he had it coming is a massive Understatement.
- Downplayed with Adrian Munder. He caused the entire plot of the first three episodes of this season to happen by forcibly downloading Frank into the Crystal and allowing George to escape (not to mention killing Dr. Burelli, blowing up Wilt's store and almost killing Jesse, and everything he did to Dennis in the previous season), and ends up trapped there for good himself instead while Frank escapes. However, he willingly chooses to help bring Frank back and accepts this fate for himself, since it means being Together in Death with Aaron.
- Love Redeems: After Munder was shown in the previous season to have gone mad with grief over the loss of his brother to Project Midnight, to the point of being willing to hurt (or worse) completely innocent people to get him back, finding and reuniting with Aaron in the Crystal realm completes his Heel–Face Turn, and he makes no effort to stop the boys from leaving or steal their bodies, even though he knows he'll be stuck inside the Crystal forever, as he's content to be Together in Death (or something close to it) there with Aaron.
- Match Cut: The scene swaps from "Frank"'s/George's cackling face, laughing incredulously at Callie after the latter tells him the group has a plan to save Frank, to Munder's cackling face after Joe has explained it to him offscreen, and states "It's a terrible plan."
- Meaningful Echo: In the Season 2 finale, when George briefly pretended to be Aaron Munder to trick Adrian, he said, "You came for me." When Frank, Joe, and Adrian find the real Aaron's consciousness imprisoned in the Crystal, he says this same thing, genuinely, to his twin.
- Mood Whiplash: The scene in the Sleep Room ping-pongs back and forth between being tense and serious thanks to Munder's presence as he goes over the plan, and hilarious whenever it swaps to George's POV, still blaring the same loud rock song over headphones as a Broken Record.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Munder expresses how impressed he is with Joe's willingness to risk his life to save his brother, and notes that they have more in common than they might have thought. Joe seems uncomfortable by the comparison, stating they're not the same.
- Once More, with Clarity:
- In "A Vanishing Act", the Eye showed Joe a brief snippet of William stealing a piece of the Crystal from George's desk. The Pensieve Flashback that Frank sees while inside the Crystal gives context: Gloria chose to spare his life and just sent him away instead, but since William didn't know that George told her to kill him, he angrily snuck into George's office and took the Crystal piece to get back at her.
- In "A Strange Inheritance", Callie and Joe heard the case with the Crystal in it fall to the floor, seemingly out of nowhere, in George's Secret Room, which is when they found out it was there and Callie secretly took it with her. It's shown that this was caused by Frank being overwhelmed with visions inside the Crystal and shouting for them to stop, which somehow caused it to vibrate enough to fall off the shelf.
- Pensieve Flashback: Halfway through the episode, right as Joe is loaded into the Crystal (where time flows differently), we jump to Frank's perspective and see what he's been experiencing there in the meantime up to when Joe arrives, which turns out to be these:
- He sees the scene where Gloria was supposed to murder the chauffeur, William, after he'd done all George needed him for. As implied in the previous episode, though, it's confirmed that Gloria decided to spare him and just fired him with severance pay instead. Unaware of George's real plans for him, the disgruntled William stole a leftover piece of the Crystal in revenge on Gloria, which the Eye previously showed Joe.
- Frank also witnesses the scene from "A Strange Inheritance" of Joe and Callie talking in George's Secret Room (although the dialogue is slightly different), learns about George breaking up with her, and sees her take the Crystal with her, realizing there's hope of him being saved.
- Post-Victory Collapse: Joe and Frank, who've escaped the Crystal, exchange triumphant grins after successfully returning the Eye to the relic, and then promptly faint in unison due to Heroic RRoD from doing this, just like "Frank" did in "An Unexpected Return." Their friends just react to this with a chagrined "Oh, right."
- Power Parasite: George's scene in the Crystal Realm elaborates on what was implied last season. One person can't normally steal the Eye's power from another just by touching them unless the holder willingly gives it to them, but George can take it against the other person's will, making him this, because the Eye is loyal to him above all others and will choose to transfer to him when given the chance. However, he has to actually be touching them for it to work, and unlike how he did it to Frank before by having the element of surprise, this time the Hardys are ready and don't give him the chance to take it from them, only letting George grab Joe after he's already passed the power to Frank.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: George furiously tells Callie, "You. Will. Fail." about the kids' plan to save Frank. She just responds by re-taping his mouth shut again, with a lot more tape this time.
- Red Herring: George mocks Callie that, even if the gang manages to rescue Frank, he won't be the same person they knew after his time in the Crystal, possibly setting up some kind of trauma or angst subplot for him. But it turns out George was either bluffing or just totally wrong about this, and Frank's personality after returning is completely intact; if anything, it's an improvement thanks to no longer being under the influence of the Eye and having matured and gotten some Character Development due to learning from his experiences with it.
- Redemption Equals Death: In this case, redemption equals being trapped in purgatory forever. Adrian Munder, despite being the maniac who put Frank in the Crystal to start with, does agree to help Joe and the gang get him back, with the ulterior motive of finding out if Aaron really is still in there (but not planning this time to bring him back in Frank's body). He forces the Hardys' friends to send him into the Crystal as well, but has no intention of harming the boys or trying to stop them from leaving, and once he enters and does indeed find Aaron, he even encourages them to escape while they can, content to stay behind there with his brother.
- The Reveal:
- "Drew Darrow" is an alias, and Donald has figured out her real identity, which is significant enough for him to try to blackmail her with it.
- Aaron Munder's consciousness is indeed still inside the Crystal. When he was downloaded in 10 years ago, George, using his total control of the realm, locked him up in a closet there to "make sure he can never leave." Adrian and the Hardys find him and are able to set him free.
- Despite George having stolen the power of the Eye from him, Frank still has faint traces of it remaining in him—not enough for him to escape the Crystal on his own, but enough to briefly see Young George as a projection of the Eye again—who tells him this "echo" of power will fade away over time—and still experience Pensieve Flashback visions. It's implied this is the case for anyone who's had the Eye's power inside them, and will thus be true for Joe, too, which the next episode confirms.
- Gloria didn't have it in her to kill William, George's chauffeur, and instead dismissed him with compensation and told him to never come back. Not knowing George's real plans for him, William stole the Crystal piece from his desk out of spite and anger towards her.
- Scylla and Charybdis: Frank is quite unhappy to learn that George, while using his body, broke his beloved girlfriend Callie's heart by dumping her. Joe points out that George not doing that and instead continuing to date her would have been even worse (and certainly far creepier), and Frank realizes he's right:Frank: Man, this is so messed up!
- Screw Destiny: George, who has "seen the end" with the Eye, emphatically tells Callie that their plan to save Frank will fail, which actually gets to her, and she worries that they're playing into his hands. Joe, however, feels that George has been out of the game too long and is overconfident, and indeed, once the boys have beaten him, he can only weakly protest that this isn't what he saw and can't be right. They don't care.
- Seen It All: After the Hardys' Post-Victory Collapse from returning the Eye's power to the relic, their friends—who had seen before with "Frank" that doing this causes you to pass out, and had just forgotten until then—merely react with a fairly mild "Oh, right" and nothing more.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!:
- Callie, like her friends did, responds with one of these when George tries to give her a similar Breaking Speech by calling her and Frank's relationship a "fleeting teenage romance," asking him if he really thinks she's just some broken-hearted girl trying to stop him over a boy and corrects that she wants to bring him down because of all the lives he ruined with Project Midnight and the Circle, clearly thinking about Drew's brother Orrin and the Munder twins as well as Frank. And then she literally shuts him up by re-taping his mouth shut.
- Frank and Joe give George one final one when rejecting his We Can Rule Together offer:George: Together, the Estabrooks can be in control again!
Joe: We're not Estabrooks.
Frank: We're Hardys.
- Spoiler Cover: The synopsis just says that the Hardy Gang will work with "an old foe" to help get Frank back. Since the episode thumbnail contains Adrian Munder, no points for guessing who this "foe" is.
- Tears of Joy: Callie gets these after the gang succeeds in saving Frank from the Crystal, sharing a kiss and Headbutt of Love with him.
- Together in Death: Or at least in some kind of purgatory. Once Munder enters the Crystal and finds his brother there, he chooses to let Frank and Joe leave as planned (since not all four of them can go) and stay behind there with Aaron for what is almost certainly forever.
- Trust Password: Before Joe goes into the Crystal to get Frank, he and Callie work out a "safe word" for him to tell her when he gets back to prove it's really him and he's okay. Rather hilariously, the word he picks is "pamplemousse" (the French word for "grapefruit"), so when Joe does come back safe and says it to Callie, Phil's initial thought is that the Crystal left him with brain damage.
- The Un-Reveal: Gloria's video will left everything she owned to Frank Hardy, at George's request, because he knew he'd be taking over Frank's body at some point, so she was really giving it to him. But once the boys succeed in getting rid of George and restoring the real Frank, he would inherit all of Gloria's assets for real. Presumably, anything Frank doesn't give away would be split evenly with Joe, but the inheritance is never discussed again after he returns, so we don't find out what, if anything, the boys decide to keep as opposed to selling or donating.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: It's zigzagged in regards to rescuing Frank from the Crystal:
- The idea that Joe comes up with in the Crystal realm to outsmart George and make sure he'll stay trapped there for good plays this straight, as he tells it to Frank offscreen and the audience doesn't know the details until it works.
- However, the entire plan of Joe going into the Crystal in the first place subverts this, as it is discussed among the team, extensively. The fact that the Eye shows Joe visions of it working and seeing Frank again hints that it's setting him up to fail the way it previously did to Frank, and will screw the boys over once again because of its loyalty to George, but it doesn't get the chance to do so as the brothers outsmart George, and despite absolutely all odds, the whole operation works out almost entirely as planned. The main exception is Munder joining the Hardys in the Crystal, but even then, he doesn't come there to stop or antagonize them at all and just wants to find his brother.
- Villainous Breakdown: Having spent all of his screentime being a total Smug Snake, it's immensely satisfying to watch George have a couple:
- He gets progressively more panicked as he's about to be forcibly put back in the Crystal, violently struggling and warning the others that there's someone more dangerous than him coming after the relics, and as Joe is loaded in, George starts screaming that he'll regret this.
- After being confident the Hardys and friends will fail to save Frank because it's not what the Eye has shown him, and mocking them for it, George devolves into this when he realizes that the boys have indeed beaten him and he's about to be left trapped in the Crystal once more, desperately trying to offer them a We Can Rule Together deal, and when they reject him, can only pitifully babble that this can't be right.
- We Can Rule Together: Once it becomes clear to George that Frank and Joe have outsmarted him and are about to leave him imprisoned in the Crystal, he tries to persuade them to work together with him to "reap all the rewards the Eye has promised" and retake control for the Estabrooks. It's quite hypocritical considering how many times he's tried to kill them or leave them trapped in the Crystal forever, and the boys naturally see it for the desperate lie it is, just rolling their eyes and shutting him down by coolly reminding him that they're not Estabrooks, they're Hardys.
- Wham Episode: Adrian Munder, one of the Big Bads from the previous season, returns when Joe reluctantly seeks his help for transferring Frank out of the Crystal, but he has his own agenda. Joe is successfully able to enter the Crystal and finally reunites with Frank again, George is sent back into it, and the Hardy Boys succeed in defeating him for good and re-trapping him there, wrapping up his presence in the series. Munder also downloads himself into the Crystal and does indeed find the soul of his twin brother Aaron, and decides to remain there with him so Frank and Joe can leave. Frank and Callie are reunited and the boys finally both return the power of the Eye to the relic, but the episode ends with Drew waking up after being ambushed and discovering that her computer has been stolen.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: After being heavily implied in "An Unexpected Return", it's confirmed here that this is how the Crystal works, and is likely even outside the realm of time altogether given that the people in it don't seem to process time passing at all. Frank has been inside for roughly a week at this point, but all the visions and flashbacks he's experienced from the time he was left there up until Joe appears take less than 10 minutes to go through, and he has to ask Joe how long he's been there. And when they find Aaron's consciousness in the Crystal as well, he's still his teenage self, looking exactly the same as he did when he first entered it, even though ten years have passed in real life and his actual body has aged into adulthood since then. This was also the case for George, who didn't get any older in the 25 years between when he first came into the Crystal and when he left it to take Frank's body.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Frank has many of these in rapid succession when Joe arrives to save him, starting with Joe being there in the first place (as Frank clearly thought Callie was going to somehow save him from outside the realm of the Crystal) and becoming more and more incredulous as he learns how long it took Joe to figure out he'd been body-snatched and hears the details of his crazy rescue plan, which includes trapping themselves Alone with the Psycho and forming an Enemy Mine with a maniac.
