History Recap / TheHardyBoys2020Season3E5Revelation

* BaitAndSwitchComment: Frank and Joe listen to JB's tapes of his recorded phone calls after he's murdered, and one such tape is of their dad, Fenton, calling to make sure that he isn't going to be a negative influence on them. When he introduces himself, JB responds with, "Well well well, if it isn't the world's greatest detective...[[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments s' dad]]", once again highlighting how highly he regards the boys' skills.

* BusCrash: When Agent Driscoll informs Chet, Belinda, and Brian that Olivia is not actually Anya Kowalsky's daughter (as she was childless), he also tells them that Anya passed away the previous winter (which would be in the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2).

** Played with for Anya Kowalsky; [[BusCrash she actually died several months ago]], during the TimeSkip between the first two seasons, but the audience and main characters only learn about it now.

** As Callie interrogates Donald about what happened to him and Drew at Rosegrave, he references the previous things she questioned him about where he wasn't involved: getting her blacklisted from prep school ("Conflicting Reports") and planning a bombing ("Heading for Destruction").

** In JB's safe room, Frank decides to check the security tapes to "see if he found anything", but the tape deck is empty. We know JB ''did'' see something--Cadmus Quill's murder, and likely the face of the woman who killed him--but the tape got jammed when he tried to take it out and he had to flee without it to avoid being caught as well by the killer, who, unsurprisingly, stole the tape herself.

* PapaWolf: While listening to JB's call recordings, Frank and Joe hear one from Fenton, who, during the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2, [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome found and decoded offscreen]] the note JB left for Joe along with the CB radio. Fenton isn't outright threatening or even hostile, but does firmly make it clear that he doesn't want him or anyone else acting as a bad outside influence on his sons or leading them down the wrong path. JB just assures their dad that the boys don't really listen to him anyway, and Fenton responds with a chuckle that he knows the feeling.

** Not only is Olivia Kowalsky [[ImpersonatingAnOfficer indeed not really a DSA agent (as hinted prior)]], she's not even Anya's daughter at all, as the latter never had children. Her real name is Olivia ''Sparewell'', Hurd's oldest daughter.

** With TheReveal that Olivia isn't actually Anya Kowalsky's daughter, it's not made clear how she knew so much about her, what the Circle did to her family, and what Anya said to the Hardys in Season 1. The most likely option is that Olivia pretended to befriend Anya and show her sympathy to find out what she needed to know, or even that she forced the answers out of her, but it's not ever discussed.

* WhamLine: William is already known to the audience to be connected to Drew somehow because she has the necklace he had made with the Crystal piece, and William's talk with Biff indicates that this girl he made it for is the daughter of the man who employed him after Gloria. Frank is able to get him to name said employer, revealing that Drew's been lying big-time about her identity:
-->'''William''': I worked for the Sparewells.

* BaitAndSwitchComment: Frank and Joe listen to JB's tapes of his recorded phone calls after he's murdered, and one such tape is their dad, Fenton, calling to make sure that he isn't going to be a negative influence on them. When he introduces himself, JB responds with, "Well well well, if it isn't the world's greatest detective...[[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments s' dad]]", once again highlighting how highly he regards the boys' skills.

* CharacterDeath: JB Cox is the biggest death of this season so far, which was heavily foreshadowed in the previous episode, dying within moments from the two shots he took InTheBack while saving the boys from Quill's murderer, though not without giving Joe a DyingClue first. This leaves Frank, who previously wasn't a big fan of JB, very upset and shaken, while Joe is completely devastated.
* ChekhovsNews: The Sparewell Technology TV commercial first shown in "A Strange Inheritance" (where Phil got excited about the new computers they're selling) becomes important when the boys recognize the voice of the man speaking in it--the company's owner, Hurd Sparewell--as the same one from JB's recorded call hiring him to find the codexes.
* ChekhovsGun: JB told Joe in "A Strange Inheritance" that he doesn't know who his clients are (which tracks with all previous jobs shown) because he's hired via answering machine, so there are no names or faces. The boys discover with his DyingClue that he tape-recorded all of these messages, and they're able to listen to the tapes to figure out who hired him to steal the scrolls.

** As Callie interrogates Donald about what happened to him and Drew at Rosegrave, he references the previous things she questioned him about where he wasn't involved: getting her blacklisted from Rosegrave ("Conflicting Reports") and planning a bombing ("Heading for Destruction").
** While going through JB's tapes of phone calls that he's received in the past from clients and others, the boys listen to the one where Stefan originally hired him early in Season 1 to steal the piece of the Eye from the Tall Man on the plane. However, this also contains a SeriesContinuityError (see below).
* ContrivedCoincidence: Out of the dozens of tapes that JB has in his cabinet, the very first one the boys pop in is one of his few jobs they know about: Stefan hiring him to steal the piece of the Eye on the plane near the beginning of the series. And the one they're looking for, with Hurd recruiting JB to get the codexes, is still only the sixth tape we hear, although the boys may have listened to more of them offscreen.

* DistressedDude / DamselInDistress: [[ParentsinDistress Trudy Hardy, Jessie Hooper, and Brian Conrad]] are LuredIntoATrap by Sparewell Technology, hit with KnockoutGas, and abducted.

** In JB's safe room, Frank decides to check the security tapes to "see if he found anything", but finds the tape deck empty. We know JB ''did'' see something--Cadmus Quill's murder, and maybe even the face of the woman who killed him--but the tape got jammed when he tried to take it out and he had to flee without it to avoid being caught as well by the killer, who, unsurprisingly, stole the tape herself.
** When talking to Frank, Joe, Biff, and Phil, William expresses his anger that after George Estabrook "trusted me with his life", Gloria then tossed him aside like trash...not knowing that George actually told Gloria in a letter to ''kill'' William once he'd done his duty of helping her hide the codexes, and her firing him instead was really an act of mercy.

** A retroactive example: In "Heading for Destruction", Olivia (pretending to be Anya's daughter) warned Fenton that, with the EvilPowerVacuum in the Circle, a dangerous new group of people is vying against them for control. Since said party is Sparewell Tech, and she's actually Olivia Sparewell, the group she was referring to was ''her own''.
* DyingClue: JB survives just long enough to give Joe the code to the combination lock on the storage cabinet in his safe room (12-23-14), which contains voice tapes of all calls he received from clients wanting to hire him, including the bad guys ultimately responsible for his death.

** Joe is crushed by JB dying to save him and Frank from the woman in the hood, and when they get back to his apartment, is in tears, can't even speak, and just keeps trying to rub off JB's dried blood on his hands.

* [[IHaveYourWife I Have Your Parents]]: Sparewell Technology tells the gang that they've taken the boys' aunt (and Biff's stepmom) Trudy Hardy, Biff's mom Jessie Hooper, and Belinda's dad Brian Conrad as leverage to keep them from interfering in their plans.

* KnockoutGas: Sparewell Tech (which Olivia is part of) uses this to kidnap Trudy, Jessie, and Brian, just like Olivia did to Fenton previously.
* LovableRogue: Joe sums JB up this way when reminiscing about him to Frank, noting that he was very obviously lying about his identity when they first met, but Joe still knew he could trust him in the ways that counted most. Part of the reason it took him so long to actually get sick of JB's double-crosses for real was because they always did it to each other in a playful, "get ya back later" sort of way.

* MistakenIdentity: The now old and senile William Vogel, who's revealed to have worked for Hurd Sparewell after Gloria fired him, mistakes Biff for Hurd's daughter, whom he adored and had the Crystal necklace made for. Said daughter is Drew "Darrow", actually Drew Sparewell.

* OffscreenTeleportation: The Hardys and Callie abduct Drew for questioning by ambushing her when she enters her dorm room at Rosegrave, put a bad over her head, and when they take it off, she's now in JB's safe room in his apartment in Dixon City. Apparently she just sat there passively while being transported from one location to the other and didn't try to escape?

* PapaWolf: While listening to JB's recorded phone calls, Frank and Joe hear one from Fenton, who, during the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2, found and decoded offscreen the note JB left for Joe along with the CB radio. Fenton isn't outright threatening or even hostile, but does firmly make it clear that he doesn't want him or anyone else acting as a bad outside influence on his sons or leading them down the wrong path. JB just assures him that the boys don't really listen to him anyway, and Fenton responds with a chuckle that he knows the feeling.

** After Donald previously indicated "Drew Darrow" is an alias, it turns out ''her'' real name is Drew Sparewell and she's also Hurd's daugher, Olivia's younger sister, and the Sparewell child whom William was close to.
* RightForTheWrongReasons: The Hardy gang finds out from Vogel that he used to work for the Sparewells, and--thinking Olivia was the one he had the necklace made for--conclude that her real name is Olivia Sparewell. That ''is'' in fact true, but she's not the Sparewell daughter for whom Vogel got the necklace; it was actually her younger sister, ''Drew'' Sparewell.
* SeriesContinuityError: In JB's call with Stefan, the latter states that "Ms. Estabrook" will cover JB's required expenses to hire him. JB previously told Joe in "A Strange Inheritance" that there are "no faces, no names" when it comes to his clients, and indeed, it was a plot point in the first half of the first season that JB didn't know who his buyer was, and he and the boys were separately trying to figure that out.

* TragicKeepsake: JB's wristwatch for Joe. Though in this case, he didn't directly give it to him; instead, Frank finds it in his safe room after his death and gives it to Joe himself, feeling sure (almost certainly correctly) that JB would want him to have it.

** There's also no indication of how Sparewell Tech knew where the codexes were that they hired JB to find two of while Olivia found the other two (until Fenton took them). Gloria revealed this in her video will, and it's clear Sparewell did see it somehow because they mistakenly sent JB to the real-life house on the cliff shown in the painting instead of going for the painting itself, but Olivia and JB were both on the hunt for the codexes in Season 2, before Gloria died and her will was sent to the Hardys. It's never stated that there was a copy of the video anywhere else that someone from Sparewell could have watched to figure all this out.

** Joe gets another one after Hurd calls the whole Hardy Gang [[IShallTauntYou to gloat about]] [[IHaveYourWife taking their guardians hostage]]: he's distraught that Aunt Trudy's gone too, they don't know where Fenton is, everything's going FromBadToWorse, and it all feels like, despite JB's HeroicSacrifice and DyingClue, he died for nothing in the end. Frank assures Joe this isn't true, [[TragicKeepsake gives him JB's watch]], and vows that they'll win and save their loved ones.

** Once the Hardy Gang finds out that William used to work for the Sparewells and was close to the daughter of the family (for whom he had the Crystal necklace made), they think he means Olivia. This is [[EntertaininglyWrong Wrong for the Right Reasons]], as Olivia ''does'' turn out to be a Sparewell, but viewers have already seen that Drew is the one with this necklace and can piece together sooner that she's the Sparewell they're looking for.

** And after Donald previously indicated that "Drew Darrow" is an alias, it turns out ''her'' real name is Drew Sparewell and she's also Hurd's daugher, Olivia's younger sister, and the Sparewell child whom William was close to.

* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: After being very heavily implied in the previous episode, it's now confirmed that Olivia is not really a DSA agent. In fact, not only is she working for Sparewell Tech, she ''is'' a Sparewell herself, and Hurd's oldest daughter.

** Once the Hardy Gang finds out that William used to work for the Sparewells and was close to the daughter of the family (for whom he had the Crystal necklace made), they think he means Olivia. This is actually [[EntertaininglyWrong Wrong for the Right Reasons]], as Olivia ''does'' turn out to be a Sparewell, but viewers have already seen that Drew is the one with this necklace and can piece together sooner that she's the Sparewell they're looking for.

** There's also no indication of how Sparewell Tech knew where the codexes were that JB was hired to find two of while Olivia found the other two (until Fenton confiscated them). Gloria revealed this in her video will, and it's clear Sparewell did see it somehow because they mistakenly sent JB to the real-life house on the cliff shown in the painting instead of going for the painting itself, but Olivia and JB were both on the hunt for the codexes in Season 2, before Gloria died and her will was sent to the Hardys. It's never stated that there was a copy of the video anywhere else that someone from Sparewell could have watched to figure all this out.

** Once the Hardy Gang finds out that William used to work for the Sparewells and was close to the daughter of the family (for whom he had the Crystal necklace made), they think he means Olivia. This is actually RightForTheWrongReasons, as Olivia ''does'' turn out to be a Sparewell, but viewers have already seen that Drew is the one with this necklace and can piece together sooner that she's the Sparewell they're looking for.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Dr. Grafton, while holding Fenton prisoner promises to use a Taser on him if he struggles during the "operation" he's about to perform. Fenton breaks free of his restraints, overpowers the man, zaps ''him'' with it instead, and straps ''him'' to the table.

* BusCrash: When Agent Driscoll informs Chet, Belinda, and Brian that Olivia is not actually Anya Kowalsky's daughter (as she was childless), he also tells them that Anya passed away offscreen the previous winter (which would be in the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2).

** While going through JB's tapes of phone calls that he's received in the past from clients and others, the boys listen to the one where Stefan originally hired him early in Season 1 to steal the piece of the Eye from the Tall Man on the plane. However, this also contains a...
* ContinuitySnarl: In this same call with Stefan, he states that "Ms. Estabrook" will cover JB's required expenses to hire him. The latter previously told Joe that there are "no faces, no names" when it comes to his clients, and indeed, it was a plot point in the first half of the first season that JB didn't know who his buyer was, and he and the boys were separately trying to figure that out.

* ApologeticAttacker: Fenton is forced to Taze the BrainwashedAndCrazy Laura when she tries to kill him, repeatedly murmuring that he's sorry.

** A retroactive example: In "Heading for Destruction", Olivia (pretending to be Anya's daughter) warned Fenton that, with the PowerVacuum in the Circle, a dangerous new group of people is vying against them for control. Since said party is Sparewell Tech, and she's actually Olivia Sparewell, the group she was referring to was ''her own''.

** Joe gets another one after Hurd calls the whole Hardy Gang to gloat about taking their guardians hostage: distraught that Aunt Trudy's gone too, they don't know where Fenton is, and that everything's going FromBadToWorse and it all feels like, despite his HeroicSacrifice and DyingClue, JB died for nothing in the end. Frank assures Joe that this isn't true, [[TragicKeepsake gives him JB's watch]], and promises that they'll save their loved ones.

** There's also no indication of how Sparewell Tech knew where the codexes were that JB was hired to find two of while Olivia found the other two (until Fenton stole them). Gloria revealed this in her video will, and it's clear Sparewell did see this because they mistakenly sent JB to the real house on the cliff in the painting instead of going for the painting itself, but Olivia and JB were both on the hunt for the codexes in Season 2, before Gloria died and her will was sent to the Hardys. It's never stated that there was a copy of the video anywhere else that someone from Sparewell could have watched to figure all this out.

* BagOfKidnapping: One from the heroes. Once Callie learns from Donald that Drew's been lying about her identity and she's actually Hurd Sparewell's daughter and possibly one of the bad guys, she and the Hardys themselves subject Drew to this, throwing a bag over her head as she returns to her dorm room and [[OffscreenTeleportation bringing her all the way from there to JB's safe room in Dixon City offscreen]] to question her.
* BaitAndSwitchComment: Frank and Joe listen to JB's tapes of his recorded phone calls after he's murdered, and one such tape is their dad, Fenton, calling to make sure that JB isn't going to be a toxic influence on them. When he introduces himself, JB responds with, "Well well well, if it isn't the world's greatest detective...[[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments s' dad]]", once again highlighting how highly he regards the boys' skills.

* BusCrash: When Agent Driscoll informs Chet, Belinda, and Brian that Olivia is not actually Anya Kowalsky's daughter (as she was childless), he also informs them that Anya passed away offscreen "the previous winter" (so most likely in the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2).
* CharacterDeath: JB Cox is the biggest death of this season so far, which was heavily foreshadowed the previous episode, dying within moments from the two shots he took InTheBack while saving the boys from Quill's murderer, though not without giving Joe a DyingClue first. This leaves Frank, who previously wasn't a big fan of JB, very upset and shaken, while Joe is completely devastated.

* ContinuitySnarl: In this same call with Stefan, he states that "Ms. Estabrook" will cover his required expenses to hire him. JB previously told Joe that there are "no faces, no names" when it comes to his clients, and indeed, it was a plot point in the first half of the first season that he didn't know who his buyer was, and he and the boys were separately trying to figure that out.

* HeroicBSOD: Joe is crushed by JB dying to save him and Frank from the woman in the hood, and when they go to his apartment
* [[IHaveYourWife I Have Your Parents]]: Sparewell Technology abducts the boys' aunt (and Biff's stepmom) Trudy Hardy, Biff's mom Jessie Hooper, and Belinda's dad Brian Conrad to use as leverage against the gang and keep them from interfering in their plans.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The phony coroner holding Fenton prisoner promises to use a Taser on him if he struggles during the "operation" he's about to perform. Fenton breaks free of his restraints, overpowers the man, zaps ''him'' with it instead, and straps ''him'' to the table.
* IShallTauntYou: Hurd's [[IHaveYourWife I Have Your Parents]] phone call doubles as this, telling the boys that they're too late because he has all he needs to enact his plans and they can't stop him, and also mocks them that, if they don't stay out of his way, more people are going to die "just like JB Cox."

* ItsAllMyFault: Joe, in utter turmoil over JB's death, says this to Frank, feeling that he (Joe) got him killed by [[OneLastJob convincing him to stay in the game and help them a little longer when he wanted out]], only for him to [[HeroicSacrifice die saving them]]. Frank assures Joe that it wasn't his fault, and JB's DyingClue was to give them the new lead they needed, so he wanted them to stick with it and believed in them to find the answers.
* KnockoutGas: The bad guys (a group that includes Olivia) use this to kidnap Trudy, Jessie, and Brian, just like Olivia did to Fenton previously.
* LovableRogue: Joe sums JB up this way when reminiscing about him to Frank, noting that he was very obviously lying about his identity when they first met, but Joe still knew he could trust him in the ways that counted most. Part of the reason it took him so long to actually get tired of JB's double-crosses were because they always did it to each other in a playful, "get ya back later" sort of way.

** And after Donald previously indicated that "Drew Darrow" is an alias, it turns out ''her'' real name is Drew Sparewell and she's also Hurd's daugher, Olivia is her older sister, and she's the one whom William was close to.
* RightForTheWrongReasons: The Hardy gang find out from Vogel that he used to work for the Sparewells, and--thinking Olivia was the one he had the necklace made for--conclude that her real name is Olivia Sparewell. That ''is'' in fact true, but she's not the Sparewell daughter for whom Vogel got the necklace; it was actually her younger sister, ''Drew'' Sparewell.

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: Fenton reluctantly eats the sandwich that his captor leaves for him, only to black out and collapse in less than 20 seconds from the drugs it's laced with.

* TheUnReveal: "JB Cox" was already previously revealed to just be an alias, and last season also established that he was a Rosegrave Academy student in the past, hinting at some kind of interesting backstory, especially with the question of how he went from attending Rosegrave to becoming a professional thief. Ultimately, the audience and the other characters never find out any more personal details about him, either before or after JB dies, and never even learn his real/original name.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: What the fake coroner, Dr. Grafton, did to Laura after she was kidnapped and her death faked because SheKnewTooMuch about the Circle, putting a microchip inside her brain that turned into a "soldier" who can't properly remember Fenton anymore and tries to eliminate him. Once Fenton overpowers her, he forces Grafton to reverse the process by disabling the microchip.

* CharacterDeath: JB Cox is the big character death of this season, which was heavily foreshadowed the previous episode, dying within moments from the two shots he took InTheBack while saving the boys from Quill's murderer, though not without giving Joe a DyingClue first. This leaves Frank, who previously wasn't a big fan of JB, very upset and shaken, while Joe is completely devastated.

* ContinuityNod: While going through JB's tapes of phone calls that he's received in the past from clients and others, the boys listen to the one where Stefan originally hired him early in Season 1 to steal the piece of the Eye from the Tall Man on the plane.

* DyingClue: JB survives just long enough to give Joe the code to the combination lock on the filing cabinet in his safe room (12-23-14), which contains voice tapes of all calls he received from clients wanting to hire him, including the bad guys ultimately responsible for his death.

* ItsAllMyFault: Joe, in utter turmoil over JB's death, says this to Frank, feeling that he (Joe) got him killed by convincing him to stay in the game and help them a little longer when he wanted out, only for him to [[HeroicSacrifice die saving them]]. Frank assures Joe that it wasn't his fault, and JB's DyingClue was to help them solve the case, meaning that he knew they'd stick with it and wanted them to see it through.

* MistakenForRomance: Donald Dukay's huge ego makes him totally misinterpret Callie's repeated questioning in the past and present--which is only to get vital info about their cases from him, and is fairly antagonistic because he's such a {{Jerkass}}--as BelligerentSexualTension from her being in love with him, clearly not caring that she already has a boyfriend or when she tells him point-blank, repeatedly, that it's not true.

* PapaWolf: While listening to JB's recorded phone calls, Frank and Joe hear one from Fenton, who, during the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2, apparently found and decoded the note JB left for Joe along with the CB radio. Fenton isn't outright threatening or even hostile, but does give him a firm warning that he doesn't want anyone acting as a bad outside influence on his sons or leading them down the wrong path. JB just assures him that the boys don't really listen to him anyway, and Fenton responds with a chuckle that he knows the feeling.

* TragicKeepsake: JB's wristwatch for Joe. Though in this case, he didn't directly give it to him; instead, Frank finds it in his safe room after his death and gives it to Joe himself, feeling sure (probably correctly) that JB would want him to have it.

* DiesWideOpen: JB's eyes are still open when he succumbs to his gunshot wounds, leaving him staring blankly.

* ItsAllMyFault: Joe, in utter turmoil over JB's death, says this to Frank, feeling that he (Joe) got him killed by convincing him to stay in the game and help them a little longer when he wanted out, only for him to [[HeroicSacrifice die saving them]]. Frank assures Joe that it wasn't his fault, and JB's DyingClue was to help them solve the case, meaning that he wanted them to stick with it and see it through.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The boys discover that, sometime during the TimeSkip between the first two seasons, Fenton found JB's radio and note to Joe, successfully decoded it (which took Joe and Chet a while to do) to get JB's phone number, and called him. They're suitably impressed.

* ParentsInDistress: The boys' aunt, Biff's mom, and Belinda's dad are [[KnockoutGas knocked unconscious with gas]] and kidnapped by Sparewell [[IHaveYourWife to use as hostages]].