History Series / TheHardyBoys2020

** Downplayed for Joe, who's described as having blond hair, usually portrayed as golden blond, in the novels, but has dark blond or maybe light brown hair here.
** Considering that more than half of the TrueCompanions get {{Race Lift}}s, it's entirely understandable. Callie, Biff, and Belinda are all blond(e)s in the books, and Chet is varyingly described as having blond, red, or light brown hair DependingOnTheWriter. All four of them have black hair in the show.

** Phil Cohen in the books is one of the Hardys' quieter, calmer friends, and acts as [[TheSmartGuy the group's computer whiz]] in several of the more modern series. Here, while he's still very much a nerd and TheSmartGuy, he's a far more extroverted, hyperactive {{Keet}} version, who also serves as the series' resident PluckyComicRelief and most frequent MomentKiller. Though, as the series goes on, he gets more and more opportunities to show off his Smart Guy chops, shown to be good at puzzles, cartography, and coding, and is part of a nautical club and the school's AV Club.
** Chet Morton loses his PluckyComicRelief, BigEater, and FatBestFriend traits from the book series, all of which are given to Phil instead--he certainly still has his humorous moments, but they're more downplayed compared to Phil's, and eat a decent amount but not notably more than the other kids--and is a LovableJock who hopes to get an athletic scholarship to college. He's also no longer a LovableCoward and is far more straightforwardly brave, although his UndyingLoyalty to his friends remains very intact.

** Frank towards Joe, definitely; even more so than usual in this series considering the larger age gap between them. It comes out the most when Joe is briefly taken hostage by Ern and JB, when Joe and Biff go missing due to falling down a mine shaft, in the many visions he sees from the Eye of someone trying to hurt Joe, and when they're both being kidnapped by Stratemeyer Global.
** On the flipside, Joe is no slouch in the Little Brother Instinct department, either. He hits the Tall Man in the back with a trash can to make him release Frank, and worries about him throughout the second season once Frank has become the new vessel for the Eye. Once the villains learn this and Frank becomes a LivingMacGuffin, this is dialed up to eleven, as Joe is determined to keep the bad guys away from his brother, even if he has to go behind Frank's back and go against his wishes to do so.
** For that matter, Chet and Callie also seem to get this for Joe (and seem to have it for Biff and Phil already, too, to a lesser extent). At the time that Joe and Biff go missing, things are awkward between Frank, Callie, and Chet due to the latter two breaking up and Stacy's interference, but Chet and Callie both immediately put that aside to help find Joe and Biff and get them home safely.
** JB Cox seems to develop this for Joe as well, and maybe Frank too to a much lesser extent. He goes out of his way to save Joe from the Tall Man upon learning that he's in danger despite claiming to only be looking out for himself, and when Stratemeyer Global is trying to find the Eye and JB is forced to reveal they have it, he very noticeably tries to keep them from going after the boys directly to get it, instead claiming they stashed it somewhere else. He also tries to warn them away from investigating their various cases on multiple occasions to keep them from getting hurt, and when Frank accuses him at one point of trying to run Joe down in a car, JB immediately retorts angrily that he would never hurt Joe. [[spoiler:In the third season, he mainly gets involved in the case to protect the Hardys from his buyer, threatening to burn the map if any harm comes to them, and even ends up TakingTheBullet to save Joe and Frank.]]

** Frank has three different girls fall for him over the course of the series: his [[RomanticFalseLead Dixon City girlfriend Emma]], main LoveInterest [[OfficialCouple Callie]], and the dangerous, sultry [[TheVamp Stacy Nabokov]].

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Frank is a lot more calm and analytical than the impulsive and short-tempered Joe. {{Justified}} in that Joe is several years younger than Frank in this version, and still just a tween. JB lampshades Frank's status as the "responsible older brother" in Season 2.

* LawOfConservationOfDetail: Much like the original source material, even apparently-innocuous events or tidbits, seemingly throwaway lines, or background noise will usually turns out to be important to the case (or to a future one) somewhere down the line, either as vital info or as a major RedHerring that temporarily distracts the heroes.

* ParentalFavoritism: Or rather, grandparental favoritism. Gloria does care about both of her grandsons very much and is frantic when Joe goes missing near the end of Season 1, but overall, she's much more attentive to Frank and actively tries to bond with him a lot more than she does with Joe, probably because Frank's older and getting to the point where she can start to groom him for leadership in the Circle of the Eye while Joe is still just a kid. Most notably, [[spoiler:she chooses Frank to be her heir in the Circle, and when she's in prison in Season 2, she very much wants Frank to come visit her and is overjoyed when he finally does, but never asks how Joe is doing even once]].

** By contrast, in addition to the the second and third seasons having a few format changes (they start using {{Episode Title Card}}s while the first season did not, and there are a couple of [[TheOtherDarrin recasts of major supporting characters]]), each introduce additional [[ArtifactOfPower Artifacts of Power]] that weren't alluded to in Season 1 and greatly ramp up the supernatural aspects. It's very clear that Season 2 was written with the intention of having a third one as well, ending on a huge {{Cliffhanger}} that would have been a ''massive'' DownerEnding for the series as a whole if it had been canceled then. It's is only resolved in the first few episodes of Season 3, which, unlike the previous TimeSkip between seasons, is an ImmediateSequel this time. There are also a few plot points from S2 that don't become relevant until S3, like [=McFarlane=]'s scroll and some of Olivia's subplot, and [[spoiler:it's also retroactively revealed that Fenton's final cliffhanger scene in the S2 finale is the result of him already being trapped inside the simulation where he spends most of the last season]]. Since the creators knew ahead of time that Season 3 would be the final one, this allowed them to wrap it up with their planned ending, which is an even better example of AndTheAdventureContinues than the first season would have been.

* ChekhovsGun: Joe makes a fake copy of the piece of the Eye to trick the Tall Man into taking the wrong one when they confront him, though he ends up with both of them still in his possession. [[spoiler:In the season finale, Stacy kidnaps Callie and demands the piece if they want her back alive, but by then, Gloria has the piece after hiring JB to steal it from the boys for her, and it's unlikely they'll be able to get it back in time to exchange it for Callie. Joe then remembers that they still have the fake, and they rig it up well enough to convince Stacy's mooks that it's real for the time they need to get Callie back.]]

** Played much more seriously with [[spoiler:Callie's kidnapping. Both Chet and Frank deeply regret not listening to her well enough when she repeatedly tried to warn them about "Stacy Baker" being bad news, especially Chet, who was caught up in his jealousy of Callie falling for Frank over him and says this almost word-for-word. Frank, knowing that Stacy kidnapped Callie right after he rejected the former for good, laments to Joe that he keeps "making mistakes that other people pay for." In their defense, though, Frank did start to believe Callie before too long and help her investigate, and ''nobody'', not even her, predicted just how much Stacy would end up JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope and how far she'd go.]]

* ArtisticLicenceGeography: In "Hunting an Intruder", Frank tells the rest of the gang about the coordinates he saw on Stratemeyer Global's machine that they use to track the Eye, which end up leading to Gloria's house. However, when Frank writes them down, we can [[FreezeFrameBonus briefly see]] that they're 23° 30' 48.017" N, 179° 45' 53.331" E, which, as any world map will show, is smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's somewhat justified in that this was probably done to avoid indicating exactly where the series takes place and pointing to some person's private property (with similar reasons to why 555 phone numbers are always used in fictional works), but it's a bit egregious to include an east-hemisphere coordinate at all when the series meant to be set in either the US (like in the books) or Canada (where the show is filmed), both of which are very far into the west hemisphere.

* CharacterDeath: Three big ones in this season:

** After Dr. Vivian Burelli tells the Shadow Man in "The Doctor's Orders" that what he's trying to do [[spoiler:(revive his brother with Project Midnight)]] will fail, he pursues her by car when she tries to flee. Her car is later found abandoned on a bridge, and her body is found washed up from the river at the start of the next episode. She's something of an AssholeVictim because of her role in experimenting on kids in the past with Project Midnight, but she does regret her role in it and has tried to become TheAtoner.
** TheDragon to the rogue Stratemeyer group, Mack Malone, is murdered by his own partner and superior Angela Todd, who shoots him in the head in her own bathtub where she'd been holding him prisoner after feeling that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he was no longer useful to her]]. He's ''definitely'' an AssholeVictim, having menaced the Hardy Boys with a knife while holding them prisoner and acted like nothing but a sleaze for the whole season.

** The beginning of the season confirms that Gloria Estabrook did indeed die in the final scene of the previous one, and the first episode opens with her funeral.

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: As Chet and Callie separately lampshade, George Estabrook is so selfish and lacking in any kind of compassion for others that he truly doesn't get why the Hardys' friends, especially those two, are so determined to stop him when he's not directly causing harm to ''them'' personally with his plans. The way he sees it, they don't have any personal stakes in opposing him, so they should just walk away; he can't comprehend that, since the rest of them consider Frank a dear friend, the stakes ''are'' [[ItsPersonal very personal]] to them for that reason, nor that they also care about all the other people he's hurt and are determined to prevent him from causing any more damage.

** Joe and Callie get multiple moments together to demonstrate that they're not ''just'' connected through Frank and are friends in their own right. Joe is the one person Callie talks to about her plans to go to Rosegrave before leaving, he makes it clear that he fiercely disapproves of "Frank" breaking up with her, and they share a big hug and state that they're going to miss each other. Later, they have another private talk before Joe goes into the Crystal to save Frank where she offers support and encouragement, and they come up with a TrustPassword that only the two of them know for him to tell her upon returning.

* InUniverseCatharsis: [[spoiler:Fenton, Frank, and Joe NeverGotToSayGoodbye to Laura because she was murdered in a car accident. So while realizing in "At the Old House" that they're in a LotusEaterMachine, the Laura in front of them isn't real, 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 goodbye to her for good. Frank wraps up a major arc in his CharacterDevelopment by ''finally'' [[FiveStagesOfGrief reaching the "Acceptance" stage of grieving for her]], Joe likewise is able to reaffirm that he's reached Acceptance too, and Fenton can at last forgive himself for not being able to save her and start moving on with his life.]]

** {{Downplayed|Trope}}: George truly did love his daughter Gloria, and she's the only person he seems to have ever genuinely cared about at all. He planned for her to be the only person alive to know he faked his death and intended to resurrect himself one day, and is shown crying before heading to her funeral. That being said, he had no problem with manipulating her and [[WellDoneDaughterGirl using her strong desire for his approval]] to his own advantage, and didn't trust even her with ''everything'' he did.

* NearVillainVictory: [[spoiler:Drew actually does succeed in using the Core to launch her LotusEaterMachine worldwide, capturing Chet, the parents, and everyone else in the world in it except for the rest of the TrueCompanions, and it even appears that she shoots the Hardy Boys dead when they try to stop her. But in fact, Callie sneaks up on Drew and clocks her in head, they put her in her own simulation (where she just imagines that she shot the boys, and Callie tricks her into revealing the secret of how to shut down the Core, which the friends (including Chet, who was rescued) succeed in doing, breaking the simulation and saving the day while Drew remains trapped inside her own creation.]]

* PetTheDog: Throughout the whole series, JB is a WildCard who sincerely likes the Hardys and looks out for their safety, but also usually prioritizes [[OnlyInItForTheMoney getting his payday]] above all else, even if it means betraying the boys and handing over powerful artifacts to unscrupulous employers. By the midpoint of this season, though, his better nature and care for the kids' well-being definitively wins out over his greed, as he decides he can't hand over the scrolls to such dangerous people and drops out of the hunt for the relics for good. He continues helping the gang for the sole purpose of protecting them, even TakingTheBullet to protect Joe and Frank.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Interestingly downplayed for George. Despite being a chronologically-hundred-year-old white man who lived in the early and mid 1900's, he doesn't make any overtly racist remarks about the Hardys' friends, most of whom are people of color. He also gives no indication that he's bothered by Trudy's and Jessie's same-sex relationship. However, he does show prejudice against non-nuclear families by assuming that Belinda's and Biff's one-parent households, which had greater stigma around them during his time, are "broken homes" by default, prompting Belinda to snap at him that it's not "19-dickity" anymore. There's also some underlying sexism in his assumption that Callie is only helping her friends stop him out of desperate love for and heartbreak over Frank.

** Chet Morton loses his PluckyComicRelief, BigEater, and FatBestFriend traits from the book series, all of which are given to Phil instead (Chet certainly still has his humorous moments, but they're more downplayed compared to Phil's), and is a LovableJock who hopes to get an athletic scholarship to college. He also loses his LovableCoward tendencies, and is far more straightforwardly brave, although his UndyingLoyalty to his friends remains very intact.

** Gertrude "Trudy" Hardy from the books is a strict, peppery older woman (especially in the original books) who often over-fusses about the danger the boys get into and pretends to dislike it and consider them "troublemakers" while actually having great pride and faith in them. She's also a SupremeChef who acts as the primary cook for the Hardy home, making them delicious meals and desserts. Trudy in this series is a NiceGirl who struggles with not being strict ''enough'' with the boys to properly lay down the law for them, and is not a particularly good cook.

** Fenton in Season 2 and Joe in Season 3 both state that [[spoiler:Gloria may be a lot of things, but they don't think she's a killer. This is conveniently forgetting that the very crime she's officially arrested for at the end of Season 1 is the murder of Viktor Nabokov. Since Viktor was trying to get her piece of the Eye from her, she ''may'' have regarded it as CrimeOfSelfDefense, but even if so, it's flimsy enough that it doesn't hold water and she still ends up in prison.]]

** Stacy Baker shows up at the midpoint of the first season as a rival to Callie for Frank's affections, especially since Callie hasn't admitted her feelings yet and is still with Chet, while Stacy is significantly more forward about her attraction to him. Frank definitely shows some interest in her, especially at first when Callie is still taken and he thinks Stacy's just a sweet new girl who went through a traumatic experience; however, once he discovers her real identity [[spoiler:and then sees her true colors and that she's no better than anyone else in the Circle]], he firmly rejects her, and Stacy is left with no doubt that Callie is the girl he really cares for.
** Chet and Callie turn out to be this to each other as well. They're dating at the beginning of the series in what's implied to be a ChildhoodFriendRomance, but have only been together for four months by the time they break up in the tenth episode, as revealed in the second season. Their relationship falls apart because they both realize Callie has much stronger feelings for Frank than she does for Chet, and Frank and Callie become the OfficialCouple of the show; meanwhile, Chet gets a new LoveInterest in Season 2, Belinda, who becomes his girlfriend for the rest of the series' run.

** By contrast, in addition to the the second and third seasons having a few format changes (they start using {{Episode Title Card}}s while the first season did not, and there are a couple of [[TheOtherDarrin recasts of major supporting characters]]), each introduce additional [[ArtifactOfPower Artifacts of Power]] that weren't alluded to in Season 1 and greatly ramp up the supernatural aspects. It's very clear that Season 2 was written with the intention of having a third one as well, ending on a huge {{Cliffhanger}} that would have been a ''massive'' DownerEnding for the series as a whole if it had been canceled then, and which is only resolved in the first few episodes of Season 3. There are also a few plot points from S2 that don't become relevant until S3, like [=McFarlane=]'s scroll and some of Olivia's subplot, and [[spoiler:it's also retroactively revealed that Fenton's final cliffhanger scene in the S2 finale is the result of him already being trapped inside the simulation where he spends most of the last season]]. Since the creators knew ahead of time that Season 3 would be the final one, this allowed them to wrap it up with their planned ending, which is an even better example of AndTheAdventureContinues than the first season would have been.

** On a related note, when trying to convince Fenton to let her go and work with her, Olivia reveals that the Eye is only the beginning, and there are other powerful relics out there that someone is trying to assemble, which includes the Crystal, JB's scroll, the scrolls Trudy now has, and presumably more.

** [[spoiler:For the entirety of "At the Old House" until the very end, Frank, Joe, and Fenton are stuck in a LotusEaterMachine simulation created by Drew, imagining that they successfully defeated Drew, that Laura was still alive all this time and had her death faked, and that they're visiting their old home in Dixon City with Laura.]]

** The kids also ''very'' reluctantly form one with Adrian Munder, who caused the issue in the first place by putting Frank in the Crystal, since he knows more about the Sleep Room and Midnight Machine than they do and they need his expertise to give them a better chance of safely rescuing Frank. While Munder only agrees to help with the agenda of finding out if Aaron is still in the Crystal somewhere too, he doesn't actually double-cross the Hardys and co., and [[LoveRedeems once he finds Aaron]], [[HeelFaceTurn is more than happy to see Frank and Joe both escape unimpeded]].

* FiveSecondForeshadowing: In "The Spider's Net", [[spoiler:Biff and Phil eventually figure out that all the clicks in Hurd Sparewell's phone calls to JB and to their group were the typing of computer keys, indicating that his words were being typed rather than spoken. And a few minutes later, it's shown that Olivia, after knocking out the kids' communication devices, faked a distress call from Callie. These two things combined make it clear that the bad guys are using computers to falsely imitate people's voices, which also hints that Hurd isn't really involved since there's no reason to fake his voice if it's actually him speaking. A few minutes later, the true BigBad is revealed to be Drew, a known computer whiz, with Olivia as TheDragon, and they were framing their father.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Once again, mountains of it, found on [[Foreshadowing/TheHardyBoys2020 its own page]].

** As shown in the SequelHook last season, Joe actually kept the Eye for unknown reasons despite claiming to "Frank" that he gave it to Belinda's dad, and here we learn that Joe told Brian himself that it was vaporized in the Sleep Room. Once Brian, Belinda, and Chet compare notes and realize he lied, the latter two also end up with a hidden agenda of trying to find where Joe hid the Eye, without him knowing, so they can take it back and give it to Brian for real.
** Of course, George has his own agenda of trying to find the scrolls so he can recreate the map that'll lead him to another ArtifactOfPower, the Core, all while posing as Frank, so he uses Frank's brother and friends to help him with this.

** Frank gives on to Joe when the latter shows up in the Crystal to rescue him, and Joe wholeheartedly returns the hug.

* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: When Joe assures "Frank" that JB will show up to meet them as invited:

* InUniverseCatharsis: [[spoiler:Fenton, Frank, and Joe NeverGotToSayGoodbye to Laura because she was murdered in a car accident. So while realizing in "At the Old House" that they're in a LotusEaterMachine, the Laura in front of them isn't real, 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 goodbye to her for real. Frank wraps up a major arc in his CharacterDevelopment by ''finally'' [[FiveStagesOfGrief reaching the "Acceptance" stage of grieving for her]], Joe likewise is able to reaffirm that he's reached Acceptance too, and Fenton can at last forgive himself for not being able to save her and start moving on with his life.]]

** After this season confirms what an absolutely horrific person George was--power-hungry, selfish, and cruel, having ruined countless lives, had many innocent people killed to LeaveNoWitnesses, and trying to kill one of his great-grandsons while planning to leave the other trapped in AFateWorseThanDeath 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 him up tightly within the realm there.

* LotusEaterMachine: [[spoiler:This is what Drew's simulation is; it gives the people trapped in it what they "want the most" so they won't try to fight back against it even if they realize something's not right. She traps Frank and Joe in her protype version for most of "At the Old House" 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.]]

* LoveRedeems: After Adrian Munder was shown in the previous season to have [[LoveMakesYouCrazy gone mad with grief]] over the loss of his twin brother to Project Midnight, to the point of being willing to hurt (or worse) completely innocent people, finding and reuniting with Aaron in the Crystal realm completes his HeelFaceTurn, and he makes no effort to stop the boys from returning to their bodies, even though he know he'll be stuck inside the Crystal forever, as he's content to be TogetherInDeath (or something close to it) there with Aaron.

** Joe for JB as always, and also definitely Frank now too. JB insists to Joe when they meet again that he only stole the relic from him during their previous heist to DrawAggro from Angela and her mooks and keep bad people from coming after and potentially killing Joe to get it, and we never see anything that implies otherwise. And when it becomes clear that his buyer for the map scrolls is planning to target the Hardy Boys, JB immediately threatens to burn the map if they're put into any danger and tries to warn them that his client knows who they are. He also hides them (along with Biff and Phil) in his safe room when Quill and his men come calling, and once again draws aggro at the quarry site to lead the bad guys away from the boys and their friends. He outright tells Joe why he likes him and that he truly wants the best for him, and ends up TakingTheBullet and dying while saving Joe's and Frank's lives from the woman in the hood.

* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Surprisingly subverted several times, where plans that are discussed onscreen ''actually do'' mostly work out.

*** The idea that Frank and Joe come up with together in the Crystal to outsmart George and make sure he'll stay trapped there for good plays this straight, as it's not discussed onscreen and the audience doesn't know the details until it works.

** [[spoiler:The boys plan to go outside the compound to get Chet and the Eye and bring him back inside, but are aware that their lingering powers from the Eye may not be enough to protect them from being caught and pulled into the simulation, too, and bid their friends farewell in case they don't make it back. Then they're able to retrieve and wake Chet with no issues, meaning their plan works more perfectly than even they expected.]]

** George knocks Chet and Belinda out when he sneaks back to the Hardy home to steal the scrolls after betrayin the group, and leaves them both tied up and gagged with handkerchiefs in the closet.
** JB gives Cadmus Quill a TapOnTheHead, then leaves him like this for his boss to find. Unfortunately for Quill, said boss immediately murders him as soon as they show up.

* ow up at JB's apartment to get the map back from him, he warns them that his buyer knows who they are, officially drops out of the race for the relics, and leaves while the others stay there to start piecing the map together. As he heads out the fire exit, though, he sees several cars containing Quill and many, many {{Mook}}s drive up outside, and quickly heads to the roof to sneak into the SecretRoom in his apartment, letting the kids in to keep them safe just before Quill and his men barge in.

** The kids also ''very'' reluctantly form one with Adrian Munder, who caused the whole problem in the first place by putting Frank in the Crystal, since he knows more about the Sleep Room and Midnight Machine than they do and they need his expertise to give them a better chance of safely rescuing Frank. While Munder only agrees to help with the agenda of finding out if Aaron is still in the Crystal somewhere too, he doesn't actually double-cross the Hardys and co., and [[LoveRedeems once he finds Aaron]], [[HeelFaceTurn is more than happy to see Frank and Joe both escape unimpeded]].

* AFateWorseThanDeath: Being trapped in the Crystal realm forever, where time doesn't flow properly and there's no way out without the Midnight Machine hooked up to upload people in or out of it. George, who was in firm control of the realm during his 20 years there, has kept Aaron Munder locked up in a small corner of it for 10 years since the latter arrives, and once Joe and his friends put himself ''and'' George there so they can rescue Frank, George plans to give both of his great-grandsons the same treatment as Aaron. He gets a taste of his own medicine in the end when the boys trick him into getting locked under the trapdoor of his own secret room within the Crystal and left there for good, while Aaron is at least set free from the locked room and now has Adrian for company, lessening this.

** [[spoiler:For the entirety of "At the Old House" until the very end, Frank, Joe, and Fenton are stuck in a simulation created by Drew, imagining that they successfully defeated Drew, that Laura was still alive all this time and had her death faked, and that they're visiting their old home in Dixon City with Laura.]]

** Cadmus Quill is a fairly minor character who tries to hire the Hardy Boys under false pretenses. JB knocks him out and leaves him BoundAndGagged for Quill's boss to find, hoping to learn their identity, only to be horrified when said boss just straight-up shoots Quill to death upon arriving.

* ConscienceMakesYouGoBack: When Frank, Joe, Biff, and Phil show up at JB's apartment to get the map back from him, he warns them that his buyer knows who they are, officially drops out of the race for the relics, and leaves while the others stay there to start piecing the map together. As he heads out the fire exit, though, he sees several cars containing Quill and many, many {{Mook}}s drive up outside, and quickly heads to the roof to sneak into the SecretRoom in his apartment, letting the kids in to keep them safe just before Quill and his men barge in.

** Gloria's will states that her father's first apartment in Dixon City, his shipping warehouse, and his desk at Rosegrave must all be preserved; each of these once a codex that's already been located. [=McFarlane=] found the one in the Rosegrave desk and entrusted it to Fenton, which JB later stole; meanwhile, Olivia found the two in the warehouse and apartment, and Fenton took those from her and gave them to Trudy to hide. "Frank" overhears her tell Jessie where she hid them, and he and Joe take them.

** [[ParentsinDistress Trudy Hardy, Jessie Hooper, and Brian Conrad]] are LuredIntoATrap by Sparewell Technology, hit with KnockoutGas, and [[IHaveYourWife held hostage against the gang]] in "Revelation". [[spoiler:Fenton finds them BoundAndGagged in the finale and frees them, only for all of them to temporarily be put in Drew's simulation along with the rest of the world until their kids save the day.]]
** [[spoiler:The Hardy Boys are captured near the end of "The Spider's Net" and learn that Drew was EvilAllAlong and lured ''them'' into a trap too. They're also hit with KnockoutGas and trapped in her LotusEaterMachine for the entirety of "At the Old House" until they break out at the end.]]
** [[spoiler:Fenton Hardy is an extreme example; once the boys realize in "At the Old House" that they're in a simulation, this comes with the reveal that Fenton's final scene from Season 2 where he had Olivia BoundAndGagged and Laura showed up at the warehouse, along with his ''entire storyline'', all occurred within the LotusEaterMachine, with all the phone calls from him since then being faked.]]

* EntertaininglyWrong: Joe and Callie, the two people closest to Frank, do realize soon enough that "Frank" is actually someone else's consciousness in his body, but are initially wrong about ''who'' it is.
** Downplayed with Joe, though; once he figures this out, he initially suspects that it's Aaron Munder, and tells his friends as much, but by the time they capture "Frank", he elaborates to them that he was "half-right" (right about the body-snatching, wrong about who), as he has correctly deduced that it's George Estabrook.
** Callie actually becomes suspicious of "Frank" even before Joe does--pretty much immediately, in fact, due to his cold behavior when he dumped her--but also thinks that it's either Aaron or Drew's brother Orrin, "Patient A" who was said to have died in Project Midnight, and doesn't learn that it's George until Joe tells her so.

** [[spoiler:Most of the season makes it look like Laura was a case of DeathFakedForYou: that Sparewell Technology actually captured her, faked her death in the car crash, and put a microchip in her brain to make her their BrainwashedAndCrazy assassin. But "At the Old House" finally reveals that all of Fenton's sightings of her occurred while he was trapped in Drew's LotusEaterMachine all season, the photo of her that's shown to the boys is likewise a fake, and Laura truly is dead.]]

** As shown in the SequelHook last season, Joe actually kept the Eye for unknown reasons despite claiming to "Frank" that he gave it to Belinda's dad, and here we learn that Joe actually told Brian that it was vaporized in the Project Midnight experiment. Once Brian, Belinda, and Chet compare notes and realize he lied, the latter two end up with the hidden agenda of tryin to find where Joe hid the Eye so they can give it to Brian for real.
** Of course, George has his own agenda of trying to find the scrolls so he can recreate the map that'll lead him to another ArtifactOfPower, all while under the guise as Frank, so he gets Frank's brother and friends to help him with this.
** JB works with them because, even though he has the one scroll that he stole from the Hardys last season, his client is threatening to kill him unless he gets the rest of them.
** Stacy and Kanika are apparently working together (though may be planning to betray each other later) to get the scroll map from Frank, pretending to want to work together with him too, but Stacy intends to murder him after getting it. Unbeknownst to them, though, George has something similar in mind for them too.
** When Callie and Joe talk in George's secret room after finding the box with the Crystal (containing Frank) on the floor, Callie secretly slips the Crystal into her purse and takes it with her to Rosegrave.

** In the very first episode, the answering machine message threatening JB to get the remaining scrolls is labeled by the subtitles as being "Hurd"'s voice. Finding out who hired JB to steal the scrolls becomes a major point of the investigation for the gang in the fifth episode to figure out who killed JB, and they eventually identify the voice as Hurd Sparewell's (although the viewers won't know that Sparewell has the first name "Hurd" until the boys figure it out and state his full name).

* LotusEaterMachine: [[spoiler:Frank and Joe are trapped in one for most of "At the Old House" until they break free at the end. What's worse, Fenton has been trapped in ''since the end of the previous season'', right before he first saw Laura in the warehouse.]]
** [[spoiler:Since all three of Frank, Joe, and Fenton desperately miss Laura, and getting her back is what all of them want the most, they create a shared simulation together where she's revealed to have not died in the car crash in the first season and was abducted and brainwashed instead, before eventually realizing the simulation-created version of her is TooGoodToBeTrue.]]
** [[spoiler:Joe also has a brief vision of JB smiling and waving at him from across the street, reflecting how sad he still is deep down about JB's death and his desire to see him again.]]
** [[spoiler:Also, 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 in a testament to Frank's CharacterDevelopment, once Joe clues him in, Frank doesn't fight it the way Fenton does and accepts the truth. Fenton--both due to being in the simulation for far longer than his sons, and because he carries the most guilt about Laura's death--has by far the most trouble breaking out of it because of how desperate he is for it to be real.]]

* NoHonorAmongThieves: Despite Stacy claiming to "Frank" that she's willing to let bygones be bygones and work with him to resurrect the Circle, she secretly plans to murder him as soon as he gives her the map. George, in the meantime, pretends to want to work with her and Kanika, but intends to eliminate them too. Stacy and George are both going for their guns when a mysterious figure in a hooded coat blows up the Chamber, killing Stacy and Kanika while George barely escapes.

* ParentalFavoritism: Subverted; Gloria's video will ''appears'' to indicate to other characters that she has this for Frank, seeing as she leaves him all of her estates and assets while giving Joe absolutely nothing. But this is really part of George's plan, since she did this at his instruction because he knew he would resurrect himself in Frank's body (and she may have known it too), so she was really prioritizing her father (whose approval she was desperate for) over either of her grandsons.

** An in-universe one for George when he realizes that Joe is onto him. (Probably not so much for the audience.)
--->'''Joe''': I want to know ''who I'm talking to''. Who was it that got uploaded from the Crystal? Because it's ''not my brother''.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In Gloria Estabrook's confrontation with Kanika Khan in the sixth episode, the former accuses the latter of hiring the Tall Man, who's been targeting her grandsons, threatening retaliation if either of the boys comes to harm. Considering that (as the audience learns a couple of episodes later) there's a third branch of the Eye besides their two families--the Nabokovs--which Kanika even points out, it does seem odd that Gloria is so aggressively sure the Khans are the ones responsible for employing him. [[spoiler:This sets up TheReveal that Gloria was the one who murdered Viktor Nabokov; since she doesn't find out until later about the existence of his daughter, Anastasia, who took over the family after her father's death and is the Tall Man's real employer, Gloria believes at the time that the Nabokovs are no longer in play, leaving the Khans (and thus Kanika) as the only other option left in her mind for who hired him.]]

* FiveSecondForeshadowing / OutOfCharacterAlert: [[spoiler:After Frank wakes up in his body from the seemingly-failed attempt by George to take it over, the final few minutes of the episode--in which he acts far more emotionless and less warm than usual and displays an uncharacteristic LackOfEmpathy--foreshadow TheReveal at the very end that "Frank" isn't the real Frank we know, and [[GrandTheftMe is really George]], who ''did'' succeed after all]]:
** [[spoiler:"Frank" wakes up to see his own brother Joe, his girlfriend Callie, and two of his other friends (Belinda and Chet) unconscious on the floor, but after tricking Munder into setting him free, doesn't go over to them to try to wake them up or even show any concern for them at all, instead leaving the room with Munder before revealing that he's not really the latter's brother. George really ''doesn't'' care about any of the unconscious people on the floor or even know who they are, as they're total strangers to him.]]
** [[spoiler:He seems very reluctant to return the Eye's power to the relic, stating that if he does so, he won't be able to "get what [he] wants most", even after Frank had already seemingly moved past that mindset in the previous episode. George only does so once it's clear that he won't be able to keep up his facade as Frank if he doesn't.]]
** [[spoiler:And later, in the hospital, "Frank" seems more concerned about the fact that Joe lied to him about keeping the Eye and instead gave it away to make sure it'll stay gone forever than being reunited with his brother or showing any relief that they're both okay. George, after staying quiet for a moment when Joe reveals his reasons for lying, just smiles and says "Thank you", probably in a minimal effort to keep up the charade.]]
** Most noticeably of all, [[spoiler:"Frank" rather coldly and uncaringly breaks up with Callie out of absolutely nowhere, despite his consistent warm and respectful treatment of her in the past and him having told her that she's what got him through the previous year. What's more, he gives a very flimsy excuse for it, too, claiming that the Eye's been a part of him for so long, he doesn't know who he is without it, and needs time to figure this out by himself. It's an unusual thing for Frank to say considering that he'd only been consistently seeing visions from the Eye for a couple of weeks--much shorter than the amount of time he and Callie have been dating--but makes much more sense for George. To hammer it home, she angrily asks him, "Who do you think you are?!" before storming out, and "Frank" shows absolutely no reaction, because he's not really the person she thinks he is.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** Quite a bit towards the bombing at the Demon Day parade; see ChekhovsGun above.
** In an additional example, when Chet and Belinda first meet in detention, they play a game of guessing what the other kids are there for, jokingly naming actual crimes.
*** Chet guesses "carjacking a monster truck" for Lola, who does in fact end up carjacking a vehicle in the Demon Day parade to use for the bombing.
*** Belinda names "killing her boyfriend" for Vanessa, and adds "gotta watch out for the pretty ones". Vanessa indeed turns out to be an AxCrazy teen involved with the bombing, and while she doesn't ''kill'' a boyfriend, she does steal her ex-boyfriend's track coat to frame him for kidnapping Dennis.
** The Hardys and their friends discuss in the season premiere who all knows that the Circle of the Eye is more than just a conspiracy group and revolves around an actual magical artifact, and name Anya Kowalsky and Paul [=McFarlane=]--two characters who haven't been seen in a while--as possibilities. During his mission to bring down the remaining members of the Circle, Fenton encounters both Anya's daughter Olivia and Paul. They also name-drop JB Cox, who's revealed later in the episode to be Stratemeyer Global's prisoner.
** The first time JB warns Joe and Frank about Stratemeyer, he says "If they can get to me, you can bet they can get to you as well." The second time, when he encounters Frank at the drive-in, he urges him and Joe to skip town because they're in danger, especially now that Stratemeyer can track the Eye's power. Sure enough, in the very next episode, Stratemeyer does kidnap the Hardy Boys, and Angela mockingly tells them that they should have skipped town like JB did.
** On a similar note, when Joe tells Frank about a dark blue van that he's seen idling in town various times that seems suspicious, Frank initially treats it as Joe being so desperate for a case to solve that he's imagining suspicious behavior where it doesn't exist. But then at the end of the first episode, JB tells them that this van does, in fact, belong to Stratemeyer. The boys later get an instant OhCrap moment in the fifth episode when the van [[VehicularKidnapping drives up to abduct them]].
** The first time Frank returns to Gloria's house, there's a shot of him glancing up at the crystal chandelier in the hallway before entering the study. One of the crystals on it turns out to be '''the''' Crystal, another supernatural object like the Eye, that later gets stolen from the house by the Shadow Man.
** In one of the Hardy Boys' discussions about the power of the Eye being inside of Frank, Joe asks for confirmation that it's not controlling him, and "You're still you, right?", and Frank jokingly replies "For now!" in a faux-spooky voice. [[spoiler:While the Eye never outright controls Frank, it does heavily manipulate and [[TheCorruptor corrupt]] him, and at the end of the season, George manages to steal his body while trapping his consciousness inside the Crystal, meaning that Frank really ''isn't'' himself anymore.]]
** After Wilt's is broken into, Joe asks why he doesn't get a security system, pointing out that there's a store for that literally next door. This turns out to be the reason the bomb was really planted at Wilt's, as a decoy for the fact that the security store is the true target. The explosion is close enough to temporarily knock out the security monitoring on all homes using that system, which includes Gloria Estabrook's house, giving the Shadow Man enough time to break in and steal the Crystal.
** There are a few hints scattered throughout the season that, despite Chet's genuine interest in and feelings for Belinda, he's not entirely over Callie, or at least isn't over what happened between him, her, and Frank. "The Doctor's Orders" confirms the latter to be true, rather than the former; he's truly not hung up on Callie, and is glad she and Frank are happy together and isn't jealous of them, but can't help but feel hurt by the way everything went down, despite his best efforts to move past this. However, once he finally vents these feelings to Frank and Callie and they both sincerely apologize to him, he's able to get the closure he needs and move on for real.
** In "A Midnight Scare", Frank and Callie run into JB at Rosegrave trying to find a certain scroll in Dean [=McFarlane=]'s old desk, only to find that [=McFarlane=] had already stolen it, and Frank then tells JB that the ex-dean was murdered. When Joe calls in his favor with JB at the end of the episode, the latter briefly glances down at the Hardys' [[StringTheory case board]], and the the final shot lingers on the scroll pinned there that [=McFarlane=] gave to Fenton before he died. Next episode, after JB's attempted heist of the relic for Joe goes south and the former ends up making off with a fake relic that the latter swapped in, JB comes back to the Hardy home and steals this scroll.
** Numerous times, Frank receives a vision of Joe in a chair strapped to some kind of machine while he tries to stop it, before Joe is replaced with the boy this actually happened to. [[spoiler:The Eye is, in fact, using Frank and Joe as surrogates in the vision to try to tell Frank that the BigBad he's looking for is the person whose role he himself is filling: the brother of the boy strapped in the chair. That is, Adrian Munder, the twin brother of Aaron, who was experimented on.]]
** Callie and Belinda trick Marian Cody, a nurse who was involved in Project Midnight, into coming to Gloria's home to speak with them by lying that Gloria is dead and included Marian in her will. [[spoiler:The season ends with Gloria, already hospitalized after a stroke, dying for real upon seeing that her father has returned and stolen Frank's body, with Season 3 kicking off with her funeral.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** Drew and Callie discuss a proprietary computer chip made by Sparewell Technology that the rest of the gang wants to use in the Midnight Machine to revive Frank, with Drew stating that it'll be far too difficult for them to get, though they end up using an older version instead that gets the job done. Sparewell ends up being central to the plot of the season, and Drew herself is a Sparewell, [[spoiler:and the true BigBad]].
** JB is waving all sorts of death flags in the season midpoint episode, "The Crash", from a TemptingFate line to villains who threaten him that he always lives to see another day, to agreeing to help Joe and Frank with their investigation purely for altruistic reasons (keeping them safe) as opposed to any personal gain and playing a much larger role than usual, to impersonating Cadmus Quill over the phone to lie that he's dead, to patching things up with Joe for good and even finally being candid with why he likes him so much, basically bringing their friendship full-circle. So it's incredibly sad, but not super surprising, when JB's murdered at the end of the same episode.
** At the beginning of the same episode when JB returns to his apartment, there's a news report playing in the background about an expected meteor crash. Joe remembers this later, and figures out that this is the last relic, just as it comes crashing down to Earth at the quarry.
** A few towards the BigBad of the season:
*** Heavy emphasis is drawn in the first few episodes to the fact that George Estabrook is a ManipulativeBastard with ChronicBackstabbingDisorder who never had any real friends in his whole life, just pawns that he uses in his games. [[spoiler:The BigBad turns out to be very similar, with her father even saying that Drew likewise never had friends, she had "game pieces".]]
*** [[spoiler:During the planned heist at Sparewell, Drew appears to mess up in the planning multiple times, and at one point during the heist, even pretends to have forgotten the fingerprint Callie took from Hurd ''just to mess with'' Frank and Joe. She plays it off as a joke, but this sets up perfectly for TheReveal that not only is she the real BigBad, but she's also a pathological liar and ManipulativeBastard who enjoys toying with people just because she can.]]
*** Similarly, [[spoiler:despite Drew's "real" backstory supposedly being that her father Hurd Sparewell was [[AbusiveParents emotionally abusive to her]] and that he always hated her, when Drew brings Callie to meet him as part of their "heist plan", Hurd just acts more wary, distant, and cool to her rather than doing or saying anything cruel or belittling like she claims he always was, and Drew likewise doesn't seem even remotely uncomfortable or upset being around him like you'd expect from someone with her trauma, just likewise acting cold and distant. The TrueCompanions eventually discover that she made the whole thing up, and Hurd was distant from both her and Olivia because Drew is pathological and downright evil, burying himself in his work instead and outright admitting that his daughters both frighten him.]]

** By contrast, in addition to the the second and third seasons having a few format changes (they start using {{Episode Title Card}}s while the first season did not, and there are a couple of [[TheOtherDarrin recasts of major supporting characters]]), each introduce additional [[ArtifactOfPower Artifacts of Power]] that weren't alluded to in Season 1 and greatly ramp up the supernatural aspects. It's very clear that Season 2 was written with the intention of having a third one as well, ending on a huge {{Cliffhanger}} that would have been a ''massive'' DownerEnding for the series as a whole if it had been canceled then, and which is only resolved in the first few episodes of Season 3. [[spoiler:It's also retroactively revealed that Fenton's final cliffhanger scene in the S2 finale is the result of him already being trapped inside the simulation where he spends most of the last season.]] Since the creators knew ahead of time that Season 3 would be the final one, this allowed them to wrap it up with their planned ending, which is an even better example of AndTheAdventureContinues than the first season would have been.

* TheCameo: A couple of different characters who die this season get one later:
** Despite Gloria passing in the final scene of the previous season and this one starting with her funeral, Linda Thorson does get to portray her one more time in the video will she leaves behind. (This isn't counting the flashback scenes where she's portrayed in her thirties or forties and played by a different actress.)
** JB is murdered at the close of "The Crash". [[spoiler:He gets a brief non-speaking cameo in "At the Old House", giving Joe a smile and wave from across the street before disappearing. Since this occurs inside a simulation meant to give someone what they want most, it's reflective of Joe's sadness over his death and desire to see him again.]]

** Cadmus Quill is a fairly minor character, but he tries to hire the Hardy Boys to get the map from the codex scrolls for his employer, promising to give them more information about Laura if they do, and he and his thugs later show up at JB's apartment trying to hunt them all down. JB knocks him out and leaves him BoundAndGagged in the apartment for Quill's boss to find there, hoping he'll be able to learn their identity, only to be horrified when said boss just straight-up shoots Quill upon arriving.
** JB Cox himself is the big character death of the season, being killed off at the midpoint, which is heavily foreshadowed throughout the episode. After he protects the Hardys and friends from Quill and his men and promises them that he'll look into the identity of his buyer for them, he arranges to meet the boys at the Yellow Feather pool club, only for the mysterious hooded woman who earlier murdered Quill to arrive at the same time. JB [[HeroicSacrifice pushes them both out of the way]] and[[TakingTheBullet takes two bullets through the back while shielding Joe]], dying within moments (though not without giving Joe a DyingClue first), leaving Frank very upset and shaken and Joe utterly devastated.

** JB tells Joe in the season opener that he doesn't know who his clients are (which tracks with all previous jobs we've seen him do) because he's hired via answering machine, so there are no names or faces. The boys discover in "Revelation" that he tape-recorded all of these messages, and once he gives them access to the tapes as his DyingClue, they're able to use them to figure out who hired him to steal the scrolls.

** Gloria's will states that her father's first apartment in Dixon City, his shipping warehouse, and his desk at Rosegrave must all be preserved. Each of these is the location of a codex that's already been located. [=McFarland=] found the one in the Rosegrave desk and entrusted it to Fenton, which JB later stole; meanwhile, Olivia found the two in the warehouse and apartment, and Fenton took those from her and gave them to Trudy to hide. "Frank" overhears her tell Jessie where she hid them, and he and Joe take them.

** Or rather, grandparent and great-grandparent. During the boys' confrontation with George in the Crystal, he somewhat-sarcastically invites them to come out and talk by noting that they're family ([[{{Hypocrite}} despite having left Frank there to rot and trying multiple times to kill Joe]]). Joe responds that George isn't family and never was, and once the brothers have outsmarted him, they respond to his final pleas to work together by definitively rejecting their Estabrook heritage (and, implicitly, Gloria as well as George) and stating that they're ''Hardys''.

** Continuing from end of the previous season, Frank is still stuck in the Crystal for the first three episodes after George stole the Eye from him, took his body, and left him there. Once his brother and friends realize this, they kidnap George and, after extensive planning, forcibly send him back into the Crystal along with Joe, who is able to save Frank and get him back safely.
** Trudy Hardy, Jessie Hooper, and Brian Conrad are LuredIntoATrap by Sparewell Technology, hit with KnockoutGas, and [[IHaveYourWife held hostage against the gang]] in "Revelation". [[spoiler:Fenton finds them BoundAndGagged in the finale and frees them, only for all of them to temporarily be put in Drew's simulation along with the rest of the world until their kids save the day.]]
** [[spoiler:After the Hardy Boys discover that Drew was EvilAllAlong and lured ''them'' into a trap too, they're captured and also hit with KnockoutGas at the end of "The Spider's Net", trapped in her LotusEaterMachine for the entirety of "At the Old House" until they break out at the end of it.]]
** [[spoiler:Fenton Hardy is an extreme example; once the boys discover in "At the Old House" that they're in a simulation, this comes with the reveal that Fenton has been stuck in it for far longer. His final scene from Season 2, where he had Olivia BoundAndGagged and Laura showed up at the warehouse, gets a OnceMoreWithClarity reveal that Drew snuck up on him prior to this, knocked him out, and abducted him, and that scene, along with Fenton's ''entire storyline this season'', all occurred within the LotusEaterMachine, with all the phone calls from him since then being faked.]]

** [[spoiler:Most of the season makes it look like Laura was a case of DeathFakedForYou, that Sparewell Technology actually abducted her, faked her death in the car crash, and put a microchip in her brain to make her their BrainwashedAndCrazy assassin. But "At the Old House" finally reveals that all of Fenton's sightings of her occurred while he was trapped in Drew's simulation all season, the photo of her that's shown to the boys is likewise a fake, and Laura truly is dead.]]

** Once he's pulled into the Crystal with the boys, he tries to persuade them talk it over, great-grandfather to great-grandsons, calling them "family", despite having tried to murder Joe several times with Frank's body. He then attempts to kill him ''again'', and once the boys have trapped him, tries to persuade them to work with him [[WeCanRuleTogether and let "the Estabrooks" return to power once again]]. The first thing Joe says when he lets George find him:

** Joe discovers partway through the season premiere that JB stole [=McFarland=]'s scroll from them in the previous episode.

** Overall, the innermost ring of the Circle is permanently dissolved, as all of its leaders are dead (or might as well be) by the halfway point of the season: Gloria and George Estabrook; Stacy, Viktor, and Sergei Nabokov; and Kanika and Ahmed Khan. The only surviving members of their bloodlines--the Hardy Boys and Rupert Khan--have no interest in carrying on the Circle's legacy, and have in fact actively worked to put an end to it.

* MakeWayForTheNewVillains: The [[BigBadEnsemble various leaders of the Circle of the Eye]] were the central bad guys of the first season, and the remnants of the organization and people who were wronged by their actions were the main antagonists of Season 2. By three episodes into this season, all of the still-surviving antagonists from the original three Circle families--George and Gloria Estabrook, Kanika Khan, and Stacy Nabokov--have been killed off (or close enough), and the final villains of the series are Sparewell Technology, who're not related to the Circle, and are in fact their rivals in trying to collect and make use of the relics.

** [[spoiler:As Hurd Sparewell reveals, his daughter Drew has ''always'' been this, having a pathological need to lie and manipulate people and doing so largely ForTheEvulz and because ItAmusedMe, and tells Callie, Belinda, and Chet that Drew doesn't have "friends", she has "game pieces", with Drew's older sister Olivia and family chauffeur William being the only people she ever had any closeness with (until her father sent the latter away). Drew and Olivia trick the Hardys and co. into believing that Hurd is the evil one, screw around with the Hardys on the heist just because Drew finds it amusing to mess with them, and successfully suckers everyone. It's topped off by Drew initially pretending to be captured too when her men bring her into the room where Frank and Joe are cornered, only to then quickly reveal herself as the mastermind, just to enjoy the looks on their faces.]]
* TheMasquerade: George, a century-old man who's taken over the body of a sixteen-year-old boy, has to now pretend to be Frank convincingly enough to not arouse suspicion until he can find all the ArtifactOfPower relics he's searching for, at which point he presumably plans to flee to his private island for good. Considering that Frank is in a loving relationship and has a very close bond with his little brother, as well as an active social life with a close circle of friends, this very quickly causes issues for George, who proves to be a pretty BadLiar despite his best efforts. Callie near-instantly becomes suspicious of him after he breaks up with her, and Joe very quickly senses something's amiss, too.

** {[Downplayed|Trope}}: George truly did love his daughter Gloria, and she's the only person he seems to have ever genuinely cared about at all. He planned for her to be the only person alive to know he faked his death and intended to resurrect himself one day, and is shown crying before heading to her funeral. That being said, he had no problem with manipulating her and [[WellDoneDaughterGirl using her strong desire for his approval]] to his own advantage, and didn't trust even her with ''everything'' he did.
** Joe for JB as always, and also definitely Frank this time too. JB insists to Joe when they meet again that he only stole the relic from him during their heist in the previous season to DrawAggro from Angela and her mooks and keep bad people from coming after and potentially killing Joe to get it, and we never see anything that implies otherwise. And when it becomes clear that his buyer for the map scrolls is planning to target the Hardy Boys, JB immediately threatens to burn the map if they're put into any danger and tries to warn them that his client knows who they are. He also hides them (along with Biff and Phil) in his safe room when Quill and his men come calling, and once again draws aggro at the quarry site to lead the bad guys away from the boys and their friends. He outright tells Joe why he likes him and that he truly wants the best for him, and ends up TakingTheBullet and dying while saving Joe's and Frank's lives from the woman in the coat.

** Though George Estabrook claims he didn't ''want'' to have to do it, he ultimately has no qualms about trying to murder his own great-grandson Joe--the younger brother of the person who's body he snatched--once George realizes HeKnowsTooMuch. He also seems perfectly content to leave his other great-grandson Frank to AFateWorseThanDeath by leaving him trapped in the Crystal so he can use his body, and once George is sent back there again along with Joe, plans to make sure neither of the boys can ever leave.

* ParentalFavoritism: Subverted; Gloria's video will ''appears'' to indicate to other characters that she has this for Frank, since she leaves him all of her estates and assets while giving Joe absolutely nothing. But this is really part of George's plan, since she did this at his instruction because he knew he would resurrect himself in Frank's body (and she may have known it too), so she was really prioritizing her father (whose approval she was desperate for) over either of her grandsons.

** [[spoiler:Drew, inside her own simulation, after Callie tricks her into revealing (through a SarcasticConfession) the "kill switch" for the Core, and then escapes. Drew realizes that the heroes can now thwart her plot while she's still stuck in there and can't stop them, and is reduced to a screaming temper tantrum.]]

[[foldercontrol]]

** Additionally, Callie is far more proactive in helping the Hardy Boys with their cases in the ''Casefiles'', becoming a competent investigator in her own right and sometimes even the {{Deuteragonist}} to the boys, including saving them several times. All of this carries over to her show counterpart, where she gets the most screentime out of the boys' TrueCompanions.

* BadLiar: George does not do a very good job of pretending to be Frank, to say the least. He acts distant and awkward even with people Frank is close to, doesn't bother pretending to recognize people Frank obviously knows like Stacy, rarely smiles, and doesn't attempt to talk or dress like a teenage boy instead of an old man. Overall, it takes him less than a week to get made, with Joe deducing it even ''before'' his BlatantLies after betraying him at the museum heist, and Callie suspects something right from the start.

** JB Cox himself is the big character death of the season, being killed off at the midpoint, which is heavily foreshadowed throughout the episode. After he protects the Hardys from Quill and his men and promises them that he'll look into the identity of his buyer, he arranges to meet them at the Yellow Feather pool club, only for the mysterious hooded woman who earlier murdered Quill to arrive at the same time. JB [[HeroicSacrifice pushes the boys out of the way]] and[[TakingTheBullet takes two bullets through the back while shielding Joe]], leaving Frank very upset and shaken and Joe utterly devastated.
** [[spoiler:Olivia Sparewell, originally introduced in the previous season posing as Olivia Kowalsky, meets her end in the series finale at the hands of [[SiblingMurder her own younger sister Drew]], who has apparently carried some resentment for her for years and decides that ICanRuleAlone. Olivia doesn't die right away and actually tries to crawl outside the compound so she can enter the simulation and die more peacefully there, but doesn't make it, and Fenton finds her on the stairs as she dies.]]

** Or rather, grandparent and great-grandparent. During the boys' confrontation with George in the Crystal, wherein he somewhat-sarcastically tries to get them to come out and talk by noting that they're family ([[{{Hypocrite}} despite having left Frank there to rot and trying multiple times to kill Joe]]). Joe responds that George isn't family and never was, and once the brothers have outsmarted him, they respond to his final pleas to work together by definitively rejecting their Estabrook heritage (and, implicitly, Gloria as well as George) and stating that they're ''Hardys''.

* DramaticIrony: The entire first episode in general. The viewers know that "Frank" is really George using his body, but the characters don't until Joe figures it out near the end of the premiere. Even Callie, who strongly suspects it from the beginning, doesn't know for sure, and isn't sure ''who'' "Frank" actually is.

** Downplayed with Joe, though; once he figures this out, he initially suspects that it's Aaron Munder, but by the time he and his friends capture "Frank", has correctly deduced that it's George Estabrook.

** Building off of the previous season's final twist, George Estabrook is confirmed to have always been evil. He arranged for his pilot's plane to go down so everyone would think he died in the crash, had his driver William kill three doctors who helped with Project Midnight to LeaveNoWitnesses, and intended for Gloria to murder William, too, once he'd fulfilled his usefulness. He also tries to kill Joe, his own great-grandson, several times, and leave him ''and'' Frank in the Crystal forever.
** [[spoiler:One of the biggest reveals of the whole season is that the TrueCompanions' new friend Drew Sparewell, alias "Drew Darrow" is actually the BigBad who stole the Core, framing her father for her own actions, and was manipulating them the whole time.]]

* HeelFaceTurn: Adrian Munder completes one when he enters the Crystal after the Hardys to see if he can find Aaron there, and Frank helps him do so. The boys are willing to help them both get out somehow, but Munder, now that he's found his brother after all this time and gotten what he wanted, assures them that he always planned for his trip to into the Crystal to be one-way, and warmly urges them to return.

* HiddenVillain: Despite the beginning of the season heavily setting up George Estabrook ascending to the final BigBad after being the GreaterScopeVillain previously, he turns out to be a DiscOneFinalBoss. [[spoiler:Then the actual bad guy appears to be Hurd Sparewell, the head of Sparewell Technology, whom the gang believe is an AbusiveFather to Drew and trying to use the Core for his own purposes. It's not until later in the sixth episode that they discover the real ringleader of the Sparewell villains is Drew ''herself'', with Olivia, her older sister, as her [[TheDragon Dragon]].]]

--->'''Joe''': You're not family. You never have been.

* IHaveYourWife: Sparewell abducts the boys' aunt 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 his plans.
* InevitableMutualBetrayal: "Frank" and Stacy agree to work together to use the map in the codexes to find the find the relic and resurrect the Circle of the Eye, along with Kanika, so the three original families can be in control once more. Since George already betrayed his partners in a gambit to get the Eye's powers for himself, while Stacy hates the Circle and especially the Estabrook side of it due to Gloria killing her dad, it's not at all surprising that they both plan to betray each other once George gets the map. Just before "Frank" and Stacy draw their guns, though, a third party blows up the Chamber, with George barely escaping while Kanika and Stacy are killed.

** Stacy Nabokov entirely escaped punishment in the first season for kidnapping Callie to use as a HostageForMacGuffin and plotting to steal the Eye for herself, escaping with her {{Mook}}s after her plans failed. When she returns for Gloria's funeral here and offers to work with "Frank" (actually George) to revive the Circle once again and find the last relic, with the intention of betraying "Frank" once he gives her the map, she's killed before she and George can attempt to murder each other by a third party blowing up the Chamber of the Eye.

** Overall, the innermost ring of the Circle is permanently dissolved, as all of its leaders are dead (or might as well be) by the halfway point of the season: Gloria and George Estabrook; Stacy, Viktor, and Sergei Nabokov; and Kanika and Ahmed Khan. The only surviving members of their bloodlines--the Hardy Boys and Rupert Khan--have themselves actively been working to put an end to the Circle.
** [[spoier:Hammered home even harder in the SeriesFinale, when Callie takes advantage of the advance of the internet to share Drew's intel about all of the Circle's remaining secrets online with the world, ensuring that the lesser rings of the Circle will be exposed and brought down soon enough.]]

* LeaveNoWitnesses:
** When George originally had his consciousness uploaded into the Crystal, he had his loyal chauffeur, William Vogel, murder the three doctors who also knew how the procedure worked, stating, "No loose ends." He actually ''intended'' [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness for Gloria to do this to William as well]], but she spared him and just laid him off while paying him for his silence.
** Once Joe deduces that "Frank" isn't the real Frank and someone is using his body, George promptly tries to murder him. Unfortunately for him, Joe didn't come alone.

* MakeWayForTheNewVillains: The [[BigBadEnsemble various leaders of the Circle of the Eye]] were the central bad guys of the first season, and the remnants of the organization and people who were wronged by their actions were the main antagonists of Season 2. By three episodes into this season, all of the still-surviving antagonists from the original three Circle Families--George and Gloria Estabrook, Kanika Khan, and Stacy Nabokov--have been killed off (or close enough), and the final villains of the series are Sparewell Technology, who not only not related to the Circle, but were rivals with them for trying to collect and make use of the relics.

** [[spoiler:As Hurd Sparewell reveals, his daughter Drew has ''always'' been this, having a pathological need to lie and manipulate people and doing so largely ForTheEvulz and because ItAmusedMe, and tells Callie, Belinda, and Chet that Drew doesn't have "friends", she has "game pieces", with Drew's older sister Olivia being the only person she ever had any closeness with. Drew and Olivia trick the Hardys and co. into believing that Hurd is the evil one, screw around with the Hardys on the heist just because Drew finds it amusing to mess with them, and successfully suckers everyone. It's topped off by Drew initially pretending to be captured too when her men bring her into the room where Frank and Joe are cornered, only to then quickly reveal herself as the mastermind, just to enjoy the looks on their faces.]]

** {[Downplayed|Trope}}: George truly did love his daughter Gloria, and is shown crying before heading to her funeral, and confided in her alone about his plans for to fake his death and resurrect himself in Frank's body one day. That being said, he had no problem with manipulating her and [[WellDoneDaughterGirl using her strong desire for his approval]] to his own advantage, and didn't trust even her with ''everything'' he did.
** Joe for JB as always, and also definitely Frank this time too. JB claims to Joe when they meet again that he only stole the relic from him during their heist in the previous season to DrawAggro from Angela and her mooks and keep bad people from coming after Joe to get it, and nothing is shown that contradicts this. And when it becomes clear that his buyer for the scrolls are planning to target the Hardy Boys, JB immediately threatens to burn the whole map if they're put into any danger and tries to warn them that his buyer knows who they are. He also hides them (along with Biff and Phil) in his safe room when Quill and his men come calling, and once again draws aggro at the quarry site to lead the bad guys away from the boys and their friends. He outright tells Joe that he wants the best for him, and ends up TakingTheBullet and dying while saving Joe's and Frank's lives from the woman in the hood.

* NoHonorAmongThieves: Despite Stacy claiming to "Frank" that she's willing to let bygones be bygones and resurrect the Circle with him, she fully plans to murder him as soon as he gives her the map. George, in the meantime, pretends to want to work with her and Kanika, but intends to murder them too. Stacy and George are both going for their guns when a third party blows up the Chamber.

** Agent Driscoll is also briefly hinted to be on the bad guys' side and involved with the abduction of the kids' parents, and Chet and Belinda do become suspicious of him, but he's exactly who he appears to be, a loyal [[TheLancer Lancer]] to Brian, and gets shot by Olivia while helping them escape (though luckily has a bulletproof vest and survives).

** Gloria's video will in the season premiere leaves everything she owned to Frank Hardy, because she knew that George would 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, this would mean that he does actually inherit all of Gloria's assets for real. Presumably, anything that Frank decides to keep 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.

* AdultsAreUseless: Downplayed, but present, especially because the Hardy Boys and friends keep the adults in their lives LockedOutOfTheLoop for their safety. Adults like Aunt Trudy and Fenton do help the boys occasionally with their investigations, and their [[FriendOnTheForce Friends on the Force]] come through to arrest the bad guys, but usually after the TrueCompanions have done most of the work finding and stopping them. [[spoiler:A particular example is the series finale, where the four main adult/parent figures--Fenton, Trudy, Jessie, and Brian--are all put in Drew's simulation along with the rest of the world, leaving only the teenage main characters left to stop her.]]

* CanonForeigner: The vast majority of the supporting cast is this, which is justified since most of the victims, suspects, and side characters were different in every book anyway. There are a couple of prominent examples, though:
** Laura's mother Gloria Estabrook, and the whole Estabrook family's shady past and dealings in general. In the books, we see practically nothing of Laura's relatives, and she's a regular woman and mother who certainly doesn't come from any such background.
** Biff's parents weren't given names in the book and, like the parents of all of the Hardys' other friends, make sparse appearances. Here, Biff's mom, Jessie Hooper, is a prominent recurring character who acts as the gang's FriendOnTheForce.

* DisappearedDad: Biff's dad, which is why she's so close to her mom, Jessie. More accurately, she's never had a dad because her mom adopted her, and when Biff starts looking into her biological parents, she learns that her birth dad is dead.

* MaidenAunt: Aunt Gertrude was the TropeCodifier from the books, so it's unsurprising that Aunt Trudy is this here too, though she seems to be significantly younger than her book counterpart.

* OddFriendship: Joe Hardy, a KidDetective and AmateurSleuth, gradually forms one with JB Cox, a thief and criminal. It helps that, despite JB working both with and against the Hardys at different times, he's repeatedly and consistently impressed with how smart Joe is and looks out for his safety, even saving his life at one point.

** Subverted. As soon as the Joe realizes "Frank" was the traitor in the museum heist group, rather than believing him to be this for even a second, it instantly tips him off that "Frank" isn't actually his brother and someone else is using his body.

** That being said, George's criticisms to the girls of the team are pretty weak and based on bigotry. He accuses Biff and Belinda of trying to "fill a void" created by their "broken homes" just because each of them has only one parent in their lives (never mind the fact that both of them are very close to and happy with said parent). His question to Callie later of why she cares so much about saving Frank, mocking her that they just had a "fleeting teenage romance" that was doomed to eventually become nothing more than a "fond memory", is rooted in sexism, clearly assuming she's just a hysterical ex-girlfriend and not considering that she wants to stop him for any other reason.

* ParentalFavoritism: Subverted. Gloria's video will ''appears'' to indicate that she has this for Frank, since she leaves him her house and all of her artifacts while giving Joe absolutely nothing. But this is really part of George's plan, since she apparently knew he would resurrect himself in Frank's body, so she was really prioritizing her father (whose approval she was desperate for) over either of her grandsons.

* RealEventFictionalCause: More like real technology, fictional cause. [[spoiler:Apparently, the way Drew hooked up the Core to spread her simulation worldwide is what causes the advent of the internet and improvement of computer technology in this universe, and it's implied to have advanced much further, much faster here than it did in the RealLife timeline. All of the kids get Sparewell laptops in exchange for signing their [=NDAs=], and Callie posts all the dirty secrets Drew gathered on Rosegrave and Project Midnight online on Drew's behalf to give the whole world access to it.]]

** The season premiere, which reveals that Laura is apparently still alive, also hints that Fenton's best friend and former partner Sam may have been involved in faking her death and covering it up; Fenton's not totally convinced, but gets pretty suspicious about it. However, the person who sows this mistrust is Olivia, who's later revealed to not really be a DSA agent and actually is evil, [[spoiler:and then the penultimate episode reveals that all of this occurred inside a simulation that Fenton has been trapped in since before the start of the season, and Laura truly is dead after all]]. Sam [[SheepInSheepsClothing is indeed the loyal friend he's always seemed to be]], and the denouement of the series finale has him bringing Fenton a new case, which ends up going to the boys instead.
** Agent Driscoll is briefly hinted to be on the bad guys' side and involved with the abduction of the kids' parents, and Chet and Belinda do become suspicious of him, but he's exactly who he appears to be, a loyal [[TheLancer Lancer]] to Brian, and gets shot by Olivia while helping them escape.
** The person who blows up the Chamber of the Eye and murders Cadmus Quill and JB Cox (among others) is an unknown woman in a dark coat with the hood pulled low. Since the boys see pictures of Laura Hardy running around in this getup, and the audience is shown that she was abducted and experimented on by Sparewell, the conclusion seems to be that a BrainwashedAndCrazy Laura was the culprit. [[spoiler:However, Drew later explicitly admits to the Hardys that she was the one who killed Quill and JB, and what's more, Laura was never real, only existing inside Fenton's and later the boys' simulation; Drew was the woman in the coat all along, and the picture of Laura that made the boys think she was still alive was faked.]]

** Or, in this case, redemption equals being trapped in an in-between realm forever. Adrian Munder, despite being the maniac who trapped Frank in the Crystal in the first place, does willingly help Joe and the gang get him back. He has at least the partial side agenda of finding out if Aaron really is still in there and if there's a way to bring him back too, but once he enters the Crystal and does indeed find Aaron, he has no intention of betraying the boys or tryin to stop them from leaving, even encouraging them to do so, content to stay behind and be TogetherInDeath there with Aaron.

* SmugSnake: George Estabrook, full-stop, both when using Frank's body and (more subtly) as himself. He tries to get under all the TrueCompanions' skins with cruel insults and {{Breaking Speech}}es, and mockingly tells them many times that they'll fail in their effort to bring Frank back. But he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, relying so much on the visions the Eye has shown him that he's overconfident that he can't fail, which makes it all the more satisfying when the boys outsmart him. After ''decades'' of planning to house his consciousness in the Crystal until he can [[GrandTheftMe steal Frank's body for himself]], including spending ''20 years'' waiting in there, he gets all of about a ''week'' to use Frank's body before his plans are thwarted and he's removed from it and trapped in the Crystal again, this time locked up more tightly and with no plan for how to ever escape.
* SpottingTheThread: Used to figure out that "Frank" actually has someone else's consciousness inside his body.
** Multiple for how Joe figures it out:
*** By the end of the series premiere, Joe pieces together that "Frank" was the one who double-crossed the group at the museum (especially since there's no one else it could have been, seeing as JB was arrested), and, from there, that somebody else is using his body, since he knows the real Frank, with his BigBrotherInstinct and loyalty to their friends, would never betray them or leave him behind in the museum to fend for himself and potentially be caught.
*** For how he deduces who, specifically, "Frank" really is, Joe has also been getting progressively more weirded out by his strange behavior, noting that he's been talking and dressing differently, sounding like an old man. Something he specifically calls George out for, though, is his stilted and awkward use of the word "Grandma" when talking about Gloria, slightly stumbling over it every time, because she's actually his ''daughter'' and he's correcting himself before he accidentally refers to her by name.

* TheUnmasquedWorld: Downplayed. The fact that magic exists in this universe in the form of supernatural relics of non-Earth origins was, for most of the series, only known to a precious few people; even most of those who knew about the Circle of the Eye were just aware that it was a major conspiracy and not that actual magic was involved, such as Jessie Hooper. [[spoiler:But then at the climax of this season, Drew uses the Core to temporarily put the ''entire planet'' into a simulation until the TrueCompanions stop her, at which point ''everyone'' in the world wakes up on the ground at the same time. While the gang has to sign an NDA promising not to mention the ''details'' of what went down, there's no way to avoid the world knowing that ''something'' happened that can't be dismissed by mundane explanations, especially because Drew using the Core the way she did [[RealEventFictionalCause apparently greatly sped up the advance of technology and the internet]] in this universe. It's further hammered home by Callie "going nuclear" like Drew planned to and posting all the dirt Drew got on Rosegrave, the Circle, and Project Midnight online for anyone to find and read.]]

*** The plan that Frank and Joe come up with together in the Crystal to outsmart George and make sure he'll stay trapped there for good plays this straight, as it's not discussed onscreen 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 ''is'' discussed among the friends, extensively. The fact that the Eye is showing 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 this does not happen, and the whole operation works out almost entirely as planned (the main exception being that Munder joins the Hardys in the Crystal, but even then, he doesn't come there to stop or antagonize them in any way and just wants to find his brother).
** [[spoiler:The boys plan to go out into Drew's simulation to get Chet and the Eye and bring him back inside the compound, but are aware that their lingering powers from the Eye may not be enough to protect them from being caught and pulled into the simulation, too, and bid their friends farewell in case they don't make it back. Then they're able to retrieve Chet and bring him back in with zero issues whatsoever, meaning their plan works more perfectly than even they expected.]]

** After spending all of his screentime being such a SmugSnake who's certain the Hardys and friends will fail to save Frank because it's not what the Eye has shown him, 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 WeCanRuleTogether deal, and when they reject him, can only pitifully babble that this can't be right.
** [[spoiler:Drew, stuck inside her own simulation, mockingly tells Callie, who entered it as well to try to find out from her how to shut down the Core, that there is no "kill switch" for it, only for her to trick her into revealing it via a SarcasticConfession. Once the Hardys then pull Callie out of the simulation before she can retaliate, Drew realizes that the heroes are going to thwart her plot while she's still trapped in there and can't stop them, and is reduced to a screaming temper tantrum.]]

* WellDoneDaughterGal: George explicitly states that Gloria was desperate for his approval, which lines up with how she's been portrayed so far in regards to George, and he exploited this for his own gain on many occasions. In fact, George is ''so'' confident of this that he feels certain Gloria would have followed all his instructions for her to the letter, and [[DidntSeeThatComing doesn't anticipate]] that, unlike hims, she's a BenevolentBoss with enough distaste for cold-blooded betrayal and murder of her own subordinates that she chose not to kill William as he ordered and just fire him with severance pay instead.

* WhiteSheep: Drew is this to the Sparewell family, consisting of her evil father Hurd Sparewell and her sister Olivia, his [[TheDragon Dragon]]. [[spoiler:Or, at least, this is what she leads them to think. She and Olivia are actually BlackSheep, and their father is the one who's not evil.]]

* WoundedGazelleGambit: "A Promise of Trouble" ends with Drew and Donald being knocked out, hit hard enough that they both have blood on their heads, and Drew's custom-made computer being stolen. [[spoiler:With TheReveal that Drew is actually the BigBad, it's clear with hindsight that the woman in the black coat who assaulted them and "stole" her computer was her sister Olivia, TheDragon, most likely to both throw the gang off the trail and further trick them that Laura is involved, and also to stop Donald's attempt to blackmail Drew with her true identity by seemingly having someone attack both of them.]]

** Subverted. Joe says this to "Frank", word-for-word, after figuring out he's an impostor and George pulls a gun on him. George quickly proves him wrong, trying to shoot and then stab him numerous times.
** Double subverted in the final episode. [[spoiler:Joe says this to Drew when she has him and Frank cornered at gunpoint and is preparing to kill them, only for her to shoot both of them before he even finishes the sentence. Then we see a moment later that Callie actually snuck up on Drew and knocked her out before she could fire, and then they put her in her own simulation, where she just ''imagined'' that she shot them.]]

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The first three episodes of the season are all about the drama of Frank's body having been [[GrandTheftMe hijacked]] by George, with Joe and their friends figuring this out and trying to find a way to bring Frank back. Once they succeed at this and defeat George by the end of "A Promise of Trouble", the remaining five episodes instead focus on the boys bringing down Sparewell Technology, the bad guys who get the final relic, the Core, and were responsible for kidnapping and brainwashing Laura back at the start of the series.
* HeelFaceTurn: Adrian Munder completes one when he enters the Crystal after the boys to see if he can find Aaron there, and Frank helps him do so. The boys are willing to help them both get out, but Munder, now that he's found his brother after all this time and gotten what he wanted, assures them that he always planned for this to be a one-way trip, and urges them to leave and return to their bodies.

* HiddenVillain: [[spoiler:Despite the beginning of the season heavily setting up George Estabrook as taking his place as BigBad after being the GreaterScopeVillain previously, he turns out to be a DiscOneFinalBoss. Then the actual bad guy appears to be Hurd Sparewell, the head of Sparewell Technology, whom the gang believe is an AbusiveFather to Drew and trying to use the Core for his own purposes. It's not until later in the sixth episode that they discover the real ringleader at Sparewell is Drew ''herself'', with Olivia, her older sister, as her [[TheDragon Dragon]].]]

* WeCanRuleTogether: Once it becomes clear to George that Frank and Joe have outsmarted him and are about to leave him trapped in the Crystal, he tries to persuade them to work together with him to "reap all the rewards the Eye has promised", and adds that, together, they can retake control for the Estabrook bloodline. The boys just roll their eyes at the offer and shut him down by coolly reminding him that they're ''not'' Estabrooks, they're ''Hardys''.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: George explicitly states that Gloria was desperate for his approval, which lines up with how she's been portrayed so far in regards to George, having felt hurt in the past when he told her she wouldn't be part of the Circle. In fact, George is ''so'' confident of this that he feels certain Gloria would have followed all his instructions for her to the letter, and [[DidntSeeThatComing doesn't anticipate]] that, unlike hims, she's a BenevolentBoss with enough distaste for cold-blooded betrayal and murder of her own subordinates that she chose not to kill William as he ordered and just lay him off and pay him for his silence instead.

* WhamLine: When [[spoiler:Drew]] gets captured along with Frank and Joe in "The Spider's Net", [[spoiler:and they learn that she was EvilAllAlong]]:
-->'''Olivia''': [[spoiler:Drew]], nice of you to join us.\\

* WontGetFooledAgain: After all the many, many times that JB has backstabbed the Hardys and friends or at least appeared to do so, Joe's finally done trusting him by the start of this season and is quick to assume the worst of him and that everything he does is to trick them. Ironically, this season sees JB at his most earnest and altruistic, where he not only never betrays the boys, but reveals that an apparent double-cross from the previous season was actually an attempt to protect them, and mainly gets involved in the case this time to keep them safe rather than gain something himself. Joe ''finally'' regains his trust and faith in him for good in "The Crash"...only for JB to die saving him and Frank not long after.

** George attempts to murder the 13-year-old Joe--his own great-grandson, and the younger brother of the person he's ''pretending'' to be--when the latter figures out his identity, first attempting to shoot him and then stab him with sword.

* YouJustToldMe: Joe is either bluffing or being sarcastic when asking about George living the rest of his life on his private island in Frank's body, only for George's reaction to confirm that he does actually have his own island.

* YouWouldntShootMe: Subverted. Joe says this to "Frank", word-for-word, after figuring out he's an impostor and George pulls a gun on him. George quickly proves that yes he would, in fact, murder Joe.

* AdaptationalMundanity: Inverted. The original ''Hardy Boys'' books are grounded in "realistic" fiction, lacking fantastical or magical elements, while plot points that ''appear'' to be such are proven to actually be a ScoobyDooHoax by the end (or, at most, when dealing with the possible existence of beings such as Bigfoot, the story altogether sidesteps the issue of "proving" or "disproving" its existence and leaves it ambiguous). The only exceptions are the "Ghost Stories" books that are explicitly advertised as being supernatural and non-canon to the main series. This show starts out similarly, but gradually introduces more and more supernatural elements and straight-up magical {{Ancient Artifact}}s, starting with the Eye in Season 1 (which can grant users foresight, provide them with information they otherwise couldn't possibly know, and give them good luck) and expanding to include additional ones later, like the Crystal in Season 2 and the Core in Season 3.

** By contrast, in addition to the the second and third seasons having a few format changes (they start using {{Episode Title Card}}s while the first season did not, and there are a couple of [[TheOtherDarrin recasts of major supporting characters]]), each introduce additional {{Ancient Artifact}}s and relics (which weren't alluded to in Season 1) and greatly ramp up the supernatural aspects. It's very clear that Season 2 was written with the intention of having a third one as well, ending on a huge {{Cliffhanger}} that would have been a ''massive'' DownerEnding for the series as a whole if it had been canceled then, and which is only resolved in the first few episodes of Season 3. [[spoiler:It's also retroactively revealed that Fenton's final cliffhanger scene in the S2 finale is the result of him already being trapped inside the simulation where he spends most of the last season.]] Since the creators knew ahead of time that Season 3 would be the final one, this allowed them to wrap it up with their planned ending, which is an even better example of AndTheAdventureContinues than the first season would have been.

** Played with. From the TrueCompanions' perspective, Frank is this once they realize he was the traitor in the museum heist group (and in Joe's case, it's Big Bad Brother). But since this is actually George using his body, which they soon realize, the real Frank never betrayed them (and never would).
** [[spoiler:Played utterly straight, though, with Drew Darrow, who becomes close with Callie in particular while they room together at Rosegrave, only for her to reveal and rub it in to the Hardy Boys that she was the real mastermind all along.]]

** That being said, George's criticisms to the girls of the team are pretty weak and based on bigotry. He accuses Biff and Belinda of trying to "fill a void" created by their "broken homes" just because each of then has only one parent in their lives (never mind the fact that both of them are very close to and happy with said parent). His question to Callie later of why she cares so much about saving Frank, mocking her that they just had a "fleeting teenage romance" that was doomed to eventually become nothing more than a "fond memory", is rooted in sexism, clearly assuming she's just a hysterical ex-girlfriend and not considering that she wants to stop him for any other reason.

** After being completely MIA for Season 2, Stacy Nabokov returns at Gloria's funeral, and Kanika Khan also reappears, both planning to rebuild the Circle with "Frank". Since they're killed in a mine explosion in the very first episode, it also counts as BackForTheDead.

* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: In the [[AndTheAdventureContinues new case that Sam gives the kids]] in the denouement of the finale to find some missing stamps, Phil's theory is that Wilt is involved somehow is regarded as pretty "out there" by the rest of the gang, with Joe jokingly telling him he's off the case. [[spoiler:Funny enough, the simulation version of Laura also previously suggested to Frank that Wilt is secretly shady.]] Then the very last scene consists of a BrickJoke confirming that Wilt is, indeed, part of the operation, and is worried that someone's onto him.

** Or rather, grandparent and great-grandparent. During Frank's and Joe's confrontation with George in the Crystal, wherein he somewhat-sarcastically notes that they're family (despite having left Frank there to rot and trying multiple times to kill Joe). Joe responds that George isn't family and never was, and once they've outsmarted him, respond to his final pleas to work together by definitively rejecting their Estabrook heritage (and, implicitly, Gloria as well as George) and stating that they're ''Hardys''.
** Played straight with Drew, who hates her [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] Hurd Sparewell, doesn't consider him or her older sister Olivia family (hence using the alias "Drew Darrow"), and wants to bring Sparewell Technology down. [[spoiler:While ''some'' of this does appear to be true, like Hurd having sent their chauffeur William (Drew's OnlyFriend) away and shipped her off to boardin school, it was actually in response to her troubled, manipulative behavior. In reality, Drew is the real mastermind of the operation, and she and Olivia are more than happy to frame their dad for their crimes.]]
* DramaticIrony: The entire first episode in general. The viewers know that "Frank" is really George using his body, but the characters don't until Joe figures it out near the end of the premiere. Even Callie, who strongly suspects it from the start, doesn't know for sure, and isn't sure ''who'' "Frank" actually is.

** This is what JB tells Joe he was really doing when he seemingly betrayed him by stealing the Eye relic from him (or at least, tried to) during their heist in the last season, trying to protect Joe and keep dangerous people from coming after him to get it. Considering that JB is consistently protective of the Hardys throughout the season, there's nothing contradicting this claim, and it ''did'' actually work at the time, having distracted Angela and her men long enough for the Hardys, Chet, and Brian to escape the docks.
** 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, but Frank sneaks out of the secret room behind him and the boys lock him in.
** JB does it again when the gang goes to the quarry to try to find the Core, getting the attention of the bad guys from Sparewell to chase him so he can lure them to Dixon City and out of Bridgeport and make it easier for the kids to search the quarry and find the Core.

** As usual for Project Midnight. Joe's and Frank's bodies are briefly left as this once again once Joe puts his own mind in the Crystal to find Frank and then George is re-uploaded as well, but Frank's and Joe's souls are luckily able to properly return. However, Adrian Munder also uploads himself to try to find Aaron, and once he does, chooses to stay in the Crystal with his twin and let the Hardy Boys escape, knowing there's not enough time or the means for all of them to get out. This renders Adrian's body an empty husk just like Aaron's, and it's later stated that Adrian has been moved to the same facility where Aaron is kept so the two can be together in the real world as well as in the realm of the Crystal.
** [[spoiler:This is Drew's final fate as well. When the DSA attempts to remove her from her own simulation that Callie put her in, the system experiences some kind of glitch (not made clear if it was caused by Drew resisting being removed from the simulation, something else she did to avoid the consequences of her crimes, or a just a freak accident) that prevents her from waking up in the real world and leaves her mind stuck somewhere in limbo, rendering her catatonic and leaving her in a mental hospital for the rest of her life.]]

** Building off of the previous season's final twist, George Estabrook is confirmed to have always been evil. He arranged for his pilot's plane to go down so everyone would think he died in the crash, had his chauffeur kill three doctors who helped with Project Midnight to LeaveNoWitnesses, and intended for Gloria to murder the chauffeur, too, once he'd fulfilled his usefulness. He also tries to kill Joe, his own great-grandson, several times, and leave him ''and'' Frank in the Crystal forever.
** [[spoiler:One of the biggest reveals of the whole season is that the TrueCompanions' new friend Drew Darrow is actually the BigBad behind the attempted theft of the Core, framing her father for her own actions, and was manipulating them the whole time.]]
* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler:The Sparewell Girls are the evil SiblingTeam counterpart to the Hardy Boys. While they're supposedly close as well--according to Hurd, Olivia was the only one who ever tried to understand Drew, and was in turn the only person Drew considered to be worth her time--the differences between the two pairs of siblings is what causes the sisters' relationship to fall apart. While older brother Frank always has his younger brother Joe's back and is incredibly protective of him, older sister Olivia apparently (at least according to Drew's accusations) didn't stick up for her when their father sent Drew's OnlyFriend William away and shipped her off to boarding school; and while Joe puts his life and mind at risk just to rescue Frank and bring him back, and they ultimately talk out and work through any issues they have, Drew lets her resentment fester and eventually [[SiblingMurder turns on and murders her own sister]], refusing to listen when Olivia tries to reason with her.]]

** Of course, George has his own agenda of trying to find the scrolls so he can recreate the map that'll lead him to another AncientArtifact, all while under the guise as Frank, so he gets Frank's brother and friends to help him with this.

* ICanRuleAlone: The BigBad, [[spoiler:Drew]], ends up shooting TheDragon to death [[spoiler:([[SiblingMurder her own sister Olivia]]), with the reasoning that [[spoiler:she feels Olivia didn't do a good enough job of standing up for her interests when they were kids, so she "doesn't deserve to be part of" the new simulation-world that Drew has created. Still, it's not something she's particularly happy about doing, as she's shown shedding a few tears while and after killing her.]]

* OneLastJob: JB is thoroughly tired of dealing with all the magic AncientArtifact relics and decides to drop out of the race for them for good. However, he hides the Hardys and co. in his saferoom after the Sparewell goons show up at his apartment, and Joe convinces him to stay in the game and work with them a little longer by guilt-tripping him that they might die without his help. Though he ultimately does help out willingly, Joe still [[ItsAllMyFault feels horribly guilty about this]] after JB is murdered in the process, after TakingTheBullet for him and Frank, to boot.

* SiblingMurder: [[spoiler:As Drew is about to succeed in her goal of trapping everyone inside her simulation, she turns against TheDragon, her own older sister Olivia, out of lingering resentment that, despite being Hurd's favorite (or so Drew claims) and having his ear in a way she didn't, and despite knowing how much their chauffeur, William, meant to Drew, Olivia didn't do anything to prevent Hurd from sending William away or later shipping her off to boarding school. Despite Olivia trying to plead that she's her sister, Drew kills her anyway, although she takes no pleasure in doing so and sheds a few tears.]]

** The fact that George took over the body of someone who has one of these (and a very close bond) with his younger brother is something that he predicts right from the start will be a problem. He's correct; despite George's attempt to form his own one of these with Joe so he can be more believable as "Frank", the fact that he cares only for himself and has no genuine love for Joe doesn't take long to leak through. Once he abandons him during the museum heist less than a week after taking over Frank's body, the utter lack of any kind of BigBrotherInstinct lets Joe easily figure out from there that "Frank" isn't really his brother, and he and his friends together capture George.
** Notably, once Joe successfully rescues Frank from the Crystal and restores him back to his body, the two of them ''never'' split up again for the rest of the season and share every single scene together ([[spoiler:or, at least, every "real" one, since they do have separate scenes a couple of times when they're in the simulation]]), further highlighting this.

** Downplayed for Biff. Her AdoptionAngst storyline was her main subplot throughout all of Season 2, and she got a call from her biological sister at the end of it. She does get a scene of meeting said sister, Tess, in person, and it's indicated that they're going to stay in touch and keep a relationship, but Tess doesn't actually appear again after this. Biff also never meets her bio mom, though ends up being okay with it because Tess tells her that she did her best but was largely an absent parent, and Tess was mostly raised by their bio dad, who's now dead. It's also never revealed why Biff was given up for adoption when her older sister was not, especially since their dad apparently talked about Biff all the time while Tess was growing up in a way that indicates he wishes he could have been her parent, too.
** After Joe's budding romance with Lucy was one of his bigger subplots last season, Lucy doesn't appear at all in this one, nor is she even mentioned or alluded to in any way.

* BadLiar: When Joe confronts "Frank" after the museum heist gone wrong--in which George told Joe to stay hidden and not leave until he got the codex, only to steal it himself--"Frank" tries to pull the "Oh thank goodness you got away safely, someone betrayed us!" routine. Joe is, understandably, not buying it anyway because he knows Frank's BigBrotherInstinct is ''way'' too strong to ever leave him behind like that, but George's tone also doesn't sound very convincing.

** He calls Joe "an incessant little pest, chasing glory" and Phil an "insecure loser" who's just trying to impress Biff, and cruelly tells Biff outright that Phil loves her and has been telling everyone, while he can only weakly try to deny it.
** That being said, George's criticisms to the others are pretty weak and based on bigotry. He accuses Biff and Belinda of trying to "fill a void" created by their "broken homes" just because each of then has only one parent in their lives (never mind the fact that both of them are very close to and happy with said parent), and asks if the reason he can't figure Chet out is because he hasn't figured out himself and has no direction or plans for the future, outright asking why he cares and why he doesn't just walk away.
** He also asks Callie later why she cares so much about saving Frank, mocking her that they just had a "fleeting teenage romance" that was doomed to eventually become nothing more than a "fond memory".

* BrickJoke: The series ends on a hilarious one. [[spoiler:Simulation-Laura]] tells Frank that she always thought Wilt was kinda weird and might secretly be into something shady, which Frank is incredulous about. In the finale, once the kids are given a new case to investigate related to some missing stamps, Phil likewise suggests Wilt could be involved, and the rest of the kids don't take it seriously. Then [[AndTheAdventureContinues the final shot of the series]], which is PlayedForLaughs, has Wilt take a phone call from some mystery boss and tell them that someone's onto him and they need to move the stamps that night.

** Donald Dukay, the {{Jerkass}} Bridgeport student who caused problems for Callie's prep school applications in the previous season and 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.

* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: In the [[AndTheAdventureContinues new case that Sam gives the kids]] in the denouement of the finale to find some missing stamps, Phil's theory is that Wilt is involved somehow is regarded as pretty "out there" by the rest of the kids, with Joe jokingly telling him he's off the case. [[spoiler:Funny enough, the simulation version of Laura also previously suggested to Frank that Wilt is secretly shady somehow.]] Then the very last scene consists of a BrickJoke confirming that Wilt is, indeed, part of the operation, and is worried that someone's onto him.

* ShutUpHannibal: The main friends give George several in response to his {{Hannibal Lecture}}s:
** Belinda snaps at George that the times have changed since he was around in "19-dickity" and family standards are not at all the same, with Biff adding that they're functioning just fine. And then Chet, ''trembling'' with anger, actually does clearly manage to hit a nerve by mocking the fact that George has obviously never had a real friend in his "entire sad life", because if he had, he wouldn't need to ask the question of why Chet cares.
** Callie responds to George calling her and Frank's relationship a "fleeting teenage romance" by asking him if he really thinks she's just some broken-hearted girl doing this over a boy, stating that she wants to stop him thanks to all the lives he ruined with Project Midnight.

* SiblingMurder: [[spoiler:As Drew is about to succeed in her goal of trapping everyone inside her simulation, she turns against TheDragon, her own older sister Olivia, out of lingering resentment that, despite the fact that Olivia was Hurd's favorite (or so Drew claims) and had his ear in a way she didn't, and despite knowing how much their chauffeur, William, meant to Drew, Olivia didn't didn't do anything to prevent Hurd from sending William away. Despite Olivia trying to plead that she's her sister, Drew kills her anyway, although she takes no pleasure in doing so and sheds a few tears.]]

** The fact that George took over the body of someone who has one of these (as well as a very close bond) with his younger brother is something that he predicts right from the start will be a problem. He's correct; despite his attempt to form one of these with Joe so he can blend in better, the fact that he's only out for himself and doesn't actually care about Joe at all shines through pretty quickly. Once he abandons him during the museum heist less than a week after taking over Frank's body, Joe easily figures out from there that "Frank" isn't really his brother, and he and his friends together capture George.

** [[spoiler:The Hardy Boys provide a contrast to their EvilCounterpart version of this for the season, the Sparewell sisters. While they're supposedly close, too--according to Hurd, Olivia was the only one who ever tried to understand Drew, and was in turn the only person Drew considered to be worth her time--the differences between the two pairs of siblings is what causes the sisters' relationship to fall apart. While older brother Frank always has his younger brother Joe's back and is incredibly protective of him, older sister Olivia apparently (at least according to Drew's accusations) didn't stick up for her when their father sent Drew's OnlyFriend William away and shipped her off to boarding school; and while Joe puts his life and mind at risk just to rescue Frank and bring him back, and they ultimately talk out and work through any issues they have, Drew lets her resentment fester and eventually [[SiblingMurder turns on and murders her own sister]].]]

** JB becomes this to the Hardys and co. in "The Crash", agreeing to help the Hardys try to get the Core to keep them safe. Unfortunately for him, he's murdered at the end of the episode.
** Drew several times during the season, especially during the Sparewell heist for the Core. [[spoiler:But despite the marketing for the season [[NeverTrustATrailer indicating that she'll become the latest member of the]] TrueCompanions, though, she's actually a BigBadFriend to them, and uses the heist as a way to capture the Hardys.]]
* SmugSnake: George Estabrook, full-stop, both when using Frank's body and (more subtly) as himself. He tries to get under all the TrueCompanions' skins with cruel insults and {{Hannibal Lecture}}s, and mockingly tells them many times that they'll fail in their effort to bring Frank back. But he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, relying so much on the visions that the Eye has shown him that he's confident he can't fail, which makes it all the more satisfying when the boys outsmart him and once again leave him in the Crystal, this time locked up more tightly and with no plan for escape. After ''decades'' of planning house his consciousness in the Crystal until he can take Frank's body for himself, including spending ''20 years'' waiting in there, he gets all of about a ''week'' of getting to use Frank's body before his plans are thwarted and he's removed from it and trapped in the Crystal again, this time for good.
* SpottingTheThread: Multiple involving Joe figuring out that "Frank" isn't himself:
** By the end of the series premiere, Joe pieces together not only that "Frank" was the one who double-crossed the group at the museum (especially since there's nobody else it could have been, especially since JB was arrested), but also that somebody else is using his body, since he knows the real Frank would never do such a thing and has been getting progressively more weirded out by his strange behavior.
** The thing Joe calls him out for, though, is "Frank" using the word "Grandma" when talking about Gloria, since he slightly stumbles over it every time, clearly correcting himself before he accidentally refers to her as "Gloria". It's implied that this is how Joe specifically deduces that it's George.

* AdaptationalLocationChange: While the Hardy family does live in Bridgeport, [[AdaptationNameChange the equivalent of Bayport from the books]], for most of the series, they start off living in the fictional Dixon City before moving there, where Fenton is a cop at the start of the series. In the books, Fenton was instead a cop for the New York Police Department in the backstory, and the family moved from there to Bayport when his sons were young after he retired from the force to become a PI.

** Laura is blonde and blue-eyed like her son Joe in the original series (as he's described as looking like a boy version of Laura, while Frank looks a lot like Fenton). Gertrude/Trudy, meanwhile, is described as having graying dark hair like her brother. The two of them swap for this series, with Trudy being the blonde while Laura has brown hair.

** Phil Cohen in the books is one of the Hardys' quieter, calmer friends, and acts as [[TheSmartGuy the group's computer whiz]] in several of the more modern series. Here, he's a hyperactive {{Keet}} who serves as the series' resident PluckyComicRelief and MomentKiller. Though, in the second season, he does get some CharacterRerailment to become TheSmartGuy of the group who's good at puzzles, cartography, and coding, and is on the school's AV Club (as well as the Nautical Club, which is established in the first season).
** Chet Morton loses his PluckyComicRelief, BigEater, and FatBestFriend traits from the books, all of which are given to Phil instead. Chet, in turn, is a more serious character, and is a LovableJock who hopes to get an athletic scholarship to college.
** Allen "Biff" Hooper in the books is TheBigGuy who's nonetheless an easygoing GentleGiant, as well as a highly accomplished athlete. [[GenderFlip Elizabeth "Biff" Hooper]] on the show is a tomboy, but not a particularly athletically inclined one, is one of the younger kids in the group and thus also one of the smallest, and whose major character traits are [[DeadpanSnarker rampant sarcasm towards everyone and everything]] and being ConstantlyCurious.
** Gertrude "Trudy" Hardy from the books is a strict, peppery older woman (especially in the original books) who often fusses over the danger the boys get into and pretends to be displeased with it while actually secretly being very proud of them. She's also a SupremeChef who acts as the primary cook for the Hardy home, making them delicious meals and desserts. Trudy in this series is a NiceGirl who struggles with not being strict ''enough'' with the boys and properly laying down the law for them, and is not a particularly good cook.
** Belinda Conrad is a straight arrow and very NiceGirl in the ''Undercover Brothers'' book series, whose character most often revolves around having a crush on Frank. Though the Belinda of the series is also pretty nice, especially to her friends, she's significantly snarkier and is a GoodBadGirl who regularly gets herself sent to detention and "lives for trouble", but doesn't do any kind of illegal act that's actually harmful. While her relationship with Chet (her love interest here) is her most significant one in the friend group, her relationship with her father also gets a lot of focus.

* HideYourLesbians: Not entirely surprising for a show that's set in the 80's, the first season plays this straight, where all romantic relationships shown are het and the close bond between Trudy Hardy and Jessie Hooper is depicted as them being HeterosexualLifePartners. However, refreshingly, this becomes completely averted in the second season: Jessie and Trudy are now dating, and Belinda is explicitly confirmed to be bisexual and is shown to have an ex-girlfriend named Erica.

* TrueCompanions: The Hardy Boys and their friends are the main characters of the series who work together to solve their cases, and are thick as thieves. The group consists of Frank and Joe Hardy, Chet Morton, Callie Shaw, Biff Hooper, and Phil Cohen, and expands to include Belinda Conrad as well in the second season.

** By contrast, the second and third seasons (which also start using {{Episode Title Card}}s while the first season did not) each introduce additional {{Ancient Artifact}}s and relics (which weren't alluded to in the first season) and greatly ramp up the supernatural aspects. It's very clear that Season 2 was written with the intention of having a third one as well, ending on a huge {{Cliffhanger}} that would have been a ''massive'' DownerEnding for the series as a whole if it had been canceled then, and which is only resolved in the first few episodes of Season 3. [[spoiler:It's also retroactively revealed that Fenton's final cliffhanger scene in the S2 finale is the result of him already being trapped inside the simulation where he spends most of the last season.]] Since the creators knew ahead of time that Season 3 would be the final one, this allowed them to wrap it up with their planned ending, which is an even better example of AndTheAdventureContinues than the first season would have been.

* EmptyShell: [[spoiler:Aaron Munder was left as this when his consciousness was removed from his body in Project Midnight and trapped in the Crystal, leaving the body catatonic because there's no longer a "person" inside of it to control it. This briefly happens to Frank's body as well when his consciousness is put in the Crystal too, and unfortunately for him, this gives George Estabrook the chance to hijack it for himself.]]

** Played straight with Drew, who hates her [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] Hurd Sparewell, doesn't consider him or her older sister Olivia family (hence using the alias "Drew Darrow"), and wants to bring Sparewell Technology down. [[spoiler:Or, at least, that's what she claims. In reality, ''she'' is the real mastermind of the operation, flipping the whole thing on its head, as Drew and Olivia are more than happy to frame their dad for their crimes.]]
* DramaticIrony: The beginning of the season in general. The viewers know that "Frank" is really George using his body, but nobody else does.

** When George originally had his consciousness uploaded into the Crystal, he had his loyal chauffeur murder the three doctors who also knew how the procedure worked, stating, "No loose ends."

* MoralityPet: Joe for JB as always, and also definitely Frank this time too. JB claims to Joe when they meet again that he only stole the relic from him during their heist in the previous season to DrawAggro from Angela and her mooks and keep bad people from coming after Joe to get it, and nothing is shown that contradicts this. And when it becomes clear that his buyer for the scrolls are planning to target the Hardy Boys, JB immediately threatens to burn the whole map if they're put into any danger and tries to warn them that his buyer knows who they are. He also hides them (along with Biff and Phil) in his safe room when Quill and his men come calling, and once again draws aggro at the quarry site to lead the bad guys away from the boys and their friends. He outright tells Joe that he wants the best for him, and ends up TakingTheBullet and dying while saving Joe's and Frank's lives from the woman in the hood.

** Downplayed for Joe is described as having blond hair, usually portrayed as golden blond, in the novels, but has dark blond or maybe light brown hair here.

** Since the showrunners didn't know when making the first season if there would be any more, the mystery and the {{Driving Question}}s of the season are wrapped up fairly neatly by the end of it. While there are some {{Sequel Hook}}s that wouldn't have gotten follow-up if the series hadn't been renewed, the ending of it would still have worked perfectly fine as an AndTheAdventureContinues-style SeriesFinale. Made even clearer by the fact that there's a six-month TimeSkip between the first and second seasons, since there didn't appear to be anything pressing left to solve after the Season 1 finale.
** By contrast, the second and third seasons (which also start using {{Episode Title Card}}s while the first season did not) each introduce additional {{Ancient Artifact}}s and relics (which weren't alluded to in the first season) and greatly up the supernatural aspects. It's very clear that Season 2 was written with the intention of having a third one as well, ending on a ''huge'' CliffhangerEnding that would have been a ''massive'' DownerEnding for the series as a whole if it had been canceled then, and which is only resolved in the first few episodes of Season 3. [[spoiler:It's also retroactively revealed that Fenton's final cliffhanger scene in the S2 finale was him already being trapped inside the simulation where he spends most of the last season.]] Since the creators knew ahead of time that Season 3 would be the final one, this allowed them to wrap it up with their planned ending, which is an even better example of AndTheAdventureContinues than the first season would have been.
* [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Where the Hell is Bridgeport?]]: While Bayport from the book series is usually located in New York as a suburb of NYC, although it's sometimes also been put in New Jersey (or, in the 70's TV show, in Massachusetts), it's not clear where Bridgeport and Dixon City are supposed to be here, other than being some kind of coastal town because they have docks and beaches. It's not even made clear for sure what ''country'' the series is set in: whether it's the US like in the books, or Canada, where the show is created and filmed (especially since the actors have Canadian accents).

!!Tropes;

** In the books, the Hardys have lived in Bayport their whole life, and are well-respected citizens of the town. They've also been friends with their "chums" for years, being ChildhoodFriends with Chet in particular. Here, they've visited Bridgeport before since it ''is'' where Fenton and Laura are originally from and where Trudy still lives, but the boys in particular don't know anyone there nearly as well.

* TwoGirlsToATeam: TheTeam of six friends/main characters consists of two girls, Callie and Biff, opposite the four boys (Frank, Joe, Chet, and Phil). Though this becomes averted in the second season once Belinda joins the cast, making it three girls on the team of seven.

* EpisodeTitleCard: This season begins using them for each episode.

** [[spoiler:For the entirety of "At the Old House" until the very end, Frank, Joe, and Fenton are stuck in a simulation created by Drew, imagining that they successfully defeated Drew and are visiting their old home in Dixon City with Laura.]]

* DiesWideOpen. Both JB Cox and [[spoiler:Olivia Sparewell]] die this way after being shot by the BigBad. [[spoiler:In Olivia's case, Fenton closes her eyes after she's dead.]]
* DiscOneFinalBoss: George Estabrook, whom the Hardy Boys defeat and re-trap in the Crystal in the third episode, leading to Sparewell Technology taking over the role of the main antagonist for the rest of the season.

** This is what JB tells Joe he was actually doing when he stole the relic from him (or at least, tried to) during their heist in the previous season, trying to protect Joe and keep dangerous people from coming after him to get it. Considering that JB is consistently protective of the Hardys throughout the season, there's nothing contradicting this claim, and it ''did'' actually work at the time, having distracted Angela and her men long enough for the Hardys, Chet, and Brian to escape the docks.

* NotSoDifferentRemark: 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 [[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame seems uncomfortable by the comparison]], stating they're not the same.

* SiblingTeam:

* SmugSnake: George Estabrook, full-stop, both when using Frank's body and (more subtly) as himself. He tries to get under all the TrueCompanions' skins with cruel insults and {{Hannibal Lecture}}s, and mockingly tells them many times that they'll fail in their effort to bring Frank back. Which makes it all the more satisfying when the boys outsmart him and once again trap him there.

* BreatherEpisode: [[spoiler:Subverted to high hell with "At the Old House." Once the Hardys seemingly defeat Drew near the beginning, most of the rest of it is spent with the Hardys returning to their titular old house from the beginning of the series, realizing it's Frank's birthday and having a BirthdayEpisode for him, and re-bonding with each other now that Laura's returned and after the boys have been apart from Fenton for the duration of a whole season. But then it's revealed that they never did, in fact, beat Drew, that Laura isn't real and all three of them are trapped inside a simulation she put them in.]]

** JB Cox himself is the big character death of the season, being killed off at the midpoint, which is heavily foreshadowed throughout the episode. After he protects the Hardys from Quill and his men and promises them that he'll look into the identity of his buyer, he arranges to meet them at the Yellow Feather pool club, only for the mysterious hooded woman who earlier murdered Quill to arrive at the same time. JB [[HeroicSacrifice pushes the boys out of the way]] and[[TakingTheBullet takes two bullets through the back while shielding Joe]], leaving Frank very upset and shaken and Joe downright devastated.

* HannibalLecture: George loves giving these to the TrueCompanions, first collectively calling them a "loyal band of misfits" who'd be admirable if they weren't pathetic, and then takes shots at each individually, based on his observations. That being said, several of them [[ShutUpHannibal successfully manage to shut him down]].
** He calls Joe "an incessant little pest, chasing glory" and Phil an "insecure loser" who's just trying to impress Biff, and cruelly tells Biff outright that Phil loves her and has been telling everyone, while he can only weakly try to deny it.
** That being said, George's criticisms to the others are pretty weak and based on bigotry. He accuses Biff and Belinda of trying to "fill a void" created by their "broken homes" just because each of then has only one parent in their lives (never mind the fact that both of them are very close to and happy with said parent), and asks if the reason he can't figure Chet out is because he hasn't figured out himself and has no direction or plans for the future, outright asking why he cares and why he doesn't just walk away.
** He also asks Callie later why she cares so much about saving Frank, mocking her that they just had a "fleeting teenage romance" that was doomed to eventually become nothing more than a "fond memory".

* MamaBear: Once Trudy figures out that Olivia's lying to them about Fenton, she knocks her out and crashes the car to give the boys a chance to escape.

* SixthRanger: JB becomes this to the Hardys and co. in "The Crash". Unfortunately for him, he's murdered at the end of the episode.

* WouldHurtAChild: George attempts to murder the 13-year-old Joe--his own great-grandson, and the younger brother of the person he's ''pretending'' to be--when the latter figures out his identity, first attempting to shoot him and then stab him with sword.

** The person who blows up the Chamber of the Eye and murders Cadmus Quill and JB Cox (among others) is an unknown woman in a dark coat with the hood pulled low. Since the boys see pictures of Laura Hardy running around in this getup, and the audience sees her like this as well and also learn that she's been BrainwashedAndCrazy, the conclusion seems to be that Laura was the culprit. [[spoiler:However, Drew later explicitly admits to the Hardys that she was the one who killed Quill and JB, although she ''could'' have still been speaking metaphorically and did actually have Laura pull the trigger. Either way, Laura's certainly not responsible for it and didn't do anything like that by choice.]]

* BadassFamily: [[spoiler:Once Frank and Joe are finally reunited with Fenton ''and'' Laura in the seventh episode, the Hardys become this.]]

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: It's revealed that, rather than being killed, Laura Hardy was abducted, [[DeathFakedForYou had her death faked]], and had a microchip implanted in her head that essentially turned her into a mindless soldier who could be used as an assassin.
* BreatherEpisode: [[spoiler:Once the Hardys defeat Drew (temporarily) near the beginning of "At the Old House", most of the rest of it is spent with the Hardys returning to their titular old house from the beginning of the series, realizing it's Frank's birthday and having a BirthdayEpisode for him, and re-bonding with each other now that Laura's returned and after the boys have been apart from Fenton for the duration of a whole season.]]

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Hurd Sparewell, owner of Sparewell Technology, is a textbook example, planning to use the Core for his own agenda to "change the world". [[spoiler:Though this is actually a complete subversion, as while he's rather cold and withdrawn towards everyone, he's not actually evil; his daughters are the real culprits and are framing him.

* DeathFakedForYou: The people who abducted Laura Hardy and turned her into an assassin also faked her death by badly burning the body left in the car such that it couldn't be identified by sight, and switched out her dental records so the body would be falsely identified as her.

* ForgottenBirthday: [[spoiler:Thanks to everything else going on in the Hardys' lives, none of the family realize it's June 26, Frank's 17th birthday, until they happen to figure it out from a calendar at their old house. This quickly turns most of the rest of the episode into a BirthdayEpisode.]]

* GreaterScopeVillain: Sparewell Technology, despite being an example of RememberTheNewGuy this season, were apparently the ones responsible for causing Laura's accident and apparent death and kicking off the entire series, since in her investigation of the Circle of the Eye and Project Midnight, she stumbled upon their mind-control technology.

* IHaveYourWife: Sparewell abducts the boys' aunt 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 his plans. [[spoiler:They're ultimately rescued offscreen, largely unharmed, after the Hardys defeat Drew.]]

* MamaBear:
** Once Trudy figures out that Olivia's lying to them about Fenton, she knocks her out and crashes the car to give the boys a chance to escape.
** [[spoiler:When Laura needs to PretendToBeBrainwashed by Drew for a moment until the latter lets her guard down, the moment when she stops pretending and strikes is when Drew mockingly her sons asks who wants to die first and which one wants to see their brother die.]]

* NotQuiteDead:
** Laura Hardy is indeed alive, with the villains of this season having abducted her, faked her death, and implanted a chip in her brains that made her BrainwashedAndCrazy. [[spoiler:Fenton is able to force one of the doctors involved to deactivate the microchip by the start of the seventh episode, meaning that Laura's un-brainwashed and back for real.]]
** Agent Driscoll is apparently murdered by Olivia in the sixth episode, but shows up alive in the seventh, having been wearing a bulletproof vest.

* ParentsInDistress: The boys' aunt, Biff's mom, and Belinda's dad knocked unconscious with gas and kidnapped by Sparewell in "Revelation". [[spoiler:Downplayed, though, since they're never even shown in captivity and are rescued offscreen by the start of "At the Old House".
* PretendToBeBrainwashed: [[spoiler:Once the Hardy Boys catch up to Drew before she can leave for George's island, she attempts to reactivate the microchip in Laura's brain to re-brainwash her and force her to shoot the boys. Laura pretends this worked until Drew drops her guard, then pistol-whips her, showing it didn't work after all.]]

** Agent Driscoll is briefly hinted to be on the bad guys' side and involved with the abduction of the kids' parents, and Chet and Belinda do become suspicious of him, but he's exactly who he appears to be, a loyal [[TheLancer Lancer]] to Brian, and gets shot by Olivia while helping them escape, though he survives thanks to a bulletproof vest.

* RememberTheNewGuy: An organization rather than a person. Sparewell Technology, despite never having been referenced or alluded to in any way before the events of this season, turn out to be the {{Greater Scope Villain}}s responsible for the entire series happening in the first place, thanks to kidnapping and brainwashing Laura while [[DeathFakedForYou faking her death]] back in the pilot episode.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: A few in "At the Old House" in regards to [[spoiler:Laura being alive and un-brainwashed]]:
** [[spoiler:Agent Driscoll tells her that she's still legally considered dead and it'll take some time, and quite a bit of paperwork and red tape, to officially resurrect her, recommending that she lay low until then.]]
** [[spoiler:Also, Laura acknowledges that since she's been gone nearly a year, the rest of her family have moved and built new lives; however, from her perspective, "home" is still their house in Dixon City, and she asks to go there with Fenton and the boys.]]
** [[spoiler:Understandably, there's also quite a bit of baggage around the fact that the boys had spent the last year coming to terms with Laura's death only for her to return to them, that she's not caught up on their lives anymore, and that they've all undergone quite a bit of trauma since then.]]

** Agent Driscoll, Brian's partner at the DSA. Belinda and Chet briefly fear that he's involved in the abduction of Brian, Trudy, and Jessie when he shows up at the Hardys' old apartment, but it turns out to be a RedHerring, and he dies helping them escape from Olivia.

* IHaveYourWife: Sparewell abducts the boys' aunt 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 his plans.

* NotQuiteDead: Laura Hardy is indeed alive, with the villains of this season having abducted her, faked her death, and implanted a chip in her brains that made her BrainwashedAndCrazy. Fenton is able to force one of the doctors involved to deactivate the microchip by the start of the seventh episode, meaning that Laura's un-brainwashed and back for real.

* ParentsInDistress: The boys' aunt, Biff's mom, and Belinda's dad knocked unconscious with gas and kidnapped by Sparewell in "Revelation".

** Agent Driscoll is briefly hinted to be on the bad guys' side and involved with the abduction of the kids' parents, and Chet and Belinda do become suspicious of him, but he's exactly who he appears to be, a loyal [[TheLancer Lancer]] to Brian, and gets killed by Olivia while helping them escape.
** The person who blows up the Chamber of the Eye and murders Cadmus Quill and JB Cox (among others) is an unknown woman in a dark coat with the hood pulled low. Since the boys see pictures of Laura Hardy running around in this getup, and the audience sees her like this as well and also learn that she's had a microchip implanted in her head and been turned into an assassin, the conclusion seems to be that Laura was the culprit, but only because she was BrainwashedAndCrazy. [[spoiler:However, Drew later explicitly admits to the Hardys that she was the one who killed Quill and JB.]]

* ChekhovsGunman: The Hardys and co. learned about two different victims of Project Midnight in the previous season: Subject A, who died on the spot and his death was covered up as an aneurysm, and Subject B, who was left catatonic. Subject B turned out to be Aaron Munder and was very important to the [[BigBad Shadow Man's]] motivations. In the second episode of this season, Subject A becomes relevant when Callie realizes from Drew's description that he was her older brother, Orrin, and avenging his death by bringing down Rosegrave is the real reason she came there.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Hurd Sparewell, owner of the Sparewell company, is a textbook example, planning to use the Core for his own agenda to "change the world". [[spoiler:Though this is actually a complete subversion, as while he's rather cold and withdrawn towards everyone, he's not actually evil; his daughters are the real culprits and are framing him.

* DiscOneFinalBoss: George Estabrook, whom the Hardy Boys defeat and re-trap in the Crystal in the third episode, leading to Sparewell taking over the role of the main antagonist for the rest of the season.

** Played straight with Drew, who hates her [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] Hurd Sparewell, doesn't consider him or her older sister Olivia family (hence using the alias "Drew Darrow"), and wants to bring Sparewell down. [[spoiler:Or, at least, that's what she claims. In reality, ''she'' is the real mastermind of the operation, flipping the whole thing on its head, as Drew and Olivia are more than happy to frame their dad for their crimes.]]

** Drew and Callie discuss a proprietary computer chip made by Sparewell that the rest of the gang wants to use in the Midnight Machine to revive Frank, with Drew stating that it'll be far too difficult for them to get, though they end up using an older version instead that gets the job done. Sparewell ends up being the BigBad organization of the season, and Drew herself is a Sparewell, albeit one who's disowned herself from the family.

*** Heavy emphasis is drawn in the first few episodes to the fact that George Estabrook is a ManipulativeBastard with ChronicBackstabbingDisorder who never had any real friends in his whole life, just pawns that he uses in his games. [[spoiler:The BigBad turns out to be very similar, with her father even saying that Drew likewise never had friends, she had "chess pieces".]]

*** Similarly, [[spoiler:despite Drew's "real" backstory supposedly being that her father Hurd Sparewell was [[AbusiveParents emotionally abusive to her]] and that he always hated her, when Drew brings Callie to meet him as part of their "heist plan", Hurd just acts more wary, distant, and cool to her rather than doing or saying anything cruel or belittling like she claims he always was, and Drew likewise doesn't seem even remotely uncomfortable or upset being around him like you'd expect from someone with her trauma, just likewise acting cold and distant. The TrueCompanions eventually discover that she made the whole thing up, and Hurd was distant from both her and Olivia because Drew is pathological and downright evil, burying himself in this work instead.]]

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The first three episodes of the season are all about the drama of Frank's body having been [[GrandTheftMe hijacked]] by George, with Joe and their friends figuring this out and trying to find a way to bring Frank back. Once they succeed at this and defeat George by the end of "A Promise of Trouble", the remaining five episodes instead focus on the boys bringing down Sparewell, the bad guys who get the final relic, the Core.

* HiddenVillain: [[spoiler:Despite the beginning of the season heavily setting up George Estabrook as taking his place as BigBad after being the GreaterScopeVillain previously, he turns out to be a DiscOneFinalBoss. Then the actual bad guy appears to be Hurd Sparewell, the head of the Sparewell technology company, whom the gang believe is an AbusiveFather to Drew and trying to use the Core for his own purposes. It's not until later in the sixth episode that they discover the real ringleader at Sparewell is Drew ''herself'', with Olivia, her older sister, as her [[TheDragon Dragon]].]]

** [[spoiler:As Hurd Sparewell reveals, his daughter Drew has ''always'' been this, having a pathological need to lie and manipulate people and doing so largely ForTheEvulz and because ItAmusedMe, and tells Callie, Belinda, and Chet that Drew doesn't have "friends", she has "chess pieces", with Drew's older sister Olivia being the only person she ever had any closeness with. Drew and Olivia trick the Hardys and co. into believing that Hurd is the evil one, screw around with the Hardys on the heist just because Drew finds it amusing to mess with them, and successfully suckers everyone. It's topped off by Drew initially pretending to be captured too when her men bring her into the room where Frank and Joe are cornered, only to then quickly reveal herself as the mastermind, just to enjoy the looks on their faces.]]

** JB is waving all sorts of death flags in the season midpoint episode, "The Crash", from a TemptingFate line to villains who threaten him that he always lives to see another day, to agreeing to help Joe and Frank with their investigation purely for altruistic reasons (keeping them safe) as opposed to any personal gain and playing a much larger role than usual, to impersonating Quill over the phone to lie that he's dead, to patching things up with Joe for good and even finally being candid with why he likes him so much, basically bringing their friendship full-circle. So it's incredibly sad, but not super surprising, when JB's murdered at the end of the same episode.

* SecretRoom: JB turns out to have a safe room, complete with security surveillance of his apartment and the nearby hallways, in the back of his coat closet, which he uses to hide the Hardys and friends when Quill comes to the apartment searching for them.

[[spoiler:'''Drew''']]: Join you, Olivia? You wish. [[spoiler:...It almost makes it sound as if ''you're'' the brains of this operation.]]

** [[spoiler:Played entirely straight, though, with Drew, Callie's roommate whom she befriended and who seems to become the eighth member of the gang while helping them bring down her evil father. When she reveals to the captured Frank and Joe that she's the real mastermind and was manipulating them all along, this is written all over their faces.]]

** Played straight with Drew, who hates her AbusiveFather Hurd Sparewell, doesn't consider him or her older sister Olivia family (hence using the alias "Drew Darrow"), and wants to bring Sparewell down. [[spoiler:Or, at least, that's what she claims. In reality, ''she'' is the real mastermind of the operation, flipping the whole thing on its head, as Drew and Olivia are more than happy to frame their dad for their crimes.]]

* BigBadFriend: Played with. From the TrueCompanions' perspective, Frank is this once they realize he was the traitor in the museum heist group (and in Joe's case, it's Big Bad Brother). But since this is actually George using his body, which they soon realize, the real Frank never betrayed them (and never would).

*** Heavy emphasis is drawn in the first few episodes to the fact that George Estabrook is a ManipulativeBastard with ChronicBackstabbingDisorder who never had any real friends in his whole life, just pawns that he uses in his games. [[spoiler:The BigBad of the season turns out to be very similar, with her father even saying that Drew likewise never had friends, she had "chess pieces".]]

** [[spoiler:During the planned heist at Sparewell, Drew appears to mess up in the planning multiple times, and at one point during the heist, even pretends to have forgotten the fingerprint Callie took from Hurd ''just to mess with'' Frank and Joe. She plays it off as a joke, but this sets up perfectly for TheReveal that not only is she the real BigBad, but she's also a pathological liar and ManipulativeBastard who enjoys toying with people just because she can.]]
** Similarly, [[spoiler:despite Drew's "real" backstory supposedly being that her father Hurd Sparewell was [[AbusiveParents emotionally abusive to her]] and that he always hated her, when Drew brings Callie to meet him as part of their "heist plan", Hurd just acts more wary, distant, and cool to her rather than doing or saying anything cruel or belittling like she claims he always was, and Drew likewise doesn't seem even remotely uncomfortable or upset being around him like you'd expect from someone with her trauma, just likewise acting cold and distant. The TrueCompanions eventually discover that she made the whole thing up, and Hurd was distant from both her and Olivia because Drew is pathological and downright evil, burying himself in this work instead.]]

* ManipulativeBastard: [[spoiler:As Hurd Sparewell reveals, his daughter Drew has ''always'' been this, having a pathological need to lie and manipulate people and doing so largely ForTheEvulz and because ItAmusedMe, and tells Callie, Belinda, and Chet that Drew doesn't have "friends", she has "chess pieces", with Drew's older sister Olivia being the only person she ever had any closeness with. Drew and Olivia trick the Hardys and co. into believing that Hurd is the evil one, screw around with the Hardys on the heist just because Drew finds it amusing to mess with them, and successfully suckers everyone. It's topped off by Drew initially pretending to be captured too when her men bring her into the room where Frank and Joe are cornered, only to then quickly reveal herself as the mastermind, just to enjoy the looks on their faces.]]

* MoralityPet: As always, Joe for JB, and also Frank. JB clarifies to Joe when they meet again that he only stole the relic from him in the previous season to DrawAggro from Angela and her mooks and keep bad people from coming after Joe to get it, and nothing is shown that contradicts this claim. And when it becomes clear that his buyer for the scrolls are planning to target the Hardy Boys, JB immediately threatens to burn the whole map if they're put into any danger.

* ArchNemesisDad: Hurd Sparewell to his daughter, Drew. He was so [[AbusiveParents emotionally abusive]] to her growing up that she's positively eager to join the gang in bringing him (and her sister Olivia) down.

* [[DisownedParent Disowned Grandparent]]: And great-grandparent. During Frank's and Joe's confrontation with George in the Crystal, wherein he somewhat-sarcastically notes that they're family (despite having left Frank there to rot and trying multiple times to kill Joe). Joe responds that George isn't family and never was, and once they've outsmarted him, respond to his final pleas to work together by definitively rejecting their Estabrook heritage (and, implicitly, Gloria as well as George) and stating that they're ''Hardys''.

* WhiteSheep: Drew is this to the Sparewell family, consisting of her evil father Hurd Sparewell and her sister Olivia, his [[TheDragon Dragon]]. It's implied that her brother Orrin was this, too, before he died.