Recap / The Hardy Boys 2020 Season 3 E 7 At The Old House

Season 3, Episode 7:

At the Old House

The Hardy Boys get the thing they want most and must race to deactivate the Core before it’s too late.

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This episode contains examples of:

• All for Nothing: The Hardy Boys' investigation throughout most of the season has been majorly motivated by trying to find their mom, Laura, after Quill, on behalf of Sparewell Tech, gave them a picture indicating she's still alive. Now they find out that she really was still Dead All Along, only "living" inside the Lotus-Eater Machine that Drew has created, trapped Fenton in, and temporarily put them in, too.
• All Just a Dream:
  • For the entire episode until they escape at the very end, Frank, Joe, and Fenton are stuck in a Lotus-Eater Machine sim created by Drew, imagining that they successfully team up as a family to beat her, Laura was still alive all this time and had her death faked, and the four of them are visiting their old home in Dixon City together.
  • What's more, it's revealed that everything Fenton has experienced all season, including everything with Laura seemingly being alive, wasn't real either; he's been trapped in the sim since the end of the previous season. All the phone calls that Trudy seemingly got from him were faked by Drew and Olivia (which, in hindsight, can be gleaned by them containing the same clicking/typing sounds as Hurd's faked calls).
• Always with You: Inverted: before Frank leaves the simulation, he tells Laura that she'll always be with him, "just not here."
• Anti-Climax: Drew gets taken down surprisingly easily in the first ten minutes, wherein the Hardys ruin her plans...just by the boys escaping their bonds and the family catching up to her before the plane takes off. And then when she tries to force Laura to kill her kids, their mom confirms she's no longer brainwashed and pistol-whips Drew unconscious instead. Plus, DSA agents finding and saving the three kidnapped parents and bringing in and debriefing the boys' friends all happens offscreen. All of this makes sense once they realize it's occurring in a simulation meant to give the Hardys what they want the most, and their ideal is to take down Drew ASAP so they can spend time with Laura and all be a family again.
• Badass Family: The Hardys when foiling Drew's plans (at least the sim version of them), with Fenton distracting the pilot for Laura to take her down, and the boys confronting Drew until Laura takes her down too, then Frank stops the Core from activating Just in Time.
• Benevolent A.I.: Zig-zagged with Laura, who's revealed in the third act to be created by the simulation that Fenton, Joe, and Frank are trapped in:
  • On the one hand, because she's programmed as part of the sim to keep people inside it, she gives her family members False Reassurance whenever they start to feel like something's off in an effort to keep them from noticing what's going on, and once they have all figured it out and are preparing to escape, Sim-Laura tries to tempt first the boys and then their dad not to leave by enticing them with what they wish they could have to break down their resolve: stay there with her, be a happy family again, and go on adventures together.
  • But on the other hand, because the sim designed Laura based on the memories of her family to make her as close as possible to the real thing, its facsimile of her is the same loving, supportive wife and mother that the original Laura was, never trying to force them to stay. This means once her husband and sons do successfully resist her attempts to keep them there, Sim-Laura is basically a Graceful Loser and gives them the final encouragement and declarations of love they need before leaving. She urges the boys to win and gives them another heart drawing on paper for good luck; then, when Fenton does start to waver a little bit after his Last Kiss with her, rather than pouncing on it and continuing to try to tempt him, she's the one who gives him the last little push by assuring him that he can and has to let go of her and start moving on.
• Big Brother Instinct: A very subtle instance, but when Drew tries to re-hijack the microchip in Laura's brain to make her murder her own sons and Laura points her gun at them (although she's only faking that it worked), Frank, who was standing side-by-side with Joe a moment before, moves slightly closer to and partially in front of him, without even thinking about it.
• Birthday Episode: The Hardys realize after returning to their old home that it's Frank's birthday and decide to cook dinner together for the occasion. It's not entirely clear whether or not the date in the sim matches up with the real world and it's his birthday in reality, too, or just something they all imagine as a way to make their virtual world together with their happily-reunited family even better. If it is the same real-life day, considering they've been kidnapped and put through the emotional wringer, it would certainly qualify as A Birthday, Not a Break.
• Bookends: The first time audiences saw Laura Hardy was at the Hardys' old house in Dixon City with her family in the very first episode. Her final appearance in the series for this episode is also at this house with her family, although now, it's all in a Lotus-Eater Machine.
• Breather Episode: Seems to be played straight for the first half before being subverted to high hell. The Hardys appear to defeat Drew in what's practically an Anti-Climax near the beginning, and then half the runtime is spent with them returning to their titular old house in Dixon City from the beginning of the series, realizing it's Frank's birthday and having a Birthday Episode for him, and re-bonding with each other now that Laura's returned and after their sons have been apart from Fenton for a whole season. But then the boys realize at the end of the second act that they and Fenton are trapped in a simulation Drew put them in, and Laura isn't real and truly is dead, forcing them to say goodbye to her for good.
• Call-Back:
  • When the Hardy family returns to their old Dixon City house, brief snippets play from when they were still living there in the first act of the series premiere before Laura died, like Frank and Joe scuffling over the video game controls in the opening scene, Laura saying Frank is a "winner, winner, chicken dinner" when practicing his pitching, and drawing a heart on a piece of notebook paper for him—and most tragically, after realizing this Laura's not real, a few clips from the day she died and the boys at the scene of the accident.
  • As the Hardys try to figure out when Fenton could've been put into the simulation, he recaps everything that happened to him in the second half of Season 2 (complete with snippets shown of his scenes from those episodes)—Olivia gassing him unconscious in "Hunting an Intruder," how he woke up and met up with Trudy afterwards, and gave her the scrolls he took from Olivia after she knocked her out. Since Trudy's not in the simulation and did indeed have the scrolls, Frank and Joe conclude this must have been real and Fenton was put into the VR after this happened. (It turns out to have been right before his final scene in Season 2, which was where he first saw Laura again.)
• The Cameo: Atticus Mitchell returns one more time for a non-speaking cameo as JB Cox, who's been killed off by now in the real world, when Joe sees him apparently alive and well—shooting him a friendly wave and grin—inside the simulation and briefly thinks he may have faked his death.
• Caught Monologuing: Downplayed. Drew gloating at length about her Evil Plan to the boys gives Joe a chance to slip out of his restraints in the meantime, but he doesn't try directly attacking her, and waits until after she's gone to reveal this and free Frank too. And it wouldn't have mattered since their parents arrive just a moment later and would have untied them anyway.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Laura talking about the day she supposedly died (and actually did, in reality) in "Welcome to Your Life", where she says that if she could change things, she wouldn't have pushed Gloria about the Circle and would have gone to Frank's baseball game instead.
  • Joe asks if Frank knows where his "secret hiding spot" is, Frank replies that it's under the floorboard by the bed, and Joe corrects him that that's just his decoy spot, previously discussed in "The Missing Camera". We see the real spot now, under a false bottom in his drawer.
• Distressed Dude:
  • The Hardy Boys wake up to find themselves strapped to chairs, where Drew subjects them to some Evil Gloating about her intention to Mind Control them and everyone else and leaves to finish enacting her plot. The boys actually manage to get out of their restraints pretty easily, but then it's revealed much later on that they're really still trapped inside a simulation Drew put them in, only escaping in the last five minutes.
  • Fenton Hardy is an extreme example; his sons' discovery that they're in a sim includes The Reveal that Fenton's final scene from Season 2 where he had Olivia Bound and Gagged and Laura showed up at the warehouse, along with his entire storyline this season, all occurred within the Lotus-Eater Machine where he's actually been held prisoner all along, with all the phone calls from him since then being faked.
• Evil Gloating: Drew does a lot of this at the beginning to the Hardy Boys, and again when they confront her after escaping and she plans to force their own mom to kill them. Both Joe and Laura lampshade how much she enjoys the sound of her own voice.
• Evil Plan: Drew certainly does have one, but it turns out to be different from what the Hardy family is expecting.
  • In Drew's Evil Gloating to the Hardy Boys at the beginning, she tells them she used their mother as a test subject for her Mind Control microchips, and is planning to use the Sparewell microchips that are part of technology around the world to Mind Control everyone on Earth.
  • Eventually, though, the boys discover that the world they're in isn't real and is a Lotus-Eater Machine that Drew has trapped them in. This is her true plan: to use the Core to create a sim powerful enough to engulf the whole world, trapping the entire population within it.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: As Frank and Joe take turns trying to convince Fenton that Drew has them trapped in a simulation, Frank states that their minds created a situation where they got to defeat her, "save the day," and "get what we...want most," audibly tripping over the last couple of words as it hits both him and Joe exactly what this is. Laura walks into the room right on cue, cheerfully asking what's going on, and judging by the boys' slightly horrified faces and their eyes beginning to tear up, they already know exactly what they're going to see as Frank walks over to check her for glitches, and, sadly, are completely correct.
• False Reassurance: Laura comforts Frank by telling him that his feeling of something being wrong will fade gradually as they all become a family again. This "bad feeling", caused by the "echoes" of the Eye's power giving them slightly increased mental resilience that apparently will go away eventually, is what allows first Joe and then Frank to soon spot A Glitch in the Matrix and figure out their world isn't real; if the power did fade before they noticed anything wrong, they'd be just as deeply immersed as Fenton is, who would never have seen it without them.
• Flat "What": Laura's response to finding out that Frank quit playing baseball after she died.
• Forgotten Birthday: In the simulation Drew traps the Hardy family in, they visit their old home after getting Laura back and realize it's Frank's birthday and they'd all forgotten about it. The fact that this calendar should be a year old (the last time the Hardys were at this house) but still shows his birthday on the correct day of the week for this year is an early hint that things are not quite right.
• A Glitch in the Matrix:
  • Joe first becomes suspicious that something's wrong with the world around them when every channel on the TV plays the same Sparewell commercial from throughout the season, especially since Driscoll earlier stated it was being removed from the airwaves for safety reasons. Notably, as soon as this happens, the world begins visibly glitching a little bit around Joe.
  • Joe then demonstrates it to Frank by telling him to check under the false bottom of his drawer, saying he should find gum and firecrackers. He sees exactly that, only for Joe to reveal that he lied and has never kept such things in there; the fact that Frank saw what he told him to see instead of what should really be there (baseball cards and a pocketknife) proves something's off, and more visual glitches occur.
• The Glomp: Both boys, as well as Fenton, exchange several with Laura. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking when they eventually realize they're just stuck in a Lotus-Eater Machine and it's not really her. Nonetheless, all of them still exchange a last, big hug with her anyway before escaping the sim, knowing it's the last time they'll ever see her in anything besides their memories and pictures.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Driscoll tells the Hardy family after they stop Drew that, while the government is grateful for their help, her plot is being classified as top secret, so no one else will ever know about her intentions for the world, the relics, or the Hardys' involvement.
• Guilt Complex: Revealed to be a major part of why Fenton has significantly more difficulty seeing through and accepting the simulation than the boys do^note  (while the other main reason is that he lacks the faint traces of the power of the Eye that they have); he blames himself for not being able to save his wife, and also carries a lot of guilt for leaving his sons behind in Season 1 when they needed him the most. The sim gave him a chance to set things right the way he wishes he could, where he's able to find and rescue Laura and repair their fractured family; but once his boys get him to realize what's happening, this same guilt is what allows him to resist the fake Laura's attempts to get him to stay, because he doesn't want to fail to protect them too. Ultimately, Sim-Laura convinces him that he needs to let go of this self-loathing, learn to forgive himself, and move forward.
• Hourglass Plot: In the pilot, the boys were very against the idea of Fenton moving them to Bridgeport because everyone they knew (including Frank's girlfriend at the time) was there in Dixon City; even throughout much of the first season, they still wanted to go back before school started, only finally deciding to stay there for good by the end. Here, though, when Fenton and Laura want to return to living in their old Dixon City house now that the latter is back, the boys are very unhappy at the thought of leaving Bridgeport and the new lives and friendships they've built there.
• I Lied: Cleverly used by Joe to test his theory to himself and Frank that there's something wrong with their world: having his brother look inside his secret hiding spot and giving him a false description of what he'll find. Frank sees what Joe told him was there instead of the real thing, proving it.
• Immersive Sim: Drew's Lotus-Eater Machine is a virtual reality simulation so immersive that the people in it genuinely feel like they're experiencing real life and don't have any idea it's not reality unless they start encountering A Glitch in the Matrix. Outside the sim, we see that Frank, Joe, and Fenton are sitting in chairs with VR headsets strapped on, and they don't even realize it until they break out.
  • Ultimately, Laura's entire existence inside the simulation is because it was designed to create itself around the minds and imaginations of the people in it to give them what they want the most. Fenton greatly regrets not being able to save the love of his life, so he was given a convoluted story to live out that involved Laura being kidnapped and brainwashed by a shady group who faked her death to give him the opportunity to successfully rescue her and be with her again. JB's brief appearance before Joe is similarly caused by the latter's wish to see him again and for him to have survived by pulling an elaborate ruse.
  • Multiple people can also be part of the same shared simulation and experience it together by—at least in Drew's prototype version shown here—hooking up all their VR headsets to the same machine. More people can be added to a sim world that one person already created, as shown by Frank and Joe joining Fenton's scenario about Laura still being alive (it helps that this is something they, too, both deeply wish were true), and the sim can further adapt and form itself around additional memories and desires of the newcomers. Namely, how Fenton didn't know anything about Drew or Sparewell Technology when he was put into the VR, so it's only after the boys and their knowledge of them are added that Drew becomes the Big Bad of Fenton's and "Laura"'s plotline within the sim, as well as the aforementioned encounter of Joe seeing JB.
  • In an inversion, Drew and Olivia actually used some of what Fenton created in his sim in the real world too to mislead the Hardys, like Olivia faking being a DSA agent and going around attacking people in the same coat that Fenton imagined Laura wearing after first seeing it on Drew.
• In-Universe Catharsis: Fenton, Frank, and Joe Never Got to Say Goodbye to Laura because she was murdered in a car crash. So while realizing they're in a Lotus-Eater Machine, the Laura in front of them isn't real and just their mind's projection of her, and she truly is dead after all is incredibly painful for all of them to go through, they also get this by each having the chance to say a final, proper farewell to her. Frank wraps up an important arc in his Character Development by finally reaching the "Acceptance" stage of grieving for her, Joe likewise reaffirms that he truly has reached Acceptance too, and Fenton can at last try to forgive himself for not being able to save her and start moving on.
• Kick the Dog: In the boys' confrontation with Drew, she tries to Mind Control their mom into shooting both of them dead, and mockingly asks them which one wants to be killed first vs. having to watch his brother die. Laura promptly has enough and drops the pretense.
• Last Kiss: Fenton shares one of these with Laura, as well as a final declaration of love, before leaving the Lotus-Eater Machine that created her, with Simulation-Laura urging him to finally let go of his Guilt Complex and start moving forward, and promising that she'll always love him.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The Hardys observe the height measurements of the boys in their old kitchen and compliment how Joe has grown at least six inches since the last measurement, referencing how much taller Alexander Elliot has become in the years since the show started.
• Long Last Look: Both Frank and Joe keep their eyes firmly on Sim-Laura as they break out of the VR, so she's the last thing they see.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: This is what Drew's Immersive Simulation ultimately boils down to. It gives the people in it what they "want most" so they won't wish to resist it even if they realize something's not right. She traps Frank and Joe in her prototype version for most of the episode until they break free at the end, and has had Fenton stuck in it since the end of the previous season, right before he first saw Laura in the warehouse.
  • Frank, Joe, and Fenton deeply miss Laura, and getting her back again is what all of them want the most. So after being captured and imprisoned in the sim, Fenton created a world where he "discovered" that she didn't actually die in the car crash and was instead taken away and brainwashed, and when his now-kidnapped sons get brought into it too, their storyline with Drew and the Core overlaps with his and Laura's.
  • While in it, Joe also briefly sees JB smiling and waving at him from across the street before vanishing and thinks he faked his death too, showing how much sadness Joe carries about losing JB and how he wishes he could see him again, even if it means he tricked him once more.
  • Joe, who's always been the best of the three at handling Laura's death and the most grounded in that regard, is the first to notice and figure out that they're in a simulation, but to Frank's credit, once Joe clues him in, he doesn't fight it the way Fenton does and accepts the truth right away along with his brother, even though it's painful for both of them. Fenton—due to both being in the sim for far longer than his sons, and carrying the most guilt about Laura's death—has far more trouble escaping because of how desperate he is for it to be real, and is only able to finally do so through a combination of his love for his boys (who've already gotten out) and Sim-Laura helping him achieve In-Universe Catharsis.
• Mama Bear: Laura briefly pretends that Drew's attempt to re-Mind Control her worked, holding a gun on the boys until she has the chance to jump her. Laura does so as soon as Drew mockingly asks her sons which one wants to die first and which wants to watch his brother die.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • One of the memories Frank has when they first return to the old house is of Laura giving him a piece of paper with a heart drawn on it before his baseball game later that day, saying if she doesn't, he'll lose. Once the boys have figured out she's not real and prepare to leave the sim, she tells them to win against Drew, then draws a heart on paper and gives it to them with the same line she said to Frank then:
    Laura: It's our thing, right? If I don't give it to you, you lose.
  • Laura tells Frank during their pitching session that she doesn't want her husband and sons to torture themselves with "could have been"s for the time she's been missing, and wishes to "move forward" as a family. At the end when Fenton has realized she's part of the sim, has accepted he needs to leave it, and is preparing to do so, Laura likewise encourages him to start forgiving himself for her death and "move forward" with life.
• Mind Control: This is Drew's Evil Plan within the simulation: use the Sparewell microchips in technology all over the world to mind-control everyone on the planet, with the microchip in Laura's brain having been used to do this to her as a "test subject".
• Minimalist Cast: The vast majority of the episode features only Frank, Joe, Fenton, and Laura, thanks to the former three being trapped inside a Lotus-Eater Machine that created the latter. Within it, Drew gets taken out in the first 10 minutes, Driscoll gets one scene soon afterwards thanking the family, JB makes a very brief, non-speaking cameo for a few seconds, and then Drew and Olivia show up at the end in the real world, but otherwise, none of the boys' friends appear at all (making this the only episode in the series without Callie), nor do Trudy, Brian, or Jesse, despite having been kidnapped by Drew, as they're rescued by the DSA offscreen in the sim version of events.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Happens a few times when Joe and Frank cause A Glitch in the Matrix, visibly glitching the whole room out for a second, enough for them to figure out quickly from there that they're in a simulation.
  • When Joe turns on the TV, all channels regardless of which one he picks are playing the Sparewell TV ad (probably because this prototype sim doesn't have the power to generate numerous random TV showings and this commercial is something simple that's likely saved in the sim's database somewhere). This is already strange enough, but Driscoll also previously stated the ad would be taken off the air due to concerns that Drew could exert her Mind Control through it. After Joe tries and fails to get anything else to pop up while changing the channel, the whole room starts glitching, complete with the Sparewell commercial skipping and stuttering.
  • Joe gets Frank to notice A Glitch in the Matrix like he did by having him check his hidden drawer and lying to him about what he'll find. Frank sees what Joe falsely claimed was in there (firecrackers and gum), and once he tells him what he really should have found (a pocketknife and some baseball cards), the items glitch right in front of them to change into the cards and knife, and their surroundings glitch some more.
  • Frank and Joe make sure that they're together in the same linked simulation by checking each other's eyes for glitches and finding none, and use this trick to confirm Fenton is real and there with them too. But when Frank tries it with Laura—with both boys pretty clearly already knowing the answer—her pupils do glitch out for a split second, showing that she's not real and was created by the sim, and thus validating what they'd already come to fear: that she truly is dead in the real world.
• Once More, with Clarity: Once the boys realize and tell Fenton that the photo of Laura in the hooded coat was faked, all past real-life appearances of the cloaked woman are shown again with context: Olivia was the person who attacked Donald and Drew at Rosegrave (with the latter being complicit in it from the start) to make Drew look like a victim too, and was also the one who killed Quill and JB (who did indeed see her face on his security camera) and kidnapped Trudy, Jesse, and Brian after hitting them with Knockout Gas. Meanwhile, Fenton briefly saw Drew in the cloak at the warehouse (coming to turn the tables on him since he'd captured Olivia there) before she tased him unconscious, but since he didn't know her, when he woke up in the sim, he imagined Laura as the cloaked woman who showed up there instead.
• Papa Wolf: This plays a big role in Fenton being able to break free of the simulation, despite his strong temptation to stay and be happy with Laura forever and forget about everything else. Fenton tells the projection of Laura that he doesn't want to forget his sons the way he would have to in order to stay with her now that they've escaped and left the sim. He already has a major Guilt Complex for leaving their boys when they most needed him in the first season, and doesn't want to fail to protect them now the way he feels he did with her when she died.
• Pretend to Be Brainwashed: How Drew is defeated in the sim version of events. When the boys confront her, she tries to re-activate their mom's microchip to once again make her Brainwashed and Crazy and force her to kill her own sons, and it seems to work at first as Laura emotionlessly points her gun at them. But once Drew moves closer to her while continuing her Evil Gloating and asks which brother wants to die first, Laura goes into Mama Bear mode and drops the act, beaning Drew in the head with the gun, knocking her out, and proving the microchip really is deactivated.
• The Reveal:
  • Drew's real Evil Plan is creating a Lotus-Eater Machine virtual reality simulation; she powered the prototype "trial run" of it with the Crystal fragment from her necklace, and plans to combine the full Crystal and the Core to power the final version and "go global." Everything that's happened throughout this episode, including her telling them that her plan is Mind Control, was All Just a Dream for Frank, Joe, and Fenton, whom she placed inside the prototype sim.
  • Furthermore, nothing that's happened to Fenton so far this season was real at all; right after his second-to-last scene in the Season 2 finale, Drew tased him and kidnapped him with Olivia, so his last scene in S2 (where Laura first appeared) and every one since has been in the sim.
  • Which, of course, leads to Laura: she really is dead after all. Nobody faked her death in the car crash, Stefan truly did act on his own when he killed her rather than on anyone else's orders, the security camera photo of her wearing the hooded black coat was fake (as well as Fenton's calls home to them), and all real-world appearances of the mysterious cloaked woman were either Drew or Olivia (usually the latter).
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • When Frank laments to Laura that nothing about the family being back together in their old house feels the way it should, she assures him this will gradually go away as things go back to normal. We later learn that Frank and Joe are more resistant to the simulation than others thanks to still having traces of the Eye's power in them, which is what's causing the foreboding feeling that something's wrong; since this power will eventually fade from them, they would lose this resilience when that happens and become more fully engulfed in the sim the way Fenton has.
  • In all of Fenton's previous appearances, neither Drew nor Sparewell Tech was ever mentioned once. Laura only says that they're the ones who took her after the boys have been put in the sim too, since she's part of it and it can now learn from their memories about Drew being the villain.
  • When Drew was still pretending to be one of the good guys and that her father Hurd is evil, she claimed to the Hardy Gang that the Crystal fragment is missing from her necklace because Olivia stole it to use for her and Hurd's plans. Once we learn here that Fenton has been trapped inside her prototype sim (which she uses this Crystal piece to power) since the previous season, it's becomes obvious to viewers exactly how she was lying about this: the fragment is really missing because it's already being used for her plans by the time Drew is even introduced.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • When Joe tells Frank about seeing JB on the street, Frank suggests that it could be his mind making him think he saw what he wants to see. This is exactly right...because, as they find out later, they're inside a Lotus-Eater Machine designed to give them what they most want.
  • Similarly, there's also Frank venting to Laura that none of this feels right and he doesn't feel like himself. He's worried that it's because being exposed to the Crystal has permanently damaged him like it did George and Drew, but of course, it's really due to all of this taking place inside a simulation, and somewhere deep down (helped by still retaining a bit of the Eye's power), he knows that something's off about it all.
• So Proud of You: Laura tells Frank that she's very proud of what incredible detectives he and Joe have become in her absence.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: As Joe walks home with Fenton from the corner market, he suddenly sees JB leaning on a pole across the street, who gives him a casual smile and wave, but is gone after a van drives by between them. Once it's revealed that Joe's inside a simulation, this makes more sense, as it's clear this encounter reflects his desire for JB to somehow still be alive too, just like how he, Frank, and Fenton feel about Laura.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Pretty ironic considering it isn't real and is All Just a Dream, but occurs in the sim a couple of times:
  • Driscoll tells Laura that, since she's been officially declared dead for almost a year, there's a lot of paperwork and red tape necessary to legally undo that, so she should lie low in the meantime. She agrees.
  • Laura doesn't remember any of what's happened for the last year, so the events of the series premiere feel like yesterday to her and she wants to pick right back up with life from where they left off then, including living in Dixon City as they used to. However, the boys have built a new life for themselves in Bridgeport by now, with a group of close-knit True Companions, and are far less keen on the idea of picking up and moving again. Since Laura doesn't want to go back to Bridgeport because she hated it there, this causes some tension between them all.
• Too Good to Be True:
  • The Hardy Boys seem to subconsciously (in part thanks to the Eye's lingering power) have a nagging feeling that this is the case after they get their mom back, defeat Drew, and reunite their family, with Frank even wondering out loud why he's not happy despite getting what he wanted and wondering if the Crystal is messing with him. Then Joe spots A Glitch in the Matrix, gets Frank to see it too, and they correctly deduce that this is indeed the case: Drew is still out there and has them and their dad trapped in her simulation. And they quickly suspect this is true for Laura as well, and sure enough, their glitch test reveals that she's just a creation of the sim.
  • Frank invokes this as well about Fenton's story he recounts to the rest of the Hardys detailing how he found and saved Laura. Fenton tries to deny it, but by then, it's sown enough doubt in his mind that he does think the whole thing through and realizes his sons are right, even as a part of him still resists accepting the truth because it would mean losing Laura for good.
    Frank: Doesn't this all seem a little too easy? A little too convenient?
• Unexplained Recovery: In-universe as well as out when the Hardy Boys are surprised to see Agent Driscoll completely fine and normal after previously being shot by Olivia when he comes to thank the family for saving the day, stating they thought he was dead. He clarifies that he was wearing a bulletproof vest, but it's still surprising he doesn't have any injuries. Justified, though, because this is happening inside the simulation.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Since Olivia isn't coming with Drew for some reason to George's island to put her plans in motion, she's still at large once the DSA arrests Drew, and the Hardys remain wary and on the lookout for her in case she comes after them. But it's All Just a Dream anyway.
• Wham Shot:
  • In-universe and out. The viewer will likely see it coming (and Frank and Joe clearly do too), but when they figure out they're in a simulation and check their parents for glitches to see if they're real, Laura's eyes do briefly glitch for a second, proving her to be fake, part of the sim and not still alive after all. They're heartbroken, but not actually surprised, to see this, having felt it was Too Good to Be True to have her back.
  • Once Fenton's sons finally convince him that they're in a simulation and Laura isn't real, we snap to the real world to see the three of them sitting limply in chairs with some sort of VR headsets strapped to all of them, muttering out loud in a monotone everything they're saying inside the sim, and Drew (the real deal) observing what's happening in the sim world on a screen.
• You Talk Too Much!: Drew mockingly asks if the boys are going to question her further about her plans, Joe snarks that she'll tell them anyway, and doesn't even finish the sentence before she starts doing just that. He and Laura both separately note that she loves hearing herself talk.

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