History Series / TheHardyBoys2020

** In the books, the Hardy Boys have lived in Bayport for nearly their whole lives since the family moved there at a young age, 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 likely visited Bridgeport before to see Trudy and possibly Gloria, but don't know anyone else there until they move to town in the first episode.

* AnachronismStew: Lots of examples of this. Despite the 1980s setting, there’s many liberties taken.
** In season 3 episode 5, the gang is confronted by a group driving Chevrolet Suburbans. The Suburbans are 10th generation models, produced from 2007-2013. Their modern appearance is extremely out of place.
** In season 3, [[EvilInc Evil Inc.]] incarnate Sparewell makes laptop computers that have an industrial design straight out of the late 1990s.
** Modern slang is often used. “Rando”, anyone?
** Modern VR headsets are used in a late Season 3 episode.

** In the books, the Hardy Boys have lived in Bayport for nearly their whole lives since they moved there at a young age, 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 likely visited Bridgeport before to see Trudy and possibly Gloria, but the boys in particular don't know anyone there nearly as well.

** 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.

** Clearly, it runs in both sides of the Hardy Boys' family, since Trudy, Fenton, Gloria, and [[spoiler:George]] all have their moments as well.

-->'''Callie''': I've never had friends like these before. I'd do ''anything'' for them.

** Clearly, it runs in both sides of the Hardy Boys' family, since Trudy, Fenton, and Gloria all have their moments as well.

* UndyingLoyalty: Carried over from the books, this is what makes the Hardy Boys and their friends such a strong-knit group of TrueCompanions is that they will ''always'' stick by and support each other, and all of them know it. Callie puts it best in "A Vanishing Act":

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* AnachronismStew: Lots of examples of this. Despite the 1980s setting, there’s a lot of liberties taken with the setting.

** In season 3 episode 6, the gang is confronted by a group driving Chevrolet Suburbans. The Suburbans are 10th generation models, produced from 2007-2013. Their modern appearance is extremely out of place.

* ArtisiticLicenseWeather: Even though the first season is supposed to take place across the summer and early fall and the characters are accordingly shown wearing short-sleeved clothes indoors, at least a large portion of the season was quite clearly filmed during the winter for the outdoor scenes, which have everybody wearing long sleeves and jackets and the trees are all bare and leafless. One particular standout example is in "The Key", where a few characters' breaths can quite clearly be seen fogging up outside.

** The beginning of the series hints that Biff's something of a loner and considered kind of weird by other kids in town, and she's also not really shown spending much time with any of them until she becomes Joe's friend. This changes, though, when she and the other kids who've also begun hanging out with the Hardy Boys form a tight-knit group, as she eventually grows to be {{Best Friend}}s with Phil, while Callie becomes something of a BigSisterMentor to her.

* HideYourLesbians: Not entirely surprising for a show that's set in the 80's, the first season plays this straight, where all romantic relationships explicitly shown are het, while the close bond between Trudy Hardy and Jessie Hooper is more ambiguous and could be interpreted as either ShipTease or them simply becoming very close friends. However, refreshingly, this becomes completely averted in the second season onward: Jessie and Trudy are now dating, and Belinda is explicitly confirmed to be bisexual and is shown to have an ex-girlfriend named Erica.

* 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. It becomes averted in the second two seasons, though, where she's now in a steady relationship with Jessie Hooper, even moving in with her in the SeriesFinale.

** Stacy for the second half of the first season, though she also does at least start at the beginning of the year like the Hardys do. She and Frank bond over the shared experience of being the new kid, and her interest in him causes tension between them, Callie, and Chet. [[spoiler:It doesn't last, since she turns out to be evil and flees Bridgeport at the end of the season when her plans fail]].
** Belinda in the second season; her dad moves around a lot for work, so this is a regular occurrence for her. Her move to Bridgeport is an extreme example, given that it's less than a month before the end of the school year. She becomes Chet's love interest, and unlike Stacy, she doesn't cause any relationship drama and becomes the SixthRanger to the Hardys and their friends. [[spoiler:While her dad is involved with one of the criminal factions (but is TheMole), and she herself is a GoodBadGirl, they both are nowhere near evil, also unlike Stacy.]] The end of the season implies that she, too, will be sticking around, and her dad won't be moving for work again anytime soon.

* 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 onward once Belinda joins the cast, making it three girls on the team of seven.

* [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Where the Hell is Bridgeport?]]: Bayport from the book series is usually located in New York as a suburb of NYC, although it's also sometimes been put in New Jersey (or, in the 70's TV show, in Massachusetts), but 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 specified 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 (and the actors and their characters have Canadian accents). It seems to be ''somewhere'' north because the characters often wear long sleeves outdoors even in (what's supposed to be) summer.

** This also applies to their friends. Callie and Biff, who both come from two-parent households in the source material, have only one parent here, with Callie's mom having abandoned her and her dad when she was young while Biff has some AdoptionAngst, especially after learning her bio dad is dead. Chet's family is mentioned on a couple of occasions to be having financial struggles with their farm, while Phil--who doesn't really have love interests in the books--has an unrequited crush on Biff as his biggest personal arc in the series. Actually averted for Belinda, though, whose father here is far more loving and stable than her broken home in ''Undercover Brothers''.

** Chet and Callie are dating in this series until they break up in episode 10 of the first season due to Callie's growing feelings for Frank. They never had any such relationship in the books, where Callie has always been either Frank's girlfriend or just a platonic friend of everyone in the group.

** JB Cox has no canon equivalent from any book series. In the show, he fills a void for Joe left by his mom's death and dad's absence as a supportive-but-shady adult friend who looks out for him, and the boys usually have no interest in actually trying to get him arrested for his previous, unrelated thefts as long as he's not the culprit behind the cases they're actively trying to solve. Joe's book counterpart is older, has both parents around, and is thus more stable and far too much of a straight-arrow to form an ongoing OddFriendship with a career thief, and ditto for Frank.

** The beginning of the series hints that Biff's something of a loner and considered kind of weird by other kids in town, and she's also not really shown hanging out with any of them until she becomes Joe's friend. This changes, though, when she and the other kids who've also begun hanging out with the Hardy Boys form a tight-knit group, as she eventually grows to be BestFriends with Phil, while Callie becomes something of a BigSisterMentor to her.

** In Season 3, JB is also revealed to have a safe room hidden behind the back of his coat closet in his apartment, which is where he keeps his records and information pertaining to his work as a thief-for-hire. He lets the Hardy Boys and friends hide there with him when some thugs showing up looking for all of them, and it becomes the gang's main base of operations for the second half of the season.

** In the first season, Frank, Chet, and Callie frequently group up to investigate, creating this dynamic. The girl is dating one of the guys at the start, but he later breaks up with her as she falls for the other guy, creating tension between the three of them for a bit. It becomes subverted in the second season onward, though, once Belinda joins the team, leaving four older kids who often pair up by couples (Frank & Callie, Chet & Belinda).

** It's also implied that one of the reasons Joe [[OddFriendship gets along with JB as well as he does]] is because the latter is an adult who actually ''does'' respect and admire the Hardy Boys' skills as detectives without brushing them off as "just kids", especially considering how many times they give him valuable intel throughout the series. The few times he doesn't believe something they tell him truthfully, it's because he has reason to think they're lying to him (whether it's true or not), as opposed to not taking them seriously.

----

** Unsurprising considering that Laura Hardy undergoes DeathByAdaptation in this series and her husband and sons are left mourning her murder. This makes both of them, as well as their dad Fenton, less upbeat and cheerful than they are in the original books, with Frank in particular being moodier and having far more emotional struggles than in the books and Fenton being portrayed as a [[ParentsAsPeople flawed father despite his love for his sons]]. The boys also have serious disagreements with each other at several points that lead to actual fights, and also both have significantly more drama in their love lives.
** This also applies to their friends. Callie and Biff, who both came from two-parents households in the source material, have only one parent here, with Callie's mom having abandoned her and her dad when she was young while Biff has some AdoptionAngst, especially after learning her bio dad is dead. Chet's family is mentioned on a couple of occasions to be having financial struggles with their farm, while Phil--who doesn't have love interests in the books--has his unrequited crush on Biff act as his biggest personal arc in the series. Actually averted for Belinda, though, whose father here is far more loving and stable than her broken home in ''Undercover Brothers''.

** Similarly, Gertrude/Trudy Hardy was never shown having a job in any of the book series, and lives with her brother Fenton and his family. Here, she lives alone (until the boys and her brother come to stay with her) in the house she and Fenton grew up in with their parents, thus needing some sort of income, and is a painter who displays and sells her artwork in galleries, and later a school guidance counselor as well.

** 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 with a MotorMouth, 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.

** On the topic of Belinda, Brian Conrad from ''Undercover Brothers'' is her older brother; in this series, Belinda is an only child, and Brian is her father.

* BookcasePassage: The Hardy Boys and friends discover one midway through the first season in Gloria's home, and later enter and discover that it was the secret office of George Estabrook (Gloria's father and the boys' great-grandfather), where tons of his secrets about the Eye, the Circle, and other mysterious objects are hidden. They continue to use it and find crucial info there throughout the rest of the series.

** JB Cox has no canon equivalent from any book series. In the show, he fills a void for Joe left by his mom's death and dad's absence as a supportive older figure who looks out for him, and the boys have no interest in actually trying to get him arrested for his thefts as long as he's not the culprit behind the cases they're actively trying to solve. Joe's book counterpart is older, has both parents around, and is thus more stable and far too much of a straight-arrow to form an ongoing OddFriendship with a career thief, and ditto for Frank, too.

** The most prominent examples are Joe (which he shares with his book counterpart of every series) and Biff; since they spend so much time together, this often turns into SnarkToSnarkCombat. Joe lampshades this to Frank at one point by stating that he's "trying to lighten the mood by being hilarious."

* FriendlessBackground: Implied for Joe. Unlike Frank, who had his girlfriend Emma and possibly at least some of his baseball teammates, Joe isn't shown or stated to have had any friends when living in Dixon City at the start of the series, as the only interaction he has with other kids consists of retaliating against some bullies. It's hinted that being WiseBeyondHisYears makes it easier for him to connect with older kids (like Frank, Chet, Callie, and Belinda), and even adults like JB, than with those his age, with Biff and Phil seeming to be his first real friends in his age group.

** Biff Hooper, who is one of the Hardy Boys' male chums from the books, and whose real name is Allen; here, she's changed to a girl and is Joe's best friend, and Biff is a nickname for "Elizabeth".

* TheGhost: Chet talks about his folks a few times, and they run a farm as they do in the books, but he's the only member of the main friend group whose family members never appear onscreen at any point during the show.

** This series takes place sometime in the 80s, and its "The Hardy Boys" series logo is identical to the logo for ''Literature/TheHardyBoys Casefiles'', a popular spinoff book series from the original that was written from the late 80s to the late 90s. The pose that Frank and Joe are standing in on the series image, meanwhile, complete with pointing a flashlight at the viewer, resembles the boys' logo from the ''Undercover Brothers'' series.

** 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 Hardys' TrueCompanions.

** Biff finds her birth mom in River Heights, the town that Literature/NancyDrew is from in the books.
** In the Season 2 finale, Frank sees a flashback between George and Gloria in which he crypically tells her to always remember "what happens at Midnight" (referring to the shady "Project Midnight" that the Hardys learned about prior). "What Happened at Midnight" is another original book title.

** Belinda in the second season; her dad moves around a lot for work, so this is a regular occurrence for her. She becomes Chet's love interest, and unlike Stacy, she doesn't cause any relationship drama and becomes the SixthRanger to the Hardys and their friends. [[spoiler:While her dad is involved with one of the criminal factions (but is TheMole), and she herself is a GoodBadGirl, they both are nowhere near evil, also unlike Stacy.]] The end of the season implies that she, too, will be sticking around, and her dad won't be moving for work again anytime soon.

* PreviouslyOn: Every episode utilizes this (with the obvious exception of the series premiere) to highlight which developments and plot points of previous episodes will be most relevant to this one. For the Season 2 and 3 premieres, they're even longer, recapping the most important and relevant info from the previous seasons.

** Since the showrunners didn't know when making the first season if there would be any more, it's by far the most standalone of the series, with the mystery and {{Driving Question}}s of the season 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, they're not directly related to the case that the boys solve, and the ending still would 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 isn't anything pressing left to solve from Season 1.
** 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 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, they were able to wrap it up with their planned ending.

[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Episode Titles]]
[[AC: Season 1]]
#Welcome to Your Life
#Where the Light Can't Find You
#Of Freedom and Pleasure
#Secrets and Lies
#The Drop
#In Plain Sight
#A Figure in Hiding
#What Happened in Bridgeport
#The Key
#The Secret Room
#No Getting Out
#Eye to Eye
#While the Clock Ticked

\\
[[AC: Season 2]]
#A Disappearance
#Conflicting Reports
#The Missing Camera
#A Clue on Film
#Heading for Destruction
#Hunting an Intruder
#The Doctor's Orders
#A Midnight Scare
#Captured!
#An Unexpected Return

\\
[[AC: Season 3]]
#A Strange Inheritance
#A Vanishing Act
#A Promise of Trouble
#The Crash
#Revelation
#The Spider's Net
#At the Old House
#A Wild Ride

[[/folder]]

!!Warning: For each Season folder, all spoilers for previous seasons will be left unmarked.
Though all connected, each season has largely different antagonists and storylines. For tropes pertaining to specific seasons, see their respective recap pages.
[[folder:General Tropes]]

[[/folder]]

* AdaptationalVillainy: Chief Ezra Collig is a grump in some of the book series, but also always a ReasonableAuthorityFigure and honest cop who acts as a FriendOnTheForce for the boys. Here, he turns out to be in on the corruption going on in the town and is secretly working for Gloria. He gets arrested and removed from his position at the end of the season.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: A couple in quick succession when the Hardy Boys encounter JB at the abandoned factory in "The Drop". As he tries to leave, Frank insists that he give them more information, resulting in:
-->'''JB''': You want "something?" Here's "something": I stole a golden idol from a ''killer''. The people who hired ''me'' are probably just as dangerous. So what were ''you'' [[AndThenWhat gonna do if you caught up with them?]]\\
'''Frank''': ''(Long {{Beat}})'' I don't know, I hadn't thought that far ahead.\\
'''JB''': Think ahead ''now''. You let this go.\\
'''Frank''': ''(To his back as he walks away)'' If it were your mother, would you let it go?\\
'''JB''': ''(Stops and turns around [[{{Beat}} after a moment]])'' [[{{Touche}} No. I wouldn't.]] [[ArmorPiercingResponse But I bet your mom wouldn't want you end up like her.]] ''(Pauses to let this sink in.)'' Get out of here.
* ArtifactOfAttraction: The Eye is hinted to have this effect on everyone who comes into contact with it, giving them some combination of being DrunkOnTheDarkSide and having a PowerHigh:
** The original three men who found the Eye--George, Ahmed, and Sergei--used it to become wealthy and powerful, becoming more and more corrupt along the way. Even after George had a change of heart and split the Eye into three pieces to divide and limit its power, there was still a part of him that was tempted to reassemble and use it and felt "blind without it", his description sounding like an addict having withdrawal symptoms while trying to get clean.
** In the present day, the heads of all the families, but especially Gloria and Stacy, want to reassemble it for their own power as well. Gloria's description of what the whole Eye can do, in particular, sounds almost awed and worshipful.
** When JB steals the Khan piece for Gloria and experiences the good luck that even one fraction of it can bring, he starts to have a PowerHigh from it and wants to put the whole thing together to be even luckier, unaware of the full scope of what the Eye can do when it's fully assembled. It takes him picking a fight with Stacy to steal her piece, losing, being beaten up, and having his own piece stolen for him to come down from it and realize, like Joe has (see below), that the Eye is dangerous and he wants nothing more to do with it.
** Even Frank, after learning about the Eye's true power, briefly has a phase of considering using it to see Laura's spirit and be able to talk to her. It's only after an argument with Joe that results in the latter attempting to destroy it on his own and nearly dying in a mine shaft that Frank snaps out of it and also recognizes that they're better off without it.
** Joe is the one person who uses part of the Eye's power who is able to resist its attraction. While he does enjoy the luck that the Estabrook piece he found gives him at the carnival, once he and Frank learn just what his "lucky charm" is, it doesn't take long for him to decide they should just destroy it. Even after using his piece once again to help him and Biff find their way through the mine, he still doesn't waver about wanting to get rid of it, not liking the weird power it gives off.
* ArtifactOfPower: The Eye, which allows its user to see the outcome of events, and use this knowledge to change or influence the world. The three men who found it--George Estabrook, Ahmed Khan, and Sergei Nabokov--used it to become three of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the world, together known as the Circle of the Eye. After some unspecified event occurred that resulted in the deaths of 4,000 people, which the Circle apparently caused or at least did nothing to prevent, George came to believe that NoManShouldHaveThisPower and decided to break the Eye into three pieces, with each family keeping one, and flee with his piece to make sure it was lost forever so the Eye could never be fully assembled again. Ahmed and Sergei are implied to have had him murdered by causing his plane to crash, allowing his daughter Gloria (who shared their desire to reassemble the Eye) to take over the family.
* ArtisticLicenseLaw: A justified example. Joe is panicking about the police having found the toolbox that he lent to JB before later finding out he's a criminal, as Joe's soldering iron with his name engraved on it is in there and he fears being arrested as an accomplice. Biff comes up with a plan to help him get it back while stating that since it's Joe's soldering iron, if he takes it back from the police while he's at the station, it's not really stealing. Of course, this is completely untrue, as taking something that's been classified as police evidence very much ''is'' stealing and is illegal, but these are two 12-year-olds saying it, not actual law enforcement, and they do indeed acknowledge later that breaking into an evidence locker is a felony.
* BadBoss: Anastasia Nabokov. The fact that her counterparts in the other families, Gloria and Kanika, are much more in the vein of {{Benevolent Boss}}es [[spoiler:sets up the eventual reveal that she's actually even more evil than they are]]. Her "aunt and uncle", who are really bodyguards her father hired for her before he died, act far more robotic and emotionless than the genuine loyalty that Stefan and Nigel show to their employers, and at different points, she's seen bossing them around and obviously treating them like servants, snapping at them, ''screaming'' at them, and ''slapping'' them across the face. She also pulls a YouHaveFailedMe on the Tall Man by hitting and killing him with her car, while using a WoundedGazelleGambit immediately afterwards to convince everyone else it was an accident.
* BaitTheDog: After Frank learns that Stacy is really Anastasia Nabokov, she at first seems to be an AntiHero, since she hates the Circle of the Eye (a group already known to be very shady and corrupt and controls Bridgeport from the shadows) and wants to bring them down, believing they had her father killed. She also seems genuinely concerned when Joe goes missing and gives Frank assistance that proves vital in finding him. [[spoiler:But once Frank realizes that she's just as bad as the rest of the Circle and refuses to continue working with her, she goes off the deep end completely, culminating in her capturing Callie and using her as a HostageForMacGuffin.]]
* BenevolentBoss: Both Gloria Estabrook and Kanika Khan appear to be this. It contrasts them with their Nabokov counterpart, Stacy, who is definitely a BadBoss.
** Gloria's shown multiple times giving polite thank-yous to her staff and treating them graciously, such as Sonya and Stefan, and appears to have considered the latter like family for many years, so much so that [[spoiler:he developed UndyingLoyalty to her and murdered her own estranged daughter in a highly misguided attempt to protect her interests]]. She also gives JB multiple second chances despite him repeatedly failing to bring her the pieces of the Eye she hires him to steal, and even after he tries to betray her at one point by taking the pieces for himself; when he finally does deliver it, she pays him as promised with a curt thanks and dismisses him, not having any intentions of double-crossing him.
** Kanika is likewise only ever shown being courteous and respectful to her own butler, Nigel, who in turn seems to have similar care and loyalty for her that Stefan does for Gloria.
* BettyAndVeronica: Though Frank and Callie end up becoming the OfficialCouple for the show, each of them has one of these, and interestingly, play opposite roles in each other's {{Love Triangle}}s:
** Callie (Archie) starts off dating Chet, who's lived in Bridgeport his whole life like her, is her ChildhoodFriend, and comes from a working-class family of farmers (Betty). Then she meets Frank (Veronica), the new kid in town from the big city who gets her involved with his and Joe's investigation, who's also the grandson of Callie's mentor, one of the richest and most powerful people in the world. In this case, Veronica wins, as Chet and Callie break up and she gets together with Frank by the end of the season.
** On the flipside, Frank (Archie) gets attention from both Callie and Stacy. Callie is his friend and fellow academic, likewise from a working-class family who has to worry about costs of prep school, dresses fashionably but not flashy, and acts as his confidant and investigating partner (Betty). Stacy, meanwhile, is the mysterious new girl who makes a big entrance into town by hitting the Tall Man with her car, is later revealed to be the heiress and new leader of the also-powerful Nabokov family, "dresses like a pop star", and [[TheVamp is much more aggressive and forward in pursuing her attraction to Frank]] and trying to get him to work with her (Veronica). On this side of the LoveTriangle, Betty wins, as Frank rejects Stacy and starts a relationship with Callie.
* BigBadEnsemble: The current leaders/heirs of the Circle of the Eye act as this for the first season:
** Kanika Khan tried to have her nephew Rupert, who was investigating the Circle along with Laura Hardy, killed, and then hires Fenton Hardy to find him in order to get Fenton to leave town so he won't threaten the Circle, hoping that both men would die. When this fails and her piece of the Eye is stolen, she drops out of the ensemble, [[spoiler:getting the evidence Fenton and Rupert need to get Gloria arrested and promising to leave Bridgeport and the Circle behind forever in exchange for them not turning Kanika over to the cops]].
** Anastasia Nabokov wants to destroy the Circle because she (correctly) believes someone in it murdered her father. She initially tries to work together with Frank, [[spoiler:but he soon realizes that she plans to take the Eye for herself rather than destroying it and rebuffs her. She responds by trying to use Callie as a hostage to get the final piece of the Eye.]]
** Gloria Estabrook betrayed her father, George, to his partners when he tried to flee with his piece of the Eye, resulting in his death. [[spoiler:More recently, she murdered Viktor Nabokov when he tried to get her piece of the Eye]], and hires JB to steal the Khan's piece from Kanika and her own piece from her own grandsons, wanting to assemble the Eye herself. She claims she wants to use it for better things than the three original Circle founders did, but it's pretty clear what she really wants is the power she'll get from having the entire Eye.
** Interestingly, though, [[spoiler:while Gloria killed Viktor, none of the above murdered Laura, despite most characters believing that Viktor and Laura were killed by the same person. Stefan, Gloria's [[TheDragon Dragon]], did that without her knowledge or consent]].
* TheBigDamnKiss: Between Frank and Callie at the end of the season. While Joe is right there watching. Naturally, he promptly mocks his brother about it.
* BirdsOfAFeather: It's implied this is why Joe and Biff become such fast, close friends despite initially finding each other weird. They're both hinted to have had {{Friendless Background}}s, with Joe being victimized by bullies and Biff apparently seen by other kids as a know-it-all loner weirdo. They also both have a cop for a parent and are ConstantlyCurious.
* {{Bookends}}: The first time the Hardy Boys go into town from the Hardy home in the series premiere as the "new kids in town", they ride side-by-side on bicycles. The final shot of the season is them doing the same thing once again, but now as permanent residents, and significantly more upbeat and optimistic about the future.
* BothSidesHaveAPoint:
** Chet doesn't take his girlfriend Callie's suspicions of Stacy seriously at all, and in fact treats it with annoyance, because he's chalking them up to Callie having romantic feelings for Frank that she's refusing to admit to and [[YoureJustJealous her just being jealous of how much attention Frank has been paying to Stacy]]; this is making Chet jealous in turn--despite Callie's insistence that she's "just trying to look out for our friend"--and leads him to break up with her. Chet is completely right that Callie ''does'' have feelings for Frank (and he for her), to the point that the two of them end up getting together by the end of the season, and this is indeed some of the initial reason for her dislike of Stacy. Nonetheless, Callie follows her instincts, does some good detective work to prove her hunch, and turns out to be more correct than she ever suspected, [[spoiler:culminating in Stacy and her goons kidnapping her, after which Chet laments not heeding her warnings.]]
** The argument Frank and Joe have with Gloria in the season finale, where they finally turn on her for good. [[spoiler:[[JerkassHasAPoint Gloria's not wrong]] that if they do give Stacy the final piece of the Eye she's demanding in exchange for Callie, which would give her all three of them, she'll most likely become too powerful to stop and could cause untold damage, seeing how AxCrazy she's become. However, the boys point out that Gloria's way too confident that Stacy's bluffing about killing Callie when none of them actually know what Stacy will do, and are disgusted that she's so cavalier about Callie being kidnapped and willing to risk the latter's safety so casually.]]
* BrickJoke: When Frank starts working at Wilt's in "Of Freedom and Pleasure", he doesn't know how to make coffee, and has to ask his pals for help. Much later when Fenton returns home in "Eye to Eye" and Joe tells him about the job at Wilt's, he notes that Frank "still can't make a coffee to save his life." This is proven true in the next episode; Frank tries to make coffee at breakfast for Fenton, who gags on it.
* TheButlerDidIt: [[spoiler:The season finale at last [[TheReveal reveals who killed Laura Hardy]]: Stefan, Gloria's butler, who did it to protect her reputation after Laura visited her and vowed to expose the Circle of the Eye, including the Estabrooks. Notably, this was ''not'' at all on Gloria's orders; Stefan acted on his own, and she is sincerely shocked and suitably upset and appalled when she learns this.]]
* CaughtOnTape: Kanika Khan, in exchange for her nephew Rupert and Fenton Hardy not pressing charges against her for her actions, gets Gloria Estabrook to confess [[spoiler:to murdering Viktor Nabokov while secretly recording it and turns the tape over to them, which is the evidence they need to bring Gloria down]].
* ChekhovsBoomerang: The walkie-talkies Biff gets for Joe and herself to use to contact each other become this a couple of times:
** Joe accidentally drops his, and Phil picks it up and follows him on his bike to return it to him. When he sees JB "kidnap" Joe, he uses the walkie to call Biff for backup.
** Later, when Joe and Biff fall into the mine, they discover that he left his at home, while she still has hers. Frank finds Joe's walkie and is able to use it to contact Joe and Biff in the mines and direct them how to get out safely.
* ChekhovsGun:
** One of the earliest shots in the series is of a soldering iron on a shelf with "J. Hardy" engraved into it. It's later in the toolbox that Joe lends to JB on the beach, and he even notes the engraving when he looks at it. It's most likely what allows JB to find out where he lives by providing his surname, and Joe is later freaking out after the police find the toolbox because he knows this soldering iron will prove the tools are his and could get him into trouble for helping JB, though he's able to steal it back before the cops see it.
** Joe makes a fake copy of the piece of the Eye in "The Drop" 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.]]
* ChildrenAreInnocent:
** For a given definition of innocent, since Joe is still a snarky, mischievous KidDetective. Still, of the many different people in the season who use the Eye or a piece of it, he's both the youngest person to do so and the least drawn to its power; once he realizes what the Eye is capable of, even after wielding a piece of it multiple times and seeing what it can do, he's still adamant about wanting to destroy it and never becomes greedy for its power like everyone else who's had it.
** This extends to Biff as well, who is a similar age and knows almost as much about the Eye as Joe does, and is likewise wary of and not tempted by its power. The one time she held it (while moving it to a new hiding place), she didn't like the odd feeling it gave her, and also dislikes that it seems to have its own "wants".
* CommonalityConnection: Joe and JB form one pretty soon after meeting. It comes up in conversation that Joe's mom is dead, and JB expresses his sympathy and reveals that his own mom died too when he was around Joe's age. After he admits that he still misses her, too, Joe visibly warms up to him a bit more and helps him fix his radio.
* ContinuitySnarl: Callie reveals to Frank in "Secrets and Lies" that his grandmother lied to him about her argument with Laura, and tells him what she remembers overhearing of it: that Laura was saying something about [[TitleDrop the titular "secrets and lies"]], and it ended with her saying "This all has to stop!" before she stormed out. [[spoiler:When the Eye actually shows Frank the argument in "While the Clock Ticked", though, most of this is absent; the closest Laura comes to speaking any of this is with "You lied to me!", but never says the word "secrets" at all, and her parting words to Gloria are instead "You can't, or you won't?"]]
* CrusadingWidower: Fenton becomes this after his wife Laura, the love of his life, is killed in a car crash that is likely not an accident, leaving his sons with his sister for the summer so he can investigate her death. Frank and Trudy eventually call him out on it; see ParentsAsPeople.
* DamselInDistress: [[spoiler:Callie for part of the season finale when she's kidnapped by Stacy as a HostageForMacGuffin. She gets back at Stacy later by fighting and beating her up in the climax.]]
* DefectorFromDecadence: Laura was born and raised into one of the world's richest and most powerful families, the Estabrooks, but once she learned where their fortune came from, she refused to have anything more to do with them and abandoned her life of privilege. She even broke up with her boyfriend when he chose to attend Rosegrave, and ended up marrying Fenton instead, who came from a modest working-class family.
-->'''Paul''': [Laura] said that Gloria was writing her life for her, turning her into another privileged, powerful, rich Estabrook heir. And she was turning her back on all of it.
* DefiantCaptive: [[spoiler:Even as Callie's sitting tied to a chair after Stacy and her CoDragons kidnapped her, she just coldly tells them that she can't wait to make them pay for it and they'll never get away with it. When Stacy calls the Hardy home to demand the piece of the Eye as ransom, the very first thing Callie does when she hears Joe on the phone is shout for him not to give her the piece, and later says the same thing to Frank and Chet when they come to make the exchange, despite clearly being scared the whole time and knowing that Stacy will kill her if she doesn't get it.]]
* DirtyCop: Some of the Bridgeport police are in on the corruption of Bridgeport and are actually doing dirty work for Gloria, who secretly runs the town--up to and including Chief Collig. Joe and Biff discover this about halfway through the season and fill the others in, and then Biff tells her mom, who in turn tells Aunt Trudy, prompting Jessie and Trudy to start doing their own investigating.
* DismantledMacGuffin: The Eye, which was broken into three pieces, each kept by one of the three families who found it. Each piece by itself is far less powerful, but still brings very good luck to the holder, as Joe discovers. The [[BigBadEnsemble numerous villains of the season]] are trying to take all the pieces for themselves to reassemble it, with the Hardys and their friends getting caught up in it all after Joe inadvertently comes into possession of one of the pieces.
* DistressedDude: Since Joe is just a small pre-teen boy in this adaptation, he's pretty prone to this. Over the course of the season, he gets taken hostage twice, is targeted/chased/cornered by an assassin and forced to flee for his life on several occasions (sometimes with Frank or with Biff as well), and falls down a mine shaft (also with Biff) and needs his brother and the other kids to find them.
* TheDragon: Stefan for Gloria and Nigel for Kanika, while Stacy's fake aunt and uncle (actually her bodyguards) are CoDragons for her.
* DramaticIrony: The audience knows right from the start that Kanika's piece of the Eye is stolen by JB at Gloria's behest, but the Hardy Boys only find out JB has it the following episode, and it takes a couple more for it to come out that it was on Gloria's orders.
* TheDreaded: The Tall Man. Ern is terrified of him because he's the SoleSurvivor of the man's massacre on the ''Astghik''; JB fears him because he stole the idol from him and knows the Tall Man will kill him in revenge; and the Hardys are already scared of him because of the ''Astghik'' as well, but then become even more so once he starts targeting them directly for Joe's piece of the Eye. Being a seven-foot-tall ImplacableMan who survives enough electricity to power a whole carnival, breaks out of jail, and chases after the Hardy Boys and their friends with a knife multiple times will do that for you.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Both for this season compared to the next two, and for the early episodes compared to the later ones:
** Season 1 does not utilize {{Episode Title Card}}s like the next two do.
** Joe comments in the second episode about Phil being a year older than him, and Phil's not shown in any of Joe's and Biff's classes in this season once school resumes, as you'd expect from someone who's probably a grade above them. The next two seasons do away with this and Phil is now implied to be roughly the same age as Joe and Biff, sharing most classes with one or both of them.
** On a related note, the Hardy Boys do a ''lot'' of their investigating separate from each other in this season and share their findings later, with Joe usually pairing up with Biff, Frank in a group with Callie and often Chet too, and Phil, when present, fluctuating whom he's with. Phil is also the only member of the TrueCompanions who doesn't appear in every episode. The next two seasons have Frank and Joe teaming up with each other much more often to investigate, Biff and Phil usually being the ones to pair off anytime it's not all three younger kids together, and mixing the friends up between age groups more often, and all of the kids appear in every episode of Seasons 2 and 3.
** Gloria has a dog named Peppermint in the first episode, but he gets out of the house and runs off into the woods in the first episode (which becomes a plot point when Joe goes looking for him and gets captured by Ern) and is never seen again. Maybe best not to think about that one too much....
** Joe sees a stuffed boar head on Gloria's wall in her home, and she comments, "That's the beast that got your Uncle Harry," sounding rather blasé about it. "Uncle Harry" is never mentioned again, and neither Gloria nor Laura are ever shown to have had siblings.
* EurekaMoment:
** Joe's snark about how the citizens of Bridgeports' "secrets have secrets" prompts Frank to figure out that the key to George's SecretRoom is hidden in Laura's music box, which Gloria told him has more than one secret in it while he's only found one. Joe takes it apart, and they do find the key hidden there.
** [[spoiler:The flashback that the Eye shows Frank includes Laura's meeting with Rupert, where she commented to him about the Circle, "[[LeftHandVersusRightHand The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.]]" Frank repeats this phrase when he realizes that Stefan, Gloria's '''right-hand''' man, was the only other witness to her argument with Laura, and that he killed her without Gloria's knowledge.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** JB isn't ''evil'', but he is a criminal who's OnlyInItForTheMoney; nonetheless, there are plenty of lines he won't cross. After he "kidnaps" Joe to use him against Gloria, he's dismayed when Joe mistakenly fears that JB plans to kill him, [[ThouShaltNotKill insisting that he's never killed anyone in his line of work]]. It also seems that he WouldntHurtAChild, since he promises not to hurt him while using him as leverage and apologizes for accidentally gripping him too tightly at one point. JB is incredulous about the fact that Gloria wants him to steal something from her own grandsons for her, and while he does do it, he feels bad enough about it to claim that he owes Joe a favor afterwards.
** Kanika tries to have her nephew killed and sends Fenton into a dangerous situation as well, but implies that she, too, wouldn't target children. After Gloria accuses her of being the one who hired the Tall Man and states that he targeted her grandsons, Kanika is quick to say that someone like that definitely wouldn't be one of her people.
** Gloria may be corrupt, [[ObnoxiousInLaws rude and passive-aggressive to her in-laws]], possibly indirectly responsible for her father's death by ratting him out to his partners, and [[spoiler:willing to kill her enemies who make moves against her, like Viktor]], but she does have some redeeming qualities:
*** She wouldn't dream of harming her descendants or ordering someone else to do so, not even when her daughter was threatening to bring her down and expose her secrets, [[spoiler:and is appalled when she discovers that her manservant, Stefan, murdered Laura and claimed it was for her sake]].
*** She also appears to be a relatively BenevolentBoss; see above.
* EvilAunt: Kanika is revealed to be this. She pretends to be concerned about the welfare of her nephew, Rupert, and hires Fenton Hardy to find him; it later turns out that she herself tried to have Rupert killed, and hired Fenton to get him out of Bridgeport so he wouldn't become a threat to the Circle of the Eye.
* EvilIsNotAToy: When JB gets his hands on the Khans' piece of the Eye, he gets a major PowerHigh from the good luck that it brings, and decides to try to assemble the whole thing and have even better luck, breaking into Stacy's house to steal the Nabokov piece. He gets badly beaten up by her CoDragons for his trouble, who also steal the piece that he has, giving Stacy two of them. This snaps JB out of it and he doesn't make the same mistake again when Gloria hires him to steal the third piece from Joe, turning it over without any visible temptation of double-crossing her to keep it for himself and later telling Joe in a letter that he'll be happy if he never encounters the Eye again.
* EvilMatriarch:
** Gloria Estabrook, Laura's mother and the Hardy Boys' grandmother, who is a WellIntentionedExtremist ''at best'', [[ObnoxiousInLaws has never been very nice to her son-in-law Fenton and his sister Trudy]], and controls the entire town of Bridgeport, with the cops (including the chief of police) on her payroll. Nevertheless, she gets several humanizing moments, such as being sincerely heartbroken and regretful about Laura's death, and truly caring about her grandsons and wanting to be a better grandma to them than she was a mother to Laura.
** Kanika Khan, leader of the Khan family side of the Circle, who tries to have her nephew Rupert killed and apparently forced her brother, his father, out of the family and his rightful inheritance.
* EvilMentor: Gloria turns out to be this to Callie, whom she's been mentoring for quite a while to help her get into Rosegrave Academy, the prep school founded by Gloria's father, which [[SchoolForScheming turns out to be a front for a secret society running Bridgeport]]. She's only ever been good to Callie, but Frank speculates that it's because she has plans for her, which is proven to be correct in the following season. She also shows a rather cold lack of concern for her protegee [[spoiler:when Stacy kidnaps her and [[HostageForMacGuffin holds her hostage for the piece of the Eye]]]], to her grandsons' disgust.
* {{Expy}}: JB Cox is clearly intended to be one to D.B. Cooper, a man who, in 1971, took over a plane, jumped out with a bag of cash, and was never seen again. JB's debut likewise has him jumping out of a plane after stealing the artifact (later revealed to contain a piece of the Eye) from the Tall Man, though, unlike Cooper, we find out what happened to him afterward.
* TheFakeCutie: Stacy Baker, the new girl who inadvertently saves Frank and Joe by accidentally hitting the Tall Man with her car, seems to be a sweet GirlNextDoor type who develops a crush on Frank after he helps her avoid trouble with the police. It's eventually revealed that she's really Anastasia Nabokov, who came to Bridgeport after her father Viktor was murdered to try to get information from the Hardys, and her running over the Tall Man is all but stated to have not been an accident after all. Frank figures out that she's more than she seems when she starts being too obvious about pumping him for info, and once he confronts her and she tells him her true identity, she drops the act, [[spoiler:gradually becoming more and more unhinged as the season reaches its climax and the Hardys refuse to cooperate with her.]]
* FakinMacGuffin: [[spoiler:In the season finale, Stacy, who already has the Khan and Nabokov pieces of the Eye, uses Callie as a hostage to get the Estabrook piece from the Hardys, which they no longer have after Gloria stole it from them. Instead, they use the fake copy that Joe previously made, and rig up the sleeve of Frank's shirt with americium from the smoke detectors at Wilt's store, so when Frank hands over the piece, his wrist will set off Stacy's Geiger counter and trick her mooks into thinking the piece is legit. Sure enough, Stacy doesn't catch on until after Frank, Chet, and Callie are long gone]].
* FemmeFatale: Anastasia "Stacy" Nabokov is a classic example, wanting to bring down the Circle to avenge her murdered father [[spoiler:and to take the Eye for herself, being willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish her goals, including kidnapping and murder]]. She also [[TheFakeCutie pretends to be]] TheIngenue to win Frank's trust and get him to tell her what he knows, and once he figures out her real identity, acts aggressively forward and seductive with Frank to try to get him to work together with her, later becoming a WomanScorned after he rejects her.
* ForWantOfANail: Joe's OddFriendship with JB Cox plays a huge role in the entire series, and is how Joe first gets the Eye, which brings the boys into the case more directly. The two only meet in the first place because 1) Biff just so happens to be walking along the beach where JB washed up from jumping out of the plane and is camping out, approaches him, and agrees to buy him supplies in exchange for some cash; 2) Biff goes to Wilt's to buy said supplies when Joe happens to be there as well; and 3) Joe gets curious enough about the situation to tail her back to JB.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: This season has relatively less compared to later ones, but the series as a whole [[Foreshadowing/TheHardyBoys2020 has its own page]].
* FreeRangeChildren:
** All of the kids, but especially Joe and Biff, who are only 12 or 13 and yet often wander around town, in the woods, and/or at night on their own, and also frequently talk to strangers and get into trouble. It's somewhat understandable since the first half of the season takes place in summer while school isn't in session, and Frank, Callie, and Chet are at least of driving age. Even so, this still continues during the second half once the school day is done.
** It also gets deconstructed more and more as the season goes on. Fenton Hardy isn't around to properly parent Frank and Joe because he's off elsewhere investigating their mom's murder, and they're frustrated at being left behind and attempt to do their own sleuthing rather than just sit around and do nothing. Aunt Trudy, their guardian while Fenton is away, eventually has to put her foot down about it after the boys end up in trouble a few too many times because of it. Joe and Biff wandering in the woods alone at night to investigate leads to both of them falling down a mine shaft, while no one else has any idea where they've gone.
* FullNameUltimatum: Jessie sternly says "Joseph Hardy!" when she catches him in Chief Collig's office trying to get JB's file. Aunt Trudy also says "Joe Hardy, you get in that house right now!" when Jessie brings him home.
* TheGlomp:
** Joe gives one to Fenton when the latter finally returns home in "Eye to Eye". Frank's, meanwhile, is more like a bear hug.
** Biff to Joe after he and Phil save her from George's secret room where she was accidentally locked in. Joe returns it with a smile...[[ShipTease and then both of them get a bit flustered by it]].
* TheHeavy: The Tall Man, the huge assassin who pursues the Hardys several times to steal their piece of the Eye and is working on behalf of a mysterious woman (Anastasia Nabokov), acts as this for the first half of the season, until he's killed off by Stacy hitting him with her car accidentally (or not).
* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: Downplayed with JB Cox, who is a primarily self-motivated thief-for-hire throughout who nonetheless sympathizes with the Hardy Boys for their mother's murder:
** He starts as an AntiHero who pays Joe and Biff to help him a couple of times, rescues Joe from the Tall Man, and tries to warn the boys off the case for their own safety.
** He dabbles in being an AntiVillain later as he uses Joe as leverage against Gloria (though he does promise not to actually hurt him), briefly goes on a PowerHigh when he gets his hands on one of the pieces of the Eye and considers stealing and assembling them all, and steals Joe's piece for Gloria after she pays him to do so.
** He ultimately goes back to being more of an AntiHero by the end: he gets beaten up when trying to steal the other pieces of the Eye and comes to the same conclusion as the Hardys of wanting nothing to do with it, and sincerely feels bad about betraying Joe by stealing his piece. To make up for this, JB gives the authorities a signed confession implicating Gloria and Collig, and sends Joe a letter at the end of the season promising that he can call in a favor with him if he ever needs anything stolen.
* HeelRealization / BreakTheHaughty: Gloria at the very end of the season [[spoiler:when Frank and Joe figure out that her own butler, Stefan, was the one who murdered her daughter Laura, and Stefan reveals that his motive for doing so was essentially his UndyingLoyalty to Gloria. She finally seems to realize that, even if she didn't want Laura to die, her actions and obsession with the Eye made her indirectly responsible for it. She's practically speechless with shell-shock and grief as the police show up to arrest her, only able to brokenly apologize to her grandsons]].
* HelpfulHallucination: [[spoiler:In the climax of the season, Frank tries to grab the Eye right after it's been reforged and passes out. While he's unconscious, he sees what actually happened during Laura's final day: her confrontation with Gloria and her conversations with Wilt and Rupert, giving him the EurekaMoment he and Joe need to realize who killed her: Stefan, Gloria's manservant.]]
* HostageForMacGuffin: [[spoiler:Stacy and her minions kidnap Callie and demand that Frank and Joe turn over their piece of The Eye (the only one Stacy doesn't have yet) in exchange for her safe return. The gang is able to get around this by giving them the fake that Joe made several episodes earlier and tricking them into believing it's the real thing long enough to escape with Callie.]]
* IChooseToStay: At the end of the season, Frank, Joe, and Fenton decide to stick around in Bridgeport rather than returning to the city (with the implication that Fenton will apply to the Bridgeport Police Force to replace the now-arrested Ezra Collig as chief of police), to the delight of Trudy and Callie in particular.
* ImplacableMan: The Tall Man, once he realizes that the Hardys have the piece of the Eye that he stole and was later stolen from him, is relentless in pursuing them to get it back. He stalks and attacks Joe at the carnival and is only prevented from harming him by JB's intervention, survives being electrocuted by JB, tracks the Hardys to the abandoned factory and the Morton farm, escapes from lockup at the Bayport PD, follows and chases after Joe and Biff, and corners and attacks Frank and Joe once more, before he's finally killed off when Stacy hits him with her car.
* TheInfiltration: Frank, knowing that Gloria wants him to be her heir in the Circle, pretends to side with her and agree to be her successor in the hope that it'll give him a better opportunity to eventually destroy the Eye, as he and Joe both want to do. Only Joe is aware that Frank is undercover, and Frank is clearly unhappy at having to lie to his own father, among others. [[spoiler:He soon stops trying to play nice with Gloria once Callie is kidnapped and the former refuses to trade her piece of the Eye for the latter's safe return.]]
* TheIngenue: Stacy Baker. Until we learn she's really Anastasia Nabokov, a FemmeFatale who was [[TheVamp deliberately invoking this]] to get Frank to fall for her so she could get info from him about the conspiracy going on in Bridgeport. He eventually sees through her when she plays this up a little ''too'' much, to the point of giving him bad vibes and making him realize she's too good to be true.
* InterfaceSpoiler: JB Cox's name is not officially revealed until the end of "Secrets and Lies" when the boys learn it from his WantedPoster (though sharp-eyed viewers could spot one of these posters in "Of Freedom and Pleasure" in a FreezeFrameBonus and learn his name that way); before this, they just call him "the guy on the beach." However, audience members watching with subtitles can learn his first name, JB, from his very first line in his debut episode ("Where the Light Can't Find You"), thanks to the subs identifying him as such.
* IntrafamilialClassConflict: An in-laws version between the adult Hardys and Gloria Estabrook, who are connected via Fenton's and Laura's marriage. Laura, out of disgust for the Circle's evil, power-hungry ways, abandoned the life of privilege she was born into in favor of the middle-class lifestyle she has with her husband and sons at the series' outset. Fenton and especially Trudy are deeply resentful of how unkind Gloria has always been to them and their parents simply because the Hardys aren't wealthy and well-connected like she is, Joe half-jokingly asks if she's "the queen of Bridgeport", and Frank is unimpressed and uncomfortable by the elitist attitudes of the students and faculty at Rosegrave, which his own great-grandfather founded and where Gloria wants him to attend.
* ItsAllMyFault:
** A lighthearted version: After Joe and Biff fall into a mine shaft, he apologizes to her for getting her into the situation, and she insists that he's not to blame and she made the choice to come with him herself. This starts off a playful back-and-forth between the two of them in which they each insist that things they did with/for each other earlier in the season are what brought them here, ending with them jokingly concluding that Biff picking up the tab for Joe's sandwich, all the way back in the second episode, is what's responsible for their plight.
** This same mine shaft incident plays this much more seriously on Frank's end, though. He blames himself for it because he and Joe had a fight beforehand about the Eye, and Frank, in addition to having PartingWordsRegret about it, also laments to Callie that he shouldn't have dismissed his brother's feelings so easily because Joe always does something stupid when Frank doesn't listen to him.
** Also played very 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.]]
* KarmaHoudiniWarranty:
** Gloria Estabrook betrayed her father and caused his death, [[spoiler:murdered Viktor Nabokov not too long before the series began]], and has been controlling Bridgeport from the shadows for many years. [[spoiler:She gets arrested at the end of the season.]]
** Ezra Collig, after acting as Gloria's stooge and doing her dirty work for years, likewise gets arrested.
** [[spoiler:Stefan kills Laura in the season premiere, with everyone remaining none the wiser for months. In the finale, soon after this is discovered, he dies trying to steal the Eye back for Gloria when the Chamber of the Eye collapses.]]
* KeepingSecretsSucks: Trudy and Jessie, who have quite a bit of ShipTease, start working together to figure out what their respective kids are up to. Frank and Joe eventually let Trudy in on their investigation when she finds their StringTheory board and forces them to come clean, but swear her to secrecy, and her friendship/budding relationship with Jessie becomes strained for a couple of episodes when the latter realizes that Trudy is holding out on her, while Trudy, in turn, is clearly unhappy and uncomfortable about not being able to tell her the truth. They get better once the Hardys eventually bring Jessie in as well.
* TheKeyIsBehindTheLock: While Biff is searching George's secret room, which can only be unlocked from the outside, Joe is forced to close the door and hide when Gloria and Stefan briefly return. It's only after they leave that Biff realizes she still has the key to the room and is now locked in. Luckily, she's able to pass the key to Joe and Phil through the vents, so they can unlock the door and let her out.
* KilledOffForReal:
** The premise of the series is Laura dying in a car crash early in the first episode, and her family trying to finish the investigation she started.
** [[ImplacableMan The Tall Man]] has a fake-out death in "Of Freedom and Pleasure" when JB electrocutes him in self-defense, and recovers and escapes from the hospital in the following episode. However, Stacy hitting him with her car in "A Figure in Hiding" is enough to do him in for good.
** [[spoiler:Stefan is killed in the mine collapse in "While the Clock Ticked" while trying to take the Eye back for Gloria, [[KarmicDeath soon after the revelation that he was the one who murdered Laura]].]]
* LeaveNoWitnesses: What the Tall Man was ''supposed'' to do when stealing the artifact from the ''Astghik''. Unfortunately for him, one person, Ern, survives, and despite the Tall Man's efforts to track him down and kill him too, Ern ultimately manages to evade and escape from him.
* LikeParentUnlikeChild: Multiple instances with the Estabrooks:
** Played with in George's case. After forming the Circle of the Eye with Ahmed and Sergei, all three of them were equally shady and used the Eye to become rich, powerful, and highly influential, leading the world from the shadows, and Gloria inherited this hunger for power and was eager to succeed him. George, however, eventually had a [[HeelFaceTurn change of heart]] after a major MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment, and decided to break up the Circle and ensure the Eye could never be reassembled, even disinheriting Gloria as his heir because he recognized her greed and lust for power. Gloria developed no such scruples, and helped George's partners have him killed, taking over the Estabrook line in the Circle and becoming just as bad as the rest of them.
** Laura, unlike Gloria, was disgusted with the family legacy and wanted no part of it, feeling that NoManShouldHaveThisPower just like her grandfather George. She rejected the life Gloria wanted for her, refusing to attend the family SchoolForScheming and marrying someone Gloria didn't approve of, and became an investigative reporter dedicated to, among other things, exposing Gloria's and the Circle's secrets.
* LoveDodecahedron: Callie is dating Chet and Frank is dating Emma, but Frank and Callie are growing increasingly attracted to each other. Then Emma breaks up with Frank at the start of "Secrets and Lies", though Callie doesn't learn this until "In Plain Sight". Then new girl Stacy Baker comes to town and develops a huge crush on Frank, and he seems to appreciate it and possibly like her back, which makes Callie jealous (in addition to being genuinely suspicious of Stacy), which in turn makes Chet jealous, eventually resulting in Chet forcing Callie to recognize her feelings for Frank and breaking up with her, leaving things awkward between the three of them. Then Frank realizes that Callie was right and Stacy is hiding something, and confronts her at Wilt's, only for her to kiss him at one point to try to persuade him to work with her; Callie happens to see this and gets the wrong idea. Frank eventually rejects Stacy, [[spoiler:but before he has a chance to properly work things out with Callie, Stacy kidnaps her to use as a HostageForMacGuffin.]] It's only resolved at the end of the season finale when Callie and Frank finally become the OfficialCouple and share TheBigDamnKiss. Then there's Joe and Biff, and Trudy and Jessie, who seem to have their own budding relationships (a ToyShip, in the former case) on the side. Not to mention that Frank also meets his HappilyMarried mom's ex-boyfriend, who still carried a torch for her to the day she died.
* LuredIntoATrap: Fenton's entire case is an extended version. Kanika Khan tells him about her nephew Rupert working together with Laura on the latter's latest story, claims Rupert has been kidnapped possibly by the same party who had Laura killed, and hires Fenton to find him. It turns out Kanika herself had Rupert kidnapped and hired Fenton just to get him out of Bridgeport so he wouldn't interfere with the Circle's schemes, and intended for both of them to die.
* MamaBear: Jessie in "No Getting Out" when Biff has gone missing along with Joe. She's angry that her daughter is in danger because of something she was doing with Joe, and once the two of them are found, she furiously threatens to arrest the Hardy Boys unless they let her in on what they've gotten Biff into, at which point they share with her everything they've discovered in the case so far.
* {{Matriarchy}}: The Circle of the Eye didn't start off this way, since the trio of people who originally found the Eye and used it to build their empires were male. In the present day, though, the current heads of all three families in the Circle are female.
** For the Khan family, Kanika apparently has a brother, Rupert's father, but she took over the family instead of him and still carries the Khan name (and also doesn't appear to have ever married). Rupert claims that Kanika treated his father poorly.
** With the Estabrooks, Gloria usurped leadership from the family after her father had a change of heart, and while we know she had some kind of love interest in the past whom she may or may not have married--Laura's father--Gloria kept her own surname regardless. The Hardys even jokingly refer to her as "The Queen of Bridgeport" in the premiere. That being said, she wants her grandson Frank to succeed her; however, she also seems to want him to adopt the Estabrook surname (her own name and his mom's maiden name) rather than continuing to use his legal Hardy name.
** Downplayed with the Nabokovs: their latest heir, Stacy, is also a woman but still a teenager, having inherited due to her father's murder.
* MoralityPet:
** Frank and Joe to their grandmother, Gloria. She straight-up admits to Trudy that she wasn't a good mother and wants to be a better grandmother, and though she doesn't always go about it in the best way, she sincerely loves her grandsons and doesn't want to see any harm come to them. [[spoiler:As she's being arrested at the end of the season for killing Viktor Nabokov--soon after she and the Hardys all learned that her butler Stefan killed Laura--she apologizes to both boys for everything that happened.]]
** Joe becomes this to JB Cox, despite JB claiming to only be out for himself. When he sees the Tall Man steal a photo of Joe and realizes the former is going to hunt down the latter at the carnival, JB catches up to them JustInTime to stop the Tall Man from hurting or killing Joe and pulls a YouShallNotPass to give him a chance to get away. He later warns Joe and Frank to stay away from the case so they don't get hurt, and when he takes Joe hostage against Gloria, insists that he'd never actually hurt him. When Gloria hires him to steal Joe's piece of the Eye and bring it to her, Frank reams him out over betraying Joe, and despite JB responding that he was doing the job he was hired to do, does seem to genuinely feel bad about it. The season ends with a voiceover of a note that he wrote to Joe, declaring that JB owes him a favor as repayment for stealing the Eye piece and tells Joe to contact him if he ever needs his assistance.
* MyGirlBackHome: Emma is initially this after Frank and Joe leave Dixon City for at least some of the summer to stay with their aunt in Bridgeport. It becomes deconstructed, though, when Emma eventually gets tired of waiting for Frank to return and breaks up with him.
* NoManShouldHaveThisPower: What George Estabrook came to believe about the Eye when thousands of people died as a result of its misuse. He broke it into three pieces and planned to make sure his piece was lost forever so it could never be fully reassembled. His power-hungry partners disagreed, and arranged for his death. Laura believed this as well, which is why George chose her instead of Gloria to be his successor (though he and Laura both died before the latter could learn this).
* NoNameGiven: "The Tall Man" is the nickname that the Hardys and friends use for the seven-foot-tall hired assassin who blew up the ''Astghik''. His real name is never revealed.
* NomDeMom: Laura's father is never mentioned, and it's not made clear if Gloria even married him or not, but if she did, she kept her own Estabrook surname, and this was Laura's surname as well (at least until she eventually married Fenton Hardy).
* NotQuiteDead: JB wins his fight with and escapes from the Tall Man, who was attempting to kill him, by electrocuting him with the plugs from one of the carnival rides. Everyone initially thinks he's dead, but he wakes up and escapes from the hospital a few days later. The boys are certainly wary about the fact that a man who can withstand enough electricity to power an entire carnival is after them. The Tall Man is finally KilledOffForReal when he's hit by Stacy's car.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: Gloria Estabrook to her son-in-law Fenton Hardy, whom she even acknowledges has never liked her because Laura also didn't like her. Trudy, despite Gloria not technically being an in-law of ''hers'', actually regards her as this even more than Fenton does, as she states that Gloria has never been nice to her, Fenton, or their parents.
* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: JB's failed attempt to use Joe as leverage against Gloria ends with him being arrested by Chief Collig (whom, thanks to Joe, he now knows is a DirtyCop working for Gloria) and driven to a secluded location, seemingly to murder him. Instead, Collig gives him a second-chance offer from Gloria to steal the Khan piece of the Eye while Kanika is in town. JB is hesitant at first, but agrees when Collig makes it clear that the choices are either accepting the offer or death.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Joe is able to steal his soldering iron back at the police station, but then tries to get more information about JB and is busted. The next day, Biff shows up at the Hardy home to give the boys a copy she made of the police report on JB, having somehow managed to get her hands on it at the station without her mom noticing. She even admits, "It wasn't easy, but I can't resist a challenge."
* OhCrap: This is pretty much everyone's reaction to seeing the [[ProfessionalKiller Tall]] [[TheDreaded Man]].
** Frank and Callie both get this when he enters the hotel, where Ern (whom he's [[LeaveNoWitnesses trying to kill]]) is hiding in the basement.
** JB, hiding in Joe's closet, has a couple in rapid succession: first when he sees that the Tall Man (from whom he stole the idol) is the intruder in the Hardy home, and then when he sees him steal a photo of Joe and realizes this killer is planning to go after the kid.
** Joe gets a ''huge'' one at the carnival when Biff tells him there's a man with a photo of him asking people where he is and he turns around and sees the Tall Man, and ''immediately'' tells her they need to get out of there.
** Joe and Biff both get another when the Tall Man, who broke out of jail earlier, drives up to them in his car, and start running away while he chases them.
* TheOneThatGotAway: Laura Estabrook (who later became Laura Hardy) was this for Paul [=McFarlane=]. They were both accepted into Rosegrave Prep, but Laura didn't want to go because she felt that it would be just one more way for Gloria to control her life. When Paul decided to attend, she took it as a betrayal and never spoke to him again until a few weeks before she died. Paul regrets this and admits to Frank that he loved her more than anyone he's ever loved since.
* OnlySaneMan: Of the main different factions fighting over the pieces of the Eye--the three family leaders, JB, and the Hardy Boys--Joe is the only one who, after learning the full details of what it is, wants to destroy it right from the start rather than trying to reassemble it. Even Frank briefly considers the idea of assembling it to see and speak with an illusion of their murdered mom before eventually coming to the same conclusion as Joe.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Gloria outlives her daughter and only child Laura, which greatly saddens her. Especially once she learns that Laura's death was not an accident, but murder. [[spoiler:Which makes it all the more devastating when she discovers at the end of the season that her own trusted right-hand-man, Stefan, was the one responsible.]]
* PapaWolf:
** Fenton asks his sons to get off the case they're investigating because he "need[s] [them] to be safe", and has quite a bit of AngerBornOfWorry when he returns home and learns they've still been investigating anyway.
** [[spoiler:Fenton and the boys head to the Chamber of the Eye for the final confrontation, but hear someone following them in the mines. He immediately has his sons get behind him and stand against the wall for safety, though it turns out to just be Callie coming to help.]]
* ParentsAsPeople:
** Gloria did genuinely love Laura and was truly devastated by her death, and had used her considerable influence to keep her daughter safe throughout her life. She's also power-hungry, and had a very strained relationship with Laura due to the latter's disgust of the family legacy that Gloria perpetuates.
** Fenton unquestionably loves his sons, and has them stay in Bridgeport with Trudy over the summer with their safety in mind while he goes off to investigate his wife's death and get closure for all of them. This also means that he's leaving behind his two boys, still freshly grieving for their mom, at a time when they really need their dad the most, to go on a dangerous mission that could easily get him killed and leave them orphaned altogether. When he returns to Bridgeport near the end of the season, is dismayed to discover that the boys have been getting into danger while he was gone, and asks Trudy why she allowed it to happen, she even points this out, asking him what else he expected to happen when he left his kids behind despite them needing answers just as much as he does.
* PartingWordsRegret:
** During the final time Gloria saw Laura before the latter's death, they had a huge argument that the former claims was related to Frank, but it's later revealed it was about [[spoiler:Laura's plan to publicly expose the Circle of the Eye's corruption]]. Gloria lampshades to Frank that she will forever regret that this was the last conversation she had with her daughter.
** Discussed by Frank after Joe and Biff fall down a mine shaft. The last time the boys talked, they had a major disagreement about what to do next, which ended with Joe in tears and too upset to even talk to his brother. When Frank is successfully able to contact Joe via the walkie-talkies, he notes that he would have had to live with that being their last talk if he hadn't found Joe.
* PassiveAggressiveKombat:
** Gloria exchanges this with Trudy (and Fenton to a lesser extent) earlier in the season, sometimes even to the point that the "passive" is dropped altogether, though both women dial it back later on as they make an effort to bury the hatchet.
** Frank is not impressed and fairly contemptuous of Stavros's haughty, pretentious attitude about Rosegrave during their tour, and expresses it through a combination of bored disinterest and a few snarky comments. And then there's his parting words when he and Callie cut the tour short to go snoop:
--->'''Frank''': And good luck with the whole "being the best" thing!
* PetTheDog:
** Gloria Estabrook can hardly be called a good person, but she truly does love her family:
*** She wants to be a better grandmother to the boys than she was a mother to Laura, and while some of her efforts to do so are certainly a bit misguided, she clearly does care about them, looks out for their safety, and is nicer to them than she is to most other people.
*** She also makes a real effort to mend the fences with Trudy Hardy, with whom she's never gotten along, likely out of sincere regret at losing Laura. She has tea with Trudy (which Gloria suggested) and offers to talk to some friends at art galleries in the city about displaying and selling some of Trudy's artwork.
*** Additionally, Gloria has been tutoring Callie Shaw for quite some time to get high enough grades to be able to enter Rosegrave Prep, a prestigious prep school founded by her father George, and offers to sponsor her tuition since Callie and her dad would never be able to afford it.
** JB Cox is pretty blunt that he's not exactly an amazing guy and claims to be OnlyInItForTheMoney, but he's genuinely impressed with Joe's intelligence and takes a liking to him. Despite his fear of the Tall Man, who already tried to kill him once, when JB realizes he's going after Joe at the carnival, he follows them there for the sole purpose of protecting Joe from the Tall Man and risks his life fighting the latter so Joe can get away safely.
* PleaseWakeUp: [[spoiler:Word-for-word. When Frank is unconscious and unresponsive after trying to destroy the Eye and accidentally absorbing its power instead, both Joe and Fenton, especially the former, increasingly-desperately beg him to wake up.]]
* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Rather than using the Eye's power to prevent wars, cure diseases, or help people, the Circle instead just used it to make themselves rich and powerful (to the distaste of Frank and Joe when they learn about it).
* RichSuitorPoorSuitor: Laura Estabrook's high school sweetheart Paul [=McFarlane=] was the rich suitor, being from a wealthy Bridgeport family like herself. Eventually, Laura turned her back on the privileged life she was born into and broke up with Paul, and ended up dating and marrying Fenton Hardy instead, the (relatively) poor suitor from a middle- or working-class family that Gloria considered to be, as Trudy puts it, from "the wrong side of town".
* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler:Stacy undergoes this when Frank realizes she's no better than people she's working against (namely, the Estabrooks and the Khans) and refuses to cooperate with her, and eventually kidnaps Callie to try to force the Hardys to hand over their piece of the Eye. She then undergoes this further once she finds out they tricked her and handed over a fake.]]
* SarcasticConfession: JB realizes the pieces of the Eye have magic powers after experiencing impossibly good luck from one of them, and asks Joe what else they can do. He quips "Win teddy bears," and JB just chides him that he's serious, but this is, in fact, exactly how Joe himself figured out the Eye is magic, by winning every single game he played at the carnival and getting several stuffed animals as prizes.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere:
** After Ern is hunted and nearly killed by the Tall Man in an effort to LeaveNoWitnesses, he and his girlfriend skip town.
** Dean [=McFarlane=] starts to give Frank some valuable information about what Laura was investigating and asks to meet him the following day, only for Frank to return then to find that [=McFarlane=] has suddenly resigned his post and disappeared, clearly out to fear of what would happen to him if the shady organization behind Bridgeport and Rosegrave learned about this. He leaves behind only a note for Frank with minimal clues so the latter can continue his investigation, and [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse is never seen again for the rest of the season]].
** Once Kanika gives [[spoiler:Gloria's recorded murder confession]] to Fenton and Rupert as evidence, she leaves Bridgeport forever and washes her hands of the Eye conspiracy altogether. It's partly due to her deal with them in exchange for not turning her in to the authorities, but she doesn't exactly seem crushed to cut ties with the Circle.
* SequelHook: A few at the end of the first season:
** Biff reveals to Joe in the 11th episode that she recently discovered she's adopted and learned something about her birth family that she didn't like, but doesn't tell him what it is, leaving it open to explore further.
** [[spoiler:Stacy and her goons are still at large as of the end of the season, having escaped in their van.]]
** JB leaves Joe a radio and a note apologizing for working against him and promises that Joe can call him if he ever needs his help.
** The crew who cleans out and excavates the Chamber of the Eye after its collapse finds the fully-assembled Eye in the rubble.
* ShipTease:
** Frank and Callie get steadily mounting heaps of it as the season goes on. Chet, Callie's boyfriend, notices, and is increasingly unhappy about it, eventually breaking up with Callie because he knows she'd rather be with Frank, even if she hasn't admitted it to herself yet.
** Joe and Biff get several moments of this too, and it's hinted several times that Biff [[PuppyLove has a crush on Joe and he may reciprocate]]. It's a ToyShip due to their young age.
** Stacy purposely tries to invoke this with Frank, partially to make Callie jealous but more to get information from him, but Frank eventually catches on. There's still some genuine attraction and chemistry between them, but Frank turns her down when he sees more of what she's really like.
** There's also quite a bit between Trudy and Jessie; while it's more subtle than the other examples due to HideYourLesbians being in play (at least for this season), their season-long arc of becoming closer and confiding in each other more and more definitely reads like a budding relationship.
* SketchySuccessor: Inverted; the quite-sketchy Gloria chooses straight-arrow Frank as her successor to the also-sketchy family legacy. Frank doesn't actually want any part of it, but plays along to gain Gloria's trust so he can eventually get the opportunity to destroy the Eye.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Downplayed. Despite being set up as an important character, Ern is only in the first two episodes before he's PutOnABus and never seen again, even after the man who was trying to kill him is dead. Nonetheless, he plays a big role in getting the Hardys involved in the case by being the SoleSurvivor of the ''Astghik'' and giving them important info about what the Tall Man stole from the ship, and first putting them in the Tall Man's crosshairs as well when they try to help him. In the long run, though, Joe meeting JB (the man who stole the idol from the Tall Man) turns out to be more vital to the plot.
* SoleSurvivor: Ern is the only survivor of the ''Astghik'' crew, which gets him targeted by the Tall Man, who intended to kill ''everyone'' there.
* SoProudOfYou: Fenton is initially very upset to learn that the boys have been investigating their mom's death while he was away, but after a pep talk from Trudy in which she encourages him to trust them more, he works together with them for the climax to stop the Circle, and is clearly impressed with what they've accomplished. In the denouement, he tells them that he's very proud of them, and that their mother would be, too.
* StereoFibbing: Joe and Biff come to the police station so Joe can try to steal his soldering iron back from the evidence locker, but they need to get past the sergeant at the desk. Biff lies that they're there to get a charity collection box, and when he asks what the charity is for, Biff says "kittens" and Joe says "orphans" at the same time, and Biff quickly covers by adding "Orphan kittens at the animal shelter."
* StringTheory: Frank and Joe begin making one on a billboard in the attic, trying to figure out what Laura was investigating and who killed her. Trudy eventually finds it and makes the boys fill her in on their investigation.
* TarotTroubles: A tarot-reading fortune teller, Anya Kowalsky, is introduced in "Of Freedom and Pleasure", and insists on reading Frank's fortune when he, Chet, and Callie visit her.
** Said fortune is thankfully mostly free of "trouble": his cards are Death, the World inverted, and Two of Cups. Anya correctly tells the kids that the "Death" card isn't literal and symbolizes metamorphosis, a major change in Frank's life (which in this case, ironically, actually ''is'' from a literal death, Laura's, as well as the move to Bridgeport). The inverted World means a lack of closure and need for answers, representing Frank's and Joe's investigation into their mom's death. And finally, the Two of Cups indicates a new friend or partnership, which is indeed the case with the Hardy Boys' new friends who are helping them solve the mystery.
** However, Anya also tells them that if Frank's Two of Cups had been inverted instead of upright, it would have symbolized total chaos and the world being out of balance. Sure enough, at the end of the episode--after she's told them about how the town of Bridgeport is cursed and the Tall Man was seemingly killed at the "cursed" carnival--one of her cards falls off the table when she's packing up, and it turns out to be the Two of Cups inverted this time, which she sees as a foreboding omen.
* TheTeam: The fifth episode solidifies the main kids--Frank and Joe Hardy, Chet Morton, Callie Shaw, Biff Hooper, and Phil Cohen--as a six-person team working to unearth the conspiracy in Bridgeport and learn what Laura Hardy knew about it and who killed her.
* ThickerThanWater: Gloria and Laura had an ''extremely'' tumultuous relationship, to the point that Laura wanted nothing more to do with her family's legacy and disowned her mother, and Gloria warned her that this would mean she would no longer be able to use her influence to keep Laura safe. [[spoiler:But when she finds out that her butler, Stefan, was the one who murdered Laura and he claims he did it for her, Gloria is genuinely horrified and makes it clear that she ''never'' wanted him to do this; however much they may not have gotten along, Laura was still her daughter, and Gloria still loved her and never wanted her to die.]]
* ThouShaltNotKill: JB insists to Joe that he's a thief but not a murderer, and has never killed anyone.[[note]]He did ''almost'' kill the Tall Man at the carnival by electrocuting him, but it was in self-defense as opposed to cold-blooded murder, and the Tall Man survived anyway.[[/note]]
* ThreeLinesSomeWaiting: Most episodes have Frank and Joe each pursuing separate avenues of investigation on the case, and the story jumps back and forth between the two of them; on the occasions when they're together, it jumps between them and other characters, sometimes including the villains. There's also Fenton's separate storyline of searching for Rupert, which does not appear in every episode.
* TheUnfavorite: A non-siblings variation. George Estabrook did love his daughter Gloria, but he recognized that she was as power-hungry as his partners and outright told her that she would never be part of the Circle, instead planning to pass on his secrets to her daughter and his granddaughter Laura, who shared his disgust of and desire to distance themselves from the family legacy. Gloria's jealousy at being passed over led to her alerting George's partners of his plan when he tried to run away with his piece of the Eye, resulting in them murdering him and Gloria becoming his successor instead.
* TheUnReveal:
** Frank and Callie discover in their research at the library that, right after the Eye was found, the agriculture of Bridgeport completely changed to become much more habitable, going from a place you couldn't pay people to live in to a booming town with a skyrocketing population. This plot point is never brought up again, so how exactly it occurred--whether it was [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane thanks to the Eye's powers literally changing the landscape somehow, or the people who found it using its information]] to change the land itself--doesn't get any elaboration.
** It's implied that Gloria threatened and/or blackmailed Chief Collig somehow to be on her payroll, and when Fenton and Trudy finally confront him about his corruption, the former asks him, "What does she have on you, Ezra?" The answer to this is never revealed.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee:
** The gang trapping the Tall Man in "The Drop". Just a very basic, general premise of what they're planning to do--lure him to Chet's farm to catch him--is shared, while the details are kept hidden. It works perfectly, such that everyone at the police station is impressed.
** Actually averted with the plan to [[spoiler:rescue Callie]] in "While the Clock Ticked". This time, the entire brainstorming process and preparation is shown from beginning to end, but it also goes off without a hitch.
* UpperClassTwit: Stavros Vasili, the Rosegrave student who gives Frank and Callie a tour, comes across like this. He's shown to be ''incredibly'' arrogant and pretentious about attending the school, constantly bragging about how awesome everything is and how everyone who attends is a cut above the rest, while barely noticing how little the two of them are paying attention to him, and they quickly ditch him to investigate. Frank, who already had his misgivings about Rosegrave, is even more put off by Stavros's elitism.
* VehicularKidnapping: The penultimate episode ends with [[spoiler:Callie]] being restrained and dragged into a blue van by [[spoiler:Stacy's goons]].
* WantedPoster: JB Cox has these in Bridgeport (and presumably other cities as well) after stealing the idol from the Tall Man and jumping out of a plane, becoming a fugitive. Seeing one of these, along with the police file on him, is how the Hardy Boys learn his name.
* WeNeedADistraction:
** While visiting Rosegrave Academy, Callie purposely breaks a vase to distract the dean's secretary so Frank can sneak into his office, though he unfortunately does still get caught in the act.
** Phil distracts Stefan by asking him to donate money (on Gloria's behalf) to the Bridgeport Sea Cadets, giving Joe and Biff time to sneak into George's SecretRoom for information they need there.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** Or dog, in this case. Gloria's dog, Peppermint, gets out of the house in the first episode after Joe neglects to properly close the door behind him. The kids get distracted from searching for him by Ern taking Joe hostage, it's never stated if the dog was found or came back or not, and Peppermint is ultimately never seen or mentioned again in the whole series.
** Ern, an important supporting character in the first couple of episodes as the SoleSurvivor of the ''Astghik'' (the ship that the Tall Man blew up), skips town with his girlfriend to escape from the Tall Man and never shows up again for the entire rest of the series.
** Similarly, Paul [=McFarlane=], the dean of Rosegrave Prep, gets some spotlight when Frank discovers that he had past ties to Laura and knows more of the secrets behind the school than he's letting on. Then he suddenly resigns his post and disappears, leaving only a brief note behind for Frank. He never makes another appearance and we never find out what happened to him (at least until the next season, which takes place six months later, long after this season's case has been solved).
** It's never made clear exactly how the Tall Man escapes from lockup at the Bridgeport police station. Since Chief Collig is revealed in the following episode to be corrupt, some of the characters seem to think that he secretly let him go, but seeing as Collig works for Gloria--who understandably shows concern about the Tall Man's escape, since he's very much ''not'' on her side and has been going after her grandsons--this wouldn't make much sense, and he certainly doesn't seem happy to have to tell her about it. Once the Tall Man is KilledOffForReal at the end of the seventh episode, the mystery of how he got out of jail takes a backseat to everything else going on and is never resolved.
* WomanScorned: Even after Frank learns who Stacy really is, she still seems to be attracted to him and wants to work together with him to bring down the Circle. Eventually, Frank realizes that she's just as bad as the other Circle members and rejects her, [[spoiler:and she responds by kidnapping Callie to force Frank to give her the last piece of the Eye.]]
* WorkingTheSameCase: The Hardy Boys and their father, Fenton, as often happens in the books, though here, it's not really any surprise, considering said case is Laura's murder. After Fenton leaves on his mission, the brothers also begin tackling the case from a totally different angle, and between father's and sons' respective investigations, manage to bring down the Circle of the Eye together.
* WouldHurtAChild: The Tall Man when trying to get the piece of the Eye. He goes after Joe, whom he knows has the piece, several times, and some of the other kids as well, manhandling both Joe and Frank and even threatening them with a knife at one point.
* YouHaveFailedMe: After the Tall Man fails to eliminate Ern and then is repeatedly unable to retrieve the piece of the Eye that Joe has, the mysterious woman over the phone tries to fire him, but the Tall Man responds by promising to take the piece to another buyer instead of her once he gets it back. He once again tries to attack the Hardys and they again escape from him, and he starts to pursue them, only to be fatally struck by a car by Stacy Baker when he runs into the road in front of her. At first, it appears to be an accident, but with the later reveal that Stacy is Anastasia Nabokov and was the woman he spoke to on the phone, it's clear she hit and killed him on purpose to get him out of the way after he failed once again.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Season 2]]
* AbortedArc:
** Most of the {{Sequel Hook}}s of the previous season get their proper follow-up here, with one exception: Stacy Nabokov does not appear again at all. A line of dialogue from Fenton about how the Nabokovs and Khans "closed ranks" within their own families implies that she, like Kanika Khan from the previous season, decided to just leave Bridgeport for good and rid herself of the Circle conspiracy altogether, at least for now. [[spoiler:She ultimately does [[TheBusCameBack come back]] in Season 3, though.]]
** Callie's plans to go to prep school, and trying to figure out why she was blacklisted from every prep school in the country and who spread rumors of her cheating on her entrance exam, serves as her main subplot for the first few episodes of the season, before it's almost entirely dropped in favor of other characters' arcs. We never find out who falsely reported her for cheating, or if the situation ever got resolved and she was able to get back into Woodson Academy.
* ActorAllusion: [[spoiler:George's consciousness meets Frank's within the Crystal]], and he asks how old Frank is and suggests, "22? 23?" before Frank corrects him that he's 16. Rohan Campbell himself was 22-23 while filming the season.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Brian Conrad in the ''Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers'' books is Belinda's juvenile delinquent older brother, who is TheBully in school and has a particular hatred for Frank because of Belinda's crush on him. In this series, Brian is instead Belinda's father, and while he has some BoyfriendBlockingDad moments in regards to Chet (who is her LoveInterest here instead of Frank), he's a far better and kinder person who is certainly not a bully. He has been involved in criminal activity for a while, but by accident, and turned whistleblower because his conscience got the better of him, and in the penultimate episode, he brings Chet with him to pull a BigDamnHeroes moment for the Hardys and JB.
* AdaptationalVillainy: In the ''Hardy Boys Casefiles'' spinoff, Vanessa Bender is one of the TrueCompanions and Joe's girlfriend for the latter half of the series. Here, she's an unstable teen who's behind a bombing at Wilt's Deli and helped kidnap Dennis.
* AesopAmnesia:
** After Fenton ended the previous season learning to trust his sons more, he starts off this one by getting very angry with the boys simply for going to Demon's Paw to look for Dennis (even though they didn't do anything dangerous while they were there and were just looking around for clues), and [[YouAreGrounded grounds them]]. To his credit, he gets over this pretty quickly once they do succeed in finding Dennis, un-grounds them, and allows them to do detective work as long as they're smart about it and keep each other safe.
** Frank and Joe spend the entire first half of the season concealing from ''everyone'', including their friends, that Frank now has the power of the Eye inside of him, with Frank outright stating that they learned after the events of the last season that they can't trust anyone...apparently forgetting that they trusted their [[TrueCompanions friends]] pretty early on, and said friends all proved to be loyal and helpful and worth trusting in their investigation. It takes until the midpoint of the season before they finally clue the others in.
** Frank briefly considered using the Eye in the previous season to see and talk to Laura again, but Joe eventually got him to see that they were better off without it and he, too, decided to destroy it. As the season goes on and Frank falls deeper and deeper into the its power to get "the thing he wants the most", said thing is revealed to be getting their mom back. Though, to be fair, it's made pretty clear that said power is TheCorruptor, so having it inside of him brought him back to a mindset he probably otherwise would have avoided.
** Previously, Joe was one of the first people who wanted to destroy/get rid of the Eye, insisting that they didn't need it and could solve the case without it. But when he learns here that Frank has the entire Eye inside of him, Joe's initial response is to consider this to be awesome and encourage him to try to figure out what his "superpowers" are, while Frank is far more cautious about using a power he doesn't understand. This is a bit mitigated, though, by that fact that their roles pretty quickly swap and Joe remembers exactly why he wanted to get rid of the Eye in the first place, and once again returns steadfastly to this viewpoint when he sees how much danger the Eye is putting Frank in. [[spoiler:Though he does secretly keep the Eye at the end of the season, for as-yet-unexplained reasons....]]
** At the end of "The Missing Camera", Frank learns a valuable lesson after "cherry-picking" from the Eye's visions and single-mindedly investigating Tom Elroy, who turns out to be innocent. Frank acknowledges the dangers of relying on the Eye too much, asks Joe to keep him in check and promises to listen to him better from now on, and states that they'll solve the case with "good old-fashioned detective work". However, it only takes him a few episodes to go back on this (even as Joe attempts to stick by it) and become over-reliant on the Eye again, crediting it for most of their discoveries and saying they'd be "lost without it" while repeatedly disregarding Joe's fears. It's somewhat {{Justified|Trope}} in this case, though, because the the Eye is TheCorruptor and increasingly messes with Frank's mental state while poisoning him against his loved ones.
** Similarly, Frank noted to Callie during his PartingWordsRegret after Joe and Biff went missing in "No Getting Out" that Joe tends to do stupid things when Frank doesn't listen to him properly. Indeed, this once again happens several times in this season where Frank is too dismissive of Joe's concerns and feelings, Joe reacts impulsively in response, and Frank doesn't seem to see this coming and only finds out and gets involved after Joe is already in trouble or doing something dangerous.
* AllergicToRoutine / SoWhatDoWeDoNow: In the six-month TimeSkip between seasons, the Hardy Boys apparently haven't had any significant mysteries to solve, and Joe is bored to tears by "normal" life and is desperately looking for something to investigate. Frank, on the other hand, is happy with this arrangement (and in fact, wishes things could be ''more'' normal, since he's plagued by Eye-induced nightmares).
* AlmostKiss:
** Belinda and Chet get one in "A Clue on Film", as Brian and his date walk in right before they can. They get to kiss for real in the next episode.
** Once Chet and Belinda discuss said kiss in "Hunting an Intruder" and are about to share another one, Phil and the rest of the gang come back and the moment passes, and the two move away from each other. It takes until the season finale before they kiss again.
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: [[spoiler:Adrian and Aaron Munder, the former of whom is a teacher in Bridgeport while the latter was a Rosegrave Academy student left catatonic by their experiments on him, which removed his soul from his body. Adrian is able to use this when he realizes that the Hardy Boys and friends are onto him being the Shadow Man by pulling a TwinSwitch, substituting Aaron for himself to throw the kids off the trail and make them think he was another victim of the Shadow Man instead.]]
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents:
** Downplayed with Aunt Trudy; the boys aren't embarrassed by her in general, but they treat having an aunt who's a guidance counselor at their school the way you'd expect from two teenage boys, refusing to ride there with her in her van because Frank's sports car is better for their reputation.
--->'''Frank''': See, we love you, Aunt Trudy, it's just that, I mean, we can't be seen with you.
** They also react this way to Fenton's, and to a lesser extent Trudy's, over-enthusiasm for the pay-per-view wrestling event, with Frank asking them not to use their "wrestling voices" while their friends are over, and both brothers refusing to let their dad watch it in the same room with them and their friends.
* AmbiguousSyntax: At the start of the season, the Eye gives Frank a vision of his mother, Laura, having him play a video game to try to find "one very special" gem, but warns him, "Be careful, or you'll lose everything, like your brother here"--meaning Joe, who's silently standing next to them. Frank, and likely the audience, interpret the final part of her sentence to mean that Joe already played the game and lost (as in, "you'll lose everything like your brother here '''did'''"), and it doesn't get much focus. [[spoiler:By the end of the season, it's clear in hindsight that what she really meant is "you'll lose everything, '''including''' your brother here;" Frank isn't careful enough and lets himself be manipulated by the Eye, which leads to him being trapped inside the Crystal while George steals his body, so he really has lost everything and everyone important to him, most notably Joe.]]
* AndThenWhat: Joe is often on the receiving end of this due to his tendency of not looking before he leaps:
** When Joe, Biff, and Phil sneak out to try to find Dennis, the latter two ask Joe what they'll actually do if they ''do'' find him, since he could be trapped or hurt, and Joe admits that he didn't think that far ahead.
** Frank asks this word-for-word when he and Joe are kidnapped by Stratemeyer and the latter suggests headbutting their captors to try to get away, pointing out that they're still tied up and, even if they could somehow escape from their chairs and get to the doors, there would probably just be a bunch of Stratemeyer goons right outside who would immediately recapture them anyway. Luckily for them, Stratemeyer ends up letting them go (for now) soon after.
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Inverted; Phil seems to see his ''older'' sister Tiffany this way, like when she teases him a bit about his crush on Biff, and they appear to bicker frequently. So it may be played straight for Tiff, who calls her younger brother silly.
* ArbitraryScepticism: Once Frank finally fills in their friends about having the power of the Eye, he also tells everyone, including Joe, that in his latest PensieveFlashback from the Eye, George ''actually saw him'' from the past somehow. Phil reflexively states that it's not possible, and Frank promptly lampshades that, after all the other supernatural experiences they've had with the Eye, IntangibleTimeTravel seems like an arbitrary place to draw the line.
* ArtifactOfPower: This season reveals that many more of them besides the Eye exist in this world:
** The Crystal, which was created when lightning struck the sand on the beach near the Estabrook mansion; George found it, and later [[spoiler:had it sent after his faked death to]] Gloria, who hung it on the chandelier outside the library. It's stolen by the Shadow Man halfway through the season, and is eventually revealed to have been used in the Project Midnight tests on Rosegrave students; namely, by attempting to use it to store and transfer consciousness into different bodies. The Shadow Man wants it because he believes it contains the mind of [[spoiler:his twin brother, one of the test subjects of Project Midnight who was rendered catatonic when the tests failed]], but the big twist of the season reveals that [[spoiler:there is no sign of said brother in the realm of the Crystal, which instead contains the consciousness of '''George Estabrook''' himself, who manages to transfer his mind into Frank's body while leaving him trapped there instead]].
** Olivia tells Fenton at the end of the season that there are more relics out there. She's likely counting the Crystal as one of them, and another one or more appear to relate to several different scrolls that Fenton, Trudy, and JB have, and that [[spoiler:George]] is apparently determined to get back.
* 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 is meant to be set in either the northeastern US (like in the books) or Canada (where the show is filmed), both of which are very far into the west hemisphere.
** Though [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield it's not entirely clear where Bridgeport and Dixon City are supposed to be located]], as mentioned above, they're indicated to be far enough north that characters wear long sleeves outdoors even in the early fall and late spring. However, when Joe solves JB's code to get his phone number and contact him, said number has an area code of 864, which is in South Carolina in RealLife--very unlikely to be the actual intended setting of the series--and for that matter, is for the most-inland portion of the state, rather than the part that borders the ocean.
* BackForTheDead: Paul [=McFarlane=], who fled town to escape the Circle back in the first season, reappears here just in time for Fenton to find him dying after Olivia poisoned him.
* BaitAndSwitch:
** Dennis disappears at the beginning of the first episode, after being seemingly cornered by someone who means to hurt him; Malone and Stratemeyer Global are later shown to be holding someone captive. But near the end, the Hardys and co. discover Dennis unconscious but otherwise unharmed (physically, at least) at an old mill in the woods, and Stratemeyer Global's prisoner is then revealed to be JB Cox.
** In "A Clue on Film", Belinda's ex-girlfriend Erica shows up at her house, wanting to get back together with her, and invites her on a date (which Belinda looks a bit tempted by), right as her new LoveInterest Chet is arriving at her house to pick her up for a movie, making it look like Chet's going to walk in on something that's NotWhatItLooksLike and their budding relationship will be damaged as a result. Instead, Belinda firmly turns Erica down and leaves with Chet, it doesn't cause any real issues between them[[labelnote:*]](just briefly making Chet think he and she may have IncompatibleOrientation until she clarifies to him that she's bi)[[/labelnote]], and Erica is never seen again.
** In "The Doctor's Orders", when Dr. Burelli calls [[BigBad the Shadow Man]] to inform him that Dennis has disappeared, the scene immediately cuts to Brian Conrad (who was just shown a few moments ago to be involved with Stratemeyer) and shows his pager beeping, implying that ''he's'' the Shadow Man and will become an ArchnemesisDad to Belinda. Then the latter is soon revealed to have been wronged in the past somehow by Stratemeyer, and Mr. Conrad is revealed to be [[TheMole a whistleblower]] in the Stratemeyer group.
** Frank and Callie find evidence that the Shadow Man is [[spoiler:Mr. Munder]], and Joe, Phil, and Lucy go to his house to confront him, only to find him catatonic, apparently a victim of the Shadow Man instead. [[spoiler:But then this turns out to be subverted when Phil, Belinda, Callie, and Biff discover that they were right all along about it being Munder, who pulled a TwinSwitch with his catatonic brother to throw them off his trail.]]
** Twice, Frank and Joe appear to end up in a life-threatening situation, only for it to be revealed as a vision that the Eye is showing Frank:
*** In "A Clue on Film", when they're in George's SecretRoom, Joe hears a noise a few minutes later and steps out to check it out, but gets captured; Frank tries to lock the door at Joe's urging so they can't get him too, only for them to attempt to break it down and trigger the explosive that destroys the room. It's never made clear exactly what the Eye is trying to tell him in this vision, but this is shown to be the first instance of Stratemeyer successfully tracking its use, although the boys have already left by the time they get to Gloria's.
*** In "Captured!", Frank, Joe, and JB reach the final stages of the latter's plan to steal the relic, only to find that they've been LuredIntoATrap by Angela, who holds them at gunpoint to try to force Frank to give up the power and shoots Joe for motivation when he's unable to do so. After seeing this, which is what will happen if they continue down their current path, when JB arrives to continue the plan, Frank warns them that it's a trap. Though, unfortunately for them, they still get caught anyway, but avoid the outcome of the vision thanks to Chet's and Brian's BigDamnHeroes moment.
* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:When "Frank" (or rather, George in Frank's body) regains consciousness in the climax of the season and sees that the former's friends are still unconscious and Munder is the first person to wake up, he pretends that the attempted mind transfer worked, faking that he is Munder's twin brother Aaron for long enough to get Munder to set him free before revealing that it failed.]]
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: When Joe first learns about Frank having the Eye in him, he regards it the way you'd expect from a tween boy learning that his older brother just got superpowers: eagerly encouraging him to experiment and figure out what he can do, seeming excited to hear about his visions, and just generally regarding the whole thing as cool. It doesn't take Joe too long to become very wary of it, though, thanks to numerous different factors--seeing how much the Eye is corrupting Frank and changing his personality, how he's becoming over-reliant on it and dismissive of Joe's attempts to keep him in check, how the visions are causing him increasing amounts of physical pain, and how he becomes a LivingMacGuffin for the various bad guys of the season because of it--and starts actively plotting behind Frank's back to get the Eye out of him for his own safety.
* BigBadEnsemble: It eventually turns out that, like last season, multiple different parties are at play and responsible for different things that happen throughout the season. Of the three major murders that occur this season, each one is committed by a different member of the ensemble.
** Stratemeyer Global is actually a group run by Gloria, but some agents have gone rogue and decided to steal the Eye for themselves, targeting Frank and Joe after figuring out that they still have it. This group is led by Angela Todd, with Mack Malone acting as her [[TheDragon dragon]] until she betrays and kills him.
** Everything that happens to Dennis, as well as the bombing at Wilt's and the death of Dr. Vivian Burelli, is done by the Shadow Man, someone who was wronged by Stratemeyer's and Burelli's failed tests on Rosegrave students. [[spoiler:Namely, his twin brother was a failed test subject who was rendered catatonic, and his ultimate goal is to try to transfer his brother's mind--which he believes is trapped inside the Crystal--into another body.]]
** Olivia Kowalsky turns out to be the main villain of Fenton's story arc; while she is also trying to bring down the last remnants of the Circle like he is, her methods are much more violent. She kills Paul [=McFarlane=] and ends up trying to frame Fenton for murders that she committed, after lying to him about having information about Laura's death to set a trap for him.
* BigDamnHeroes:
** In the penultimate episode, Angela and her minions have Frank, Joe, and JB cornered and are about to force Frank to give up the power of the Eye. At that moment, Chet and Brian pull up to the dock in the former's truck, beginning an all-out brawl that allows them to get away.
** Joe, Callie, Chet, and Belinda attempt to pull this in the finale when Frank has been kidnapped by the Shadow Man. By the time they get there, though, it's already too late; [[spoiler:Frank's consciousness has already been pulled out of his body by then and put into the Crystal, and while they seemingly do manage to bring him back, the ending reveals that it was ''George's'' mind that got put back into the body instead, and Frank's own mind is still stuck in the Crystal, unbeknownst to everyone else]].
* TheBigDamnKiss:
** Chet and Belinda officially hook up with one of these in the mid-season finale.
** Joe and Lucy share one at the school dance in the penultimate episode.
* BigNO: A couple in "Heading for Destruction":
** Phil has one just before Lola hits the button to detonate the bomb, despite his best efforts to stop her.
** Frank does this as well when the Eye is about to give him another vision, which will set off Angela's tracker and reveal that the Eye is inside of him. While this does stop any real vision from happening, the tracker goes off anyway, though luckily for the boys, the signal isn't coming from Frank, which tricks her and her goons into letting them go for the time being.
* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Twofold when Frank and Joe are locked in a cargo storage and have a fight in "Captured!":
** Frank rightly calls Joe out on constantly being too impulsive and having half-baked plans that basically boil down to "We'll figure it out when we get there" as opposed to thinking things through, which causes him to take unnecessary risks and put himself in danger far too much. But when Frank asks why he didn't talk to him first before going through with this plan, Joe angrily points out that Frank wouldn't have listened because, even though he asked Joe to keep him in check with his use of the Eye, he stopped listening to him about it a long time ago despite the latter's best efforts.
** Joe also states that Frank has come to trust and rely on the Eye far too much, while Frank has similar feelings about Joe continuing to work with JB despite him repeatedly screwing them over. They both turn out to be correct about this. JB ends up abandoning the Hardys when their heist of the relic is thwarted, and then tries to steal it from Joe [[spoiler:(though he reveals in Season 3 that this is an attempt to protect them)]], only failing because the latter swapped in a fake; he then returns to the Hardy home and swipes [=McFarlane's=] scroll that Fenton gave the boys. Meanwhile, Frank finds out in the hardest way possible that [[spoiler:the Eye has always remained loyal to George, and was manipulating Frank the whole time, driving a wedge between him and his loved ones and setting him up for George to steal his body]].
* BoyfriendBlockingDad: Brian shows some shades of this towards Chet due to his interest in Belinda, but he pretty quickly sees that Chet is a good guy who's respectful in his feelings for her, and doesn't take long to warm up to him.
* BreakUpMakeUpScenario: Downplayed since they don't actually break up, but Frank and Callie keeping secrets from each other causes them to have a fight near the end of "A Clue on Film", and there's still tension between them at the beginning of "Heading for Destruction". By the end, though, after Frank and Joe survived being kidnapped and Callie and the others survived a bombing, they make up and promise not to hold out on or lie to each other from then on.
* BrickJoke: In "Hunting an Intruder", Frank gets a vision from the Eye, complete with his usual wincing, right next to Chet, who knows something's up and, when he tries to brush it off as nothing, responds with "Ten bucks says it's something," though they have to hide from Angela and Mack before the conversation can go any further. Then once Frank tells everybody about having the power of the Eye inside him, Chet's first words are "You owe me ten bucks," and he agrees.
* TheBusCameBack:
** Paul [=McFarlane=]; see BackForTheDead above.
** Sam Peterson, Fenton's former partner, who hasn't been seen since the first half of the first season, appears again as Fenton's FriendOnTheForce who provides him intel for his investigation.
* CallBack:
** When planning to break into Tom Elroy's house, Frank brings up the time that Joe and Biff broke into Chief Collig's house.
** Callie's entrance exam to Rosegrave Academy plays a major role in her prep school subplot this season. Gloria also mentions how she mentored Callie for years when revealing her motive for doing so.
** Likewise, Biff brought up to Joe last season that she was adopted and that she learned things about her biological parents that she didn't like, but didn't elaborate on it any more since they had bigger issues to worry about. This is her main arc for the season, starting off with Joe trying to get her to tell him what she knows in his desperation for some kind of mystery to solve. It's soon revealed that her birth father is dead, while she continues to search for her birth mother.
* CassandraTruth:
** In JB's second warning to Frank about Stratemeyer Global after previously talking to both brothers, he reveals that they've found a way to trace the Eye's signal remotely, and will know the next time the boys use it. When Frank tells Joe about this, the latter convinces the former that JB was just bluffing to try to scare him into handing over the Eye. They soon discover after being kidnapped, and lampshade to each other, that this was very much a sincere warning and ''not'' a bluff.
** After Frank stops Joe and JB from walking into Angela's trap, Joe finally tells JB that the reason Frank knew this was because he has the power of the Eye inside of him. JB thinks he's just making up an outlandish excuse to not tell him what's really going on, and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere promptly decides to bail]] (though unfortunately for him, he gets caught in the trap anyway).
** As the season goes on and Joe sees what a ToxicFriendInfluence the Eye is becoming to Frank, he repeatedly tries to dissuade him from continuing to use it, warning him that it's dangerous and pointing out that they didn't need the Eye in the past to solve the case. [[spoiler:Frank doesn't listen well enough and keeps falling back on the Eye, and it ends up completing screwing him over, setting him up to get [[GrandTheftMe body-snatched]] by George and trapped inside the Crystal forever.]]
* CaughtOnTape: Chet and Belinda confront Angela in the season finale and get her to admit to killing Mack, then reveal they have Brian and the cops listening in. Though they admit that this is a just a bonus on top of all the other evidence they have on her.
* CharacterDeath: Four major ones in this season:
** Fenton tracks down [[BackForTheDead ex-Rosegrave Dean Paul McFarlane]], who [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere fled from the Circle]] in the previous season, on his private boat in "Heading for Destruction"...dying from poison that Olivia gave him after he refused to give her the scroll from the George Estabrook's desk that she was searching for. [=McFarlane=] lasts long enough to entrust the scroll to Fenton before he dies.
** Dr. Vivian Burelli tells the Shadow Man in "The Doctor's Orders" that his plan [[spoiler:(to revive his brother with Project Midnight)]] will fail, and he pursues her by car when she flees. Her car is later found abandoned on a bridge, and her body washes up from the river at the start of "A Midnight Scare". She counts as an AssholeVictim because of her role in experimenting on kids in the past with Project Midnight (despite becoming TheAtoner by the present) and initially agreeing to give Dennis to the Shadow Man until the kids thwart her.
** TheDragon to the rogue Stratemeyer group, Mack Malone, is murdered in "A Midnight Scare" by his own partner and superior Angela Todd, who shoots him in the head in her own motel bathtub where she'd been holding him prisoner after feeling that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's 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 all of his screentime.
** The final shot of the season shows Gloria Estabrook, already in the hospital since having a stroke in "The Doctor's Orders", flatlining after being visited there by [[spoiler:her father George in her grandson Frank's body]], apparently due to shock. Season 3 opens with her funeral.
* CharacterFocus: Though it was downplayed, Chet and especially Phil played a somewhat smaller role in solving the case in the first season compared to Callie and Biff. Both of them play much larger parts this season, with Chet getting a LoveInterest in Belinda (who joins the TrueCompanions), Phil implied to have growing feelings for Biff and helping her in her efforts to find her birth family, and both of them making numerous helpful and important discoveries in the investigation.
* ChekhovsGun:
** A ton building up to the bombing on Demon Day in "Heading for Destruction":
*** In "Conflicting Reports", when searching Elroy's shack, Frank notes a powdery substance on the table, sniffs it, and realizes that it's flour. At the end of "A Clue on Film", Frank, Joe, and Callie realize that whoever was in the shack was mixing the flour with hydrogen peroxide to build a homemade dynamite bomb.
*** The lightning symbol with the circle around one small part of it that Dennis repeatedly draws after he's rescued. It turns out to be part of the bombing plot he witnessed: the "lightning" is actually the route of the Demon Day Parade through the streets of Bridgeport, and the circle is where the target is located (which turns out to be Wilt's Deli).
*** On that note, Wilt's is broken into and TP'ed a few days before Demon Day; Wilt chalks it up to a prank because nothing was stolen, but Frank and Chet do notice that one of the arcade games was moved out from against the wall, and put it back. In the mid-season finale, they realize that the break-in was actually done to plant the bomb, and when they search Wilt's, Chet remembers that the arcade game was the only thing out of place. Sure enough, they find the bomb there.
** Lucy mentions to Joe in "Hunting an Intruder" that she plans to stay at the lighthouse and "watch the storm roll in" after he has to leave. By the time the Hardys flee from Mack and Angela at Gloria's house down to the beach, said storm ''has'' rolled in, and a bolt of lightning hits the sand next to the boys and knocks them unconscious.
* ChekhovsGunman:
** Anya Kowalsky and Paul [=McFarlane=] are both name-dropped at the beginning of the season as two other people besides the Hardys and their TrueCompanions who might know that the Eye has magical properties. This comes back in some way for both of them:
*** Anya was introduced last season as a woman who was wronged by the Circle; her father died in the mine explosion caused by Ahmed, George, and Sergei claiming the Eye, and they went on to become rich and powerful. This season, as Fenton hunts down the remnants of the Circle, he meets a woman trying to do the same thing; she turns out to be Olivia Kowalsky, Anya's daughter, who's seeking revenge for her family.
*** After ex-Dean [=McFarlane=] became a case of WhatHappenedToTheMouse last season, he reappears here [[BackForTheDead in time for Fenton to find him murdered by Olivia]].
** Lola Burton and Vanessa Bender, two of Belinda's fellow detention girls. Vanessa is this year's Demon Queen at the Demon Day Parade, and they both turn out to be the culprits behind the bombing at Wilt's and holding Dennis prisoner in the woods.
** The true identity of the Shadow Man is recurring character [[spoiler:Mr. Munder, the detention and programming teacher at Bridgeport High]].
* CompositeCharacter: A minor version with Belinda Conrad, who combines aspects of book-Belinda and her brother Brian (who is instead Belinda's father in this series). Brian of the books was TheBully and an actual criminal delinquent, while Belinda was the straight-arrow NiceGirl type. Here, Belinda has some "bad girl" traits like regularly getting detention, liking to go to places where she's not allowed to be (like the roof of a building), and outright states that she "lives for trouble", but is ultimately a GoodBadGirl, as she's still a good-hearted and heroic person and is loyal to her friends and loved ones.
* ContinuityNod:
** The opening scene has Callie engage in some playful ExactWords with Frank, followed by Joe telling her she'll be a great lawyer someday, and she responds with "Doctor, but thank you." Callie previously told Frank about wanting to become a doctor back in "Secrets and Lies".
** In the first season, when the TrueCompanions were talking about school starting soon, Phil encouraged the others to join the AV Club. In this season, his involvement with the AV Club is the impetus of the whole plot, as his fellow member and [[TheRival rival]] in the club, Dennis Gilroy, becomes a DistressedDude while trying to film footage of the Bridgeport Demon. Phil's membership with the Sea Cadets also comes back into play when he uses his nautical maps to pinpoint a set of coordinates that Frank found.
** In the season premiere, Jessie tells the gang that Mack Malone was allowed to be on the land at Demon's Paw, and him telling them to get lost wasn't suspicious because it's his job to keep kids from falling into the mines...''"again"'', while giving a pointed look at Biff and Joe, who indeed fell into a mine there last season.
** After Frank and Joe state that the only people who know about the Eye having actual magic power are either "at this table" (them and their friends) or "in jail" (their grandma), said friends proceed to bring up everybody else who knows this and doesn't fall into either category: Fenton Hardy, JB Cox, the Nabokovs, the Khans, likely Anya Kowalsky, and possibly Dean [=McFarlane=]. (Though [[ContinuitySnarl they do neglect to mention Trudy, who also knows this]].)
** When JB meets up with Frank and Callie at Rosegrave and starts talking to them, Callie confusedly asks who he is, and is then incredulous when he introduces himself; while she has certainly ''heard'' a lot about JB from the others, she's one of the few members of the group who's never met or seen him before then.
** During Joe's and JB's planning session to steal the (now-Eye-free) relic from the Stratemeyer warehouse, Joe notes how difficult it sounds, and JB points out that the first time he stole the relic was on a plane from an assassin, so comparatively, this is far more simple.
* ContinuitySnarl:
** Downplayed. When the Hardy gang names everybody who knows about the Eye having actual magical powers (as opposed to only knowing that the Circle of the Eye is a major conspiracy run by powerful people, like Jessie does), they forget to mention Aunt Trudy, who was also explicitly aware in the first season that the Eye is supernatural. That being said, it's never {{Retcon}}ned by anyone outright stating that she ''doesn't'' know this, either, so it's likely that the kids just forget to add her to their list.
** Callie notes to Frank that "the first time we hung out alone", Gloria locked them in her study as part of a test to be inducted into a secret society. While this did happen in "In Plain Sight", it was certainly not the first occasion they spent time alone together, having also done so on the Ferris Wheel in "Of Freedom and Pleasure", and at Wilt's and while breaking into the library in "Secrets and Lies".
* TheCorruptor: The Eye to Frank, now that its energy has transferred into him. At first, he recognizes that there are problems with relying on it too much, and tasks Joe with keeping him in check to make sure he doesn't do so. Gradually, though, he becomes more and more dependent on the Eye, feeling like he's completely lost without it (not unlike its original founders), and stops listening to Joe when the latter tries to check him. The visions gradually become more and more painful and cause Frank to act paranoid towards his TrueCompanions, to the point that everyone ''does'' start conspiring to remove the Eye from him, but not out of a lust for power as it suggests, but rather to save him from it.
* CruelTwistEnding / {{Cliffhanger}}: [[spoiler:Initially, when Frank meets George in the Crystal and the latter tries to hijack his body, Frank appears to fight him off and successfully come back. However, the ending scene where "Frank" visits Gloria reveals that George was in control the whole time thanks to the Eye's power, stopped Frank, and ''succeeded'' in stealing his body, leaving his mind trapped in the Crystal.]]
* CurseCutShort: Phil gives an "Oh, shi--" (which is cut by the commercial break) when the plan for him, Biff, Lucy, and Joe to sneak Dennis out of the hospital goes awry.
* DangerTakesABackseat: How Fenton gets kidnapped by Olivia. He returns to his car after finding [=McFarlane=] dead on his boat, only for her to pull a gun on him from the seat behind him and order him to drive them to Dixon City.
* DemotedToExtra: Downplayed, but after Jessie Hooper is injured by the bomb at Wilt's in "Heading for Destruction" and left injured and hospitalized for most of the second half of the season, Biff's screentime becomes reduced, and much of it is spent (understandably) at the hospital with her mom and/or worrying about her condition. She's still present and her AdoptionAngst still gets some focus, but in terms of investigating with the other kids, only gets to be part of one more important adventure--working with Joe, Phil, and Lucy to smuggle Dennis out of the hospital--and despite staying at the Hardy home while waiting for her mom to recover, meaning that Biff's literally living with Joe during this time, she has even ''less'' screentime with him than ever during these episodes.
* DeusExitMachina: Frank and Joe insisting that Fenton meet Olivia in Dixon City to get the information she offered him, despite his own reluctance to leave his boys, causes father and sons to be separated for the rest of the season, so Fenton's not there to prevent Stratemeyer Global's continued harassment or Frank being kidnapped by the Shadow Man [[spoiler:and having his body hijacked by George]].
* DidYouActuallyBelieve: Gloria asks Callie if she really believed that she and Frank--Gloria's protegee and grandson, respectively--just happened to be the two students who did the best on the entrance exam for Rosegrave Prep. Gloria reveals that ''everyone'' who took the exam aced it, but outright states the school's admission is not a meritocracy; Callie's acceptance was guaranteed from the start, long before she took the entrance exam, because--unknown to her--Gloria was grooming her to be part of the innermost ring of the Circle of the Eye.
* DidntSeeThatComing: Angela says this word-for-word, and Mack agrees, when they discover through a bug that Fenton has been working with Gloria to bring down the Circle. The boys' dismayed faces when he tells them this suggest a similar sentiment.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: In "The Missing Camera", Biff calls a florist to track down who ordered flowers that were left on her birth dad's grave, in hopes of finding her birth mom. She doesn't want Jessie to know she's looking into this, so doesn't use her own name and phone number for them to call her back; however, she instead gives them ''Joe's'' contact info--someone she hasn't told yet about her search--rather than Phil's, who is actively helping her. Naturally, when the three of them are at the Hardy home later, Trudy passes the message on to Joe, forcing Biff to fill him in on the spot regardless of whether or not she wanted to yet.
* DistressedDude: Notably, this season, the only significant female character put in major distress (not counting Biff's brief incident with Joe and Phil below) is Jessie Hooper; otherwise, it's the guys who take the brunt of the abuse:
** Dennis is abducted by an unknown party (assumed for most of the season to be Stratemeyer Global, but revealed much later to actually be the Shadow Man), who does something to his mind in the process, kicking off the adventure for the season.
** Joe, Biff, and Phil go into a mine cave searching for Dennis that's full of toxic sulfurous gas, causing all three of them to pass out and almost die. Frank, Callie, and Chet figure out where they went and are able to arrive and pull them out offscreen before any serious damage is done, with Joe waking up to find the others all standing/kneeling over him.
** JB was apparently captured offscreen by Stratemeyer Global before the start of the first episode, and they later menace him in his motel room with a razor, in an attempt to figure out where the Eye is.
** Frank and Joe are likewise kidnapped by Stratemeyer, for the same reason, in "Heading for Destruction", being stuffed into a van with bags over their heads and tied to chairs in their lair.
** In the same episode, a thug in a Demon Day mask sneaks up on Phil after he finds the blue car, knocks him out, and [[PunkInTheTrunk locks him in the trunk of said car]].
** ''Also'' in the same episode, Fenton briefly gets captured by Olivia, though she doesn't end up hurting him despite her threats to do so. A few episodes later, though, and she drugs him and knocks him out for real, in an attempt to frame him for murder.
** Frank, Joe, and JB are briefly captured by Angela and her men, until Chet and Brian show up to save them.
** In the climax of the season, Frank is kidnapped by [[BigBad the Shadow Man]], [[spoiler:Mr. Munder, who intends to transfer his twin brother's consciousness into Frank's body]].
* DoubleEntendre: Callie invites Frank to come over in the evening to study. Frank replies that he has to work, but invites her to come do so at Wilt's while he's there, and she clarifies that that's not quite what she had in mind by "study", though she does still come there anyway.
* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent:
** Belinda thinks that her dad is an ordinary salaryman, and he claims to have recently started dating Angela. Then she and Chet learn that the two were never dating; Mr. Conrad works for the Department of Special Affairs, is part of Stratemeyer, and is Angela's boss. '''Then''' Belinda discovers that he's actually a MoleInCharge of the group of rogue Stratemeyer agents.
** Angela tries to convince Chet to turn on Frank and help her get the Eye out of him, even reminding him of how Frank stole his girlfriend. While this does motivate Chet to finally confess his lingering complicated feelings about Frank's and Callie's relationship to them, he has no intention of actually betraying them, and only pretends to go rogue to convince her; his friends are in on the whole plan. He outright refers to himself as a "double agent" when he successfully gets Angela to fall for it.
* DrawAggro: Thanks to their tracking device, Stratemeyer arrives at Gloria's house while the Hardy Gang is there, forcing them to hide. They try to sneak out without being caught, but Phil doesn't make it before Angela comes back. The Hardys have their other friends head to Chet's truck, and get Angela and Mack to leave Phil and come after them instead by purposely triggering Frank to have a vision, so the tracker will pick it up. This does work as planned, but unfortunately, Frank's subsequent flashback-vision during the ensuing chase iclues in Mack and Angela that he has the Eye's power.
* EmptyShell: [[spoiler:Aaron Munder was left as one when his consciousness was removed in Project Midnight and trapped in the Crystal, leaving his body a catatonic husk because there's no longer a "person" inside to control it. This briefly happens to Frank's body as well when his mind is put in the Crystal too, but unfortunately for him, [[GreaterScopeVillain George Estabrook]] was waiting for this and takes the chance to [[GrandTheftMe hijack it for himself]].]]
* EntertaininglyWrong: Once Joe discovers Frank has "superpowers", he lightly smacks him in the back of the head at one point and states that, since Frank didn't predict this, seeing the future is not one of his abilities. However, it later turns out Frank ''is'' occasionally psychic, but only when his and Joe's lives are in danger.
* EpisodeTitleCard: This season begins using them for each episode, and the next season follows suit.
* FaceOfAThug: Tom Elroy initially sparks Frank's suspicions due to having similar black boots that their unknown perp wore, but his grumpy, loner-like tendencies and {{Perpetual Frown|er}} don't help. But when he catches Frank breaking into his house and establishes his innocence, he's revealed to be a MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold, a war veteran who plants trees and picks up trash in the woods during his walks. Elroy was only unfriendly to the Hardy gang because he has a long history of teens trespassing on his land and pranking him, and befriends Frank, Chet, and Belinda when they drive off one such group of pranksters. Frank later has to [[ClearMyName clear his name]] from a FrameUp.
* FauxAffablyEvil: [[spoiler:George Estabrook's consciousness seems genuinely glad to meet Frank's in the Crystal, after seeing him on the beach many years before thanks to a time-traveling incident caused by the Eye. This doesn't stop him from planning for many years, since before faking his death, to steal his own great-grandson's body while stealing the Eye from him and trapping his mind inside the Crystal, just seeming rather smugly amused when Frank tries to resist.]]
* FiveStagesOfGrief: Joe is in the Acceptance stage when it comes to Laura's death, and has been for a long time now. Unfortunately, thanks to the Eye, Frank spends most of the season firmly in the Bargaining stage, wanting to use its power to see her again and essentially get her back. It takes a major fight with Joe to snap him out of it, just like when a milder version of the same fight happened in the first season.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Bucketloads, as appropriate for a mystery series, including a decent amount of FiveSecondForeshadowing as well. There's enough of this throughout the series for [[Foreshadowing/TheHardyBoys2020 its own separate page]].
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: The Eye often communicates with Frank in its visions by taking the form of people who are related to him: most commonly as a younger version of his great-grandfather George Estabrook, but also occasionally as his deceased mom Laura, and even Joe a couple of times.
* FrameUp: Tom Elroy is framed for the Demon Day bombing plot after evidence is planted in his car. At first, the cops seem more than happy to believe he did it, but when Tom talks to Frank, he reminds him that he's a war veteran who has experience with explosives and would never make such an amateur bomb, which is enough for Jessie and Deputy Riley to start believing him.
* FramingTheGuiltyParty: Brian Conrad arrives with Chet at the docks to rescue the Hardys, and manages to steal Angela's gun--which she used to murder Mack Malone--in the ensuing chaos, holding it with a handkerchief so he doesn't leave his fingerprints on it or smear hers. He then returns to her motel room and leaves the gun in the bathroom near Malone's body to ensure the cops can trace the murder to her.
* GambitPileup: There are numerous different groups on their own sides who all clash with the Hardy Boys and friends, and sometimes with each other as well, throughout the season: JB, Stratemeyer Global, and the Shadow Man. And that's not even getting into everything happening with Fenton's case.
** JB starts off being forced to spy on the brothers by Stratemeyer, but later escapes and works on other thefts for the rest of the season, sometimes working with the boys and sometimes against them. His new job and buyer become important in the following season.
** Rogue agents from Stratemeyer are trying to find the Eye and sell it to the highest bidder, and resort to kidnapping and threats of violence (including against the teenage Hardy Boys) to get it. And then within their group, there's also Brian Conrad, who is seemingly the boss, but actually a MoleInCharge trying to bring them down. Notably, they're so menacing and violent, and clearly up to ''something'' in the middle of the woods, that the TrueCompanions spend the whole first half of the season believing that Stratemeyer is behind ''everything'', and don't discover until the midpoint that someone else is responsible for the bombing at Wilt's and all that happens with Dennis.
** Said someone else, whom they nickname the "Shadow Man", pays two high school kids to kidnap Dennis for him and to plant a bomb at Wilt's so it will damage the security shop next door and deactivate the alarm at Gloria's house, allowing him to break in. His goal in doing so is to steal the Crystal from her chandelier, [[spoiler:which he believes houses the soul of his twin brother, and he hopes to bring said brother back by transferring his mind into another body]].
* GetARoom: Joe's reaction, sometimes word-for-word, whenever Frank and Callie kiss in front of him.
* GilliganCut: As the Hardy Boys try to convince Jessie that Elroy is innocent, Riley comes in to inform her that their suspect refuses to speak with anyone except Frank, who helped him earlier. The boys triumphantly grin at Jessie, and she insists, "You're not going in there. It's not gonna happen." Cut to Frank entering the holding room to talk to Elroy.
* GoodBadGirl: Belinda is a PG version. She's a regular in detention, encourages Chet to join her doing things that are harmless but technically not legal (like climbing up to the rooves of buildings they're not supposed to be on), and generally likes to walk a bit on the wild side, but doesn't do anything destructive or harmful or worse than the rest of her friends do (considering how many times the gang [[TrespassingHero straight-up breaks into places]]), proves to be a loyal friend and competent member of the investigating team when she joins the TrueCompanions, and is completely disgusted when she briefly believes her father to be a criminal before he reveals he's TheMole, and still calls him out on the unsavory things he did before he turned whistleblower.
* GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler:The finale reveals that this was George Estabrook's master plan all along: fake his death, upload his consciousness into the Crystal, and wait for the Eye to bring Frank there so George can steal his body. Unfortunately, he succeeds.]]
* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler:The end of the season reveals that George Estabrook was this all along, and by extension, the Eye as well, which is ultimately loyal to George as its original holder (or one of them, anyway). The Eye causes a vision of Frank to travel across time and appear to George before he "died", and by thus learning of his great-grandson's existence, George formulates a plan to dodge his enemies and extend his life by faking his death, storing his consciousness in the Crystal, and waiting for Frank to appear there so he can [[GrandTheftMe resurrect himself as a much younger man by stealing his body]]. The DownerEnding of the season reveals that he's succeeded.]]
* HeKnowsTooMuch: Dennis, on multiple fronts.
** The Hardys and friends eventually discover that Dennis was kidnapped in the first place because, while he was filming in the East Woods, he stumbled upon Elroy's shack, where Vanessa (wearing her ex-boyfriend Donald's track coat) and Lola were plotting the Demon Day Parade bombing, and caught some of it on film before they looked up and saw him at the window.
** Though Dennis can't recall what happened on that night, he's mostly lucid as he recovers after being found, just suffering some memory loss, a concussion, and a few panic attacks. It also looks like he's gradually getting close to regaining his memory. Then he disappears again, and when the younger kids and Lucy find him at the school, he's catatonic, and only really starts recovering by the end of the season. It's later revealed that the Shadow Man briefly took Dennis again and messed with his mind to keep him from remembering.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Olivia Kowalsky has a noble goal on paper: bring down the Circle of the Eye to take vengeance on the people who destroyed her family, not unlike what Fenton is doing. Unlike him, though, she's crossed the line into murder, and has no problem with making him her fall guy for it.
* HelpfulHallucination: Frank receives many of these throughout the season, courtesy of the Eye. Notably, though, while they ''are'' helpful, they're in the form of a code that the boys must decipher (such as showing Dennis being inside a "trunk" (chest) to indicate that he had been abducted by the bad guys and put in the "trunk" of a ''car'', or [[spoiler:showing Frank's brother Joe strapped into a chair and Frank protesting to indicate that the BigBad of the season, who was likewise trying to save the ''real'' kid in the chair, is said kid's brother]]). [[spoiler:The finale reveals that the Eye had a specific agenda for providing these visions: setting Frank up so George could steal his body to resurrect himself.]]
* HourglassPlot: Frank and Joe spent the entirety of the previous season wishing their dad was there and hadn't gone away to investigate, and they have some angst and a bit of resentment about him leaving and being gone for so long. In this season, when Fenton returns from Dixon City in "Hunting an Intruder" with a possible lead on who ordered Laura's death, ''he's'' the one reluctant to leave to look into it--partly because he knows it's likely to be a trap, and partly because he's worried about his sons' safety after Stratemeyer Global kidnapped them recently, and doesn't want to leave them alone--while the boys absolutely insist that he go check it out, even saying that they won't ''let him'' stay. This also serves as a DeusExitMachina to get Fenton out of the way for the rest of the season, since Stratemeyer Global wouldn't have had nearly as easy of a time continuing to menace his sons and their friends if he were around to play PapaWolf for them.
* HypocrisyNod: In "Conflicting Reports", Biff steals Phil's watch after he asks about her bio dad, refusing to return it until he proves she can trust him. Phil later shows her and Joe something that he took from Dennis's notebook, and when she asks if he stole it, he replies "''You're'' going to lecture ''me'' about stealing?" [[{{Touche}} She nods at the point]] and pointedly checks the time with Phil's watch.
* IHaveAFamily: Played for drama. [[spoiler:Adrian Munder's motivation for his actions as the Shadow Man is trying to revive his beloved twin brother Aaron by transferring his consciousness from the Crystal into another body. As he prepares to try to do this to Frank, which would leave Frank's mind trapped inside the Crystal instead, Frank desperately tries to appeal to his morals by stating that he, too, has a brother and is a brother himself, begging him not to go through with it, but his pleas fall on deaf ears.]]
* ILied:
** Fenton to the boys, word-for-word, when filling them in on his case. He had previously claimed to them that his frequent trips to Dixon City were to get their old house there all fixed up and ready to put on the market to sell, but admits to Frank and Joe that this wasn't true, and he was really working with Gloria (who's in prison) to try to bring down the rest of the Circle.
** Joe finds Mack Malone chained up in Angela's bathtub, and agrees to let him go only after Malone tells him where the relic is. He does so, but Joe knows he's lying about not planning to hurt him and reneges on releasing him. Which turns out to be a good call, since, unfortunately, Malone also lied with the information he provided.
** Angela turns out to have likewise lied to Malone about planning to release him once he gave the Hardys and co. false information, and murders him instead, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness feeling that he's no longer useful to keep alive]].
** Combined with IDidWhatIHadToDo: Joe convinces Frank to finally return the Eye's power to the relic by assuring him that they can still continue to use it. After Frank transfers the power, passes out, and wakes up in the hospital, Joe tells him that Brian has the relic and plans to make sure it won't ever see the light of day again. Joe justifies the lie by saying that he had to save Frank from the Eye as well as Munder, and wanted his brother back. Frank accepts this and thanks him....[[spoiler:except it's not actually Frank, but George. And then it turns out that the part about giving the Eye to Brian was a lie, too, and Joe actually keeps and hides it.]]
** Olivia tells Fenton in the season finale that she never actually had information about who ordered Laura's death, and claimed she did only to [[LuredIntoATrap draw him into a trap]] so she could frame him for the murders she committed.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Subverted. The first time the Hardys and friends encounter Mack Malone from Stratemeyer Global at Demon's Paw, they tell him they're there looking for a friend (Dennis), and Malone replies, "He's not here." Frank points out that he never said their friend is a "he", but since the cops already talked to Malone, he no doubt knew about the Dennis situation and that that's who Frank meant.
* InSpiteOfANail: Frank sees a vision of himself, Joe, and JB being taken hostage by Angela during their heist to steal the relic, and he and Joe try to use this to avoid capture and turn the tables. However, since this vision causes Angela's tracking device to spike, she's able to locate him and capture all of them anyway, though they're luckily saved by the timely arrival of Chet and [[spoiler:Mr. Conrad]].
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Joe, being AllergicToRoutine and desperate for a case to solve, repeatedly pesters Biff to tell him what she learned about her adoption so he can investigate it for her, to her annoyance. Turns out her birth dad is ''dead'', and Joe [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone feels terrible and profusely apologizes]] when he learns this. Biff accepts his apology easily and assures him that it's okay; she was just getting irritated and not wanting to tell him because he was trying to turn it into his thing when it's not, it's '''hers'''.
* InternalReveal:
** It's shown that Fenton is in contact with Gloria in the season premiere, heavily implied to be working with her, which is then reinforced when Callie sees him visiting the prison in "The Missing Camera". The boys, and Stratemeyer Global (via listening in), only learn about this in "Hunting an Intruder" when Fenton finally admits it to his sons.
** The audience learns that JB (and by extension, Stratemeyer) have the Hardys bugged at the end of the third episode. The kids themselves don't learn this until the end of the seventh...right after they've just made a huge, important breakthrough in the case.
* IronicEcho: Biff hears [[AlphaBitch Vanessa]] talk to friends about being named Demon Queen for the second year running and shares her recent discovery that her own (bio) mom was also a former Demon Queen, only for Vanessa to rather indifferently reply, "Oh, well, congrats to you." During the Demon Day Parade once the gang has figured out Vanessa is the bomber, she tries to escape, but Biff tackles her to the ground; Trudy compliments her on it, and Biff says, "Yeah, ''congrats to me''" right in Vanessa's face.
* IWantMyMommy: Frank states that, if he continues to use the Eye's power, it will give him what he wants the most. Joe angrily demands to know what this is, and Frank screams in response, "I WANT MY MOM BACK, JOE!"
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** Joe discusses his status as this with a few other characters, particularly Lucy, outright admitting that he can be really pushy, aggressive, and insensitive while questioning suspects. However, he clarifies that this is only because he needs to get the truth to prevent people from getting hurt; he knows what it's like to lose someone and doesn't want anyone else to have to go through that too. It's also very clear that he cares a lot about his friends and family, and if he accidentally genuinely upsets them, does his best to make it right.
** JB remains a primarily-self-motivated thief who's still willing to steal from the boys if they have something he's being paid to get, bugs their house for Stratemeyer Global, and gives the latter information about them, but he makes it clear that this is not personal; he only works for Stratemeyer for a time because they threaten his life, and immediately dissuades them from targeting the Hardys directly for the Eye and warns the brothers of the threat multiple times. He also has a ThouShaltNotKill rule, honors the deal he made with [[MoralityPet Joe]], and insists that, whatever else he may be, he would never harm Joe.
* KeepingSecretsSucks: Frank and Callie experience this firsthand; Frank spends the entire first half of the season concealing from everyone except Joe that he's absorbed the Eye's power and is seeing visions as a result, and Callie, for a bit, hides from him that she went to see Gloria in prison. This briefly drives a wedge between them mid-season before they make up and vow not to keep secrets from each other anymore, and this seems to be what prompts Frank to tell their friends about having the Eye in "Hunting an Intruder" while Joe wants to continue hiding it.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: In-universe, the Hardy family talking about Fenton's new look refers to the BeardOfSorrow he's grown, but it's really a thinly-veiled reference to [[TheOtherDarrin his actor changing]] from James Tupper to Anthony Lemke between seasons, complete with Fenton saying, as if to the audience, "Let's just get over it and move on."
* LetMeGetThisStraight: JB going over Joe's request to steal the relic from Stratemeyer. He outlines what he'd have to do in a way that makes the heist sound incredibly difficult (which it is)...and then, to Joe's surprise, gladly agrees with no complaints, pointing out that he's good at what he does and it's still less difficult than the first time he stole a piece of the relic (taking it from an assassin and jumping out of a plane).
* LivingMacGuffin: Frank becomes this to multiple different members of the BigBadEnsemble who discover that he's the Eye's new vessel.
* LoveAtFirstSight: Belinda and Chet are both visibly attracted to each other from the second they see each other in detention, before ever exchanging a word. Belinda later lampshades it outright.
* LoveInterestTraitor: Subverted. It looks like Angela is being set up as this for Brian, but it's later revealed that not only were they never actually dating in the first place, as this was a cover story that he gave Belinda and Chet when they saw them together, but he's well aware that she's the bad guy. In fact, he's her ''boss'' at Stratemeyer Global, though he's actually a MoleInCharge who's working to bring her down.
* LoveMakesYouEvil: [[spoiler:Adrian Munder is utterly twisted by his grief over his twin brother being rendered catatonic in Project Midnight, and the lengths he's willing to go in trying to revive him are far beyond the pale: abducting and damaging the mind of an innocent student; blowing up an unrelated store (which critically injures the chief of police) so he can break into a house; murdering a doctor previously involved in Project Midnight when she refuses to continue helping him; and kidnapping ''another'' innocent student with the intent of ''permanently removing his soul from his body'' and trapping it inside a crystal forever to replace it with his brother's soul.]]
* LuredIntoATrap:
** Olivia does this to Fenton by claiming that, if meets her in Dixon City and helps her with her goal to bring down the Circle, she'll give him the information she has about who ordered Laura's death. Once he arrives at the hotel, she knocks him out with knockout gas so she can frame him for murder (of people she actually killed herself). To top it off, once Fenton turns the tables on her, she admits she never had this intel about Laura to begin with.
** When Joe finds Malone chained to a bathtub in Angela's motel room, he only agrees to let him go if Malone tells him where the relic (the now-empty rock that once held the Eye's power) is located (and then, wisely, reneges on this afterwards). Unfortunately, Malone gives Joe false info that leads him, Frank, and JB right into a trap set by Angela.
* MakesUsEven: Joe cashes in on the favor JB promised him last season, and JB makes sure to tell him that, once he's finished this job for him, they will be even, which Joe acknowledges.
* TheMainCharactersDoEverything:
** Downplayed for the Hardy Boys specifically; they are still the main detectives of the group who do the most investigating and deducing, but their TrueCompanions play even more vital roles in bringing down the bad guys than they did last season. "Heading for Destruction" is a major example, since the boys spend most of it as {{Distressed Dude}}s, so their friends are the ones who figure out who the bombers are and where the bomb is hidden. What's more, Frank and Joe aren't even the ones who defeat Stratemeyer Global in the end; much of this is accomplished through [[NoHonorAmongThieves infighting]] and having a MoleInCharge, but Belinda and Chet play the biggest role in bringing them down.
** However, played entirely straight for the main cast as a whole, especially since the most competent member of the police force, Jessie Hooper, is hospitalized and out of commission for the whole second half of the season. Deputy Riley does help a little, but she and the rest of the force [[PoliceAreUseless are mainly there to do the cleanup work]] of arresting the bad guys after the Hardys and friends have already stopped them.
* TheManBehindTheMan:
** The Shadow Man is this to the Demon Day Parade bombing, paying Vanessa and Lola to hold Dennis captive and plant the bomb.
** Gloria Estabrook herself is revealed to be the real lead of Stratemeyer Global, using it to control the Circle from prison. However, the members who are targeting Frank and Joe are a group who've betrayed the organization and gone rogue, as Gloria would never order anyone to harm them.
** Subverted. Fenton tells his sons that Stefan wasn't acting alone when he killed Laura (despite the previous season implying that he was) and was following orders from someone else, because Olivia told him she has information about who ordered Laura's death. However, he eventually finds out [[ILied she lied about this]], making it ambiguous if this was the case or not, which isn't answered definitively until Season 3.
* MayorPain: Though Mayor Krassner isn't shown to be doing illegal things ''himself'', he's a definite SlaveToPR who's willing to suppress information that would make the town look bad from going public and cares far more about his reputation than actually seeing justice served. He's also a pretty HorribleJudgeOfCharacter who doesn't keep good track of what's happening in his town, considering how much crap Stratemeyer gets away with throughout the season while he defends their presence as "creating jobs" in Bridgeport.
* MeaningfulName: Fenton and Sam lampshade this about [=McFarlane=]'s boat, named the ''Ellie'': it's the phonetic spelling of the letters "L-E", for Laura Estabrook (who became Laura Hardy), [=McFarlane=]'s [[HighSchoolSweethearts high-school sweetheart]] and TheOneThatGotAway.
* MistakenForGay: A variation where this happens to a non-straight character. Chet is quite attracted to Belinda, but one reason he doesn't actively pursue her at first is due to learning that she has an ex-girlfriend, so he's not sure that she's interested in men at all. After he and Belinda kiss and he talks to her about this, she explicitly confirms that she's bi, and assures Chet that yes, she's very into him, too.
* MoodWhiplash:
** In-universe and out. In "Conflicting Reports", Frank cracks a joke about the Eye possessing him, Joe jokes back "Very scary," and they're both chuckling...until they look up and see the ''actually''-very-creepy abandoned shed in the woods, and their grins quickly fade.
--->'''Frank''': ''That'', on the other hand...\\
'''Joe''': Yeah, that'll do it.
** Frank and Joe are discussing Fenton selling their old Dixon City house, and are kind of upset about it but do manage to joke a little bit back and forth. Then they suddenly get jumped by a couple of Demon Week pranksters who pelt them with paint balls, followed by arriving at Wilt's and seeing that his store's been vandalized.
* MoralityPet:
** Frank assigns Joe the task of keeping him in check with his use of the Eye, and even as he becomes progressively more compromised by it and stops listening to him as much as he should, his BigBrotherInstinct for Joe remains very intact. When Frank and Joe have a massive fight that results in a KickTheMoralityPet moment, Frank is [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone so shaken and horrified by it]] (see below) that he immediately steps back from the brink of madness that the Eye has brought him to and finally agrees to return the Eye to the relic.
** JB still primarily looks after number one and steals from the Hardys a few times, but Joe remains this for him as well. He noticeably tries to keep the Stratemeyer thugs who threaten him from directly going after the Hardy Boys when they're prepared to do so by quickly stating that they don't have the Eye on them and have stashed it elsewhere, and warns them multiple times that Stratemeyer out to get them. After Joe cashes in on the favor JB owes him, he shows up as soon as he gets the message and does his best to follow through on it (only bailing at the end when things go completely south, and apologizing to Joe before stealing the (actually-fake) relic from him). Most notably, when Frank briefly suspects him of being the Shadow Man and accuses him of trying to run down Joe with a car (among other things), JB takes particular offense and furiously states that he would ''never'' hurt Joe. It's obvious enough that even the villains notice it, since Angela remarks to Joe while holding the brothers captive, "I can see why JB likes you."
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
** When Joe learns in "The Missing Camera" that Biff's discovery about her adoption, which she's mentioned to him before, is that her birth father is dead, he feels terrible about having repeatedly lightheartedly pushed her for information about her bio parents and immediately apologizes, as he can certainly relate to the tragedy of having a dead parent. He also gently tells her that while she didn't ''have'' to tell him about it, she ''could'' have, and she equally-gently admonishes him that he was trying to make her family situation into a mystery for himself, when it's something that's private to her, at her own discretion to share with others. Joe accepts the rebuke without complaint.
** The tension between Frank and Joe about their differing opinions on the Eye reaches a boiling point in "Captured!" and results in a fight that culminates in Frank shoving his brother into the wall of a storage crate. This KickTheMoralityPet moment gives him a huge JerkassRealization and is what finally convinces him to give up the Eye's power.
* NeverTrustATrailer: The trailer for the season implies that the boys' friend Dennis going missing, and their search for him, will be a major story arc for the season. In fact, they actually find him at the end of the very first episode, and the mystery is instead trying to figure out afterwards what happened to him (since he has amnesia from being knocked out and getting a concussion).
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Angela betrays her very capable [[TheDragon Dragon]] Mack Malone to keep him from reporting to their boss that Frank has become the Eye's new host, and her killing Mack once she feels that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's outlived his usefulness]] ends up being her downfall. Much of the rogue Stratemeyer group's prior criminal activities were hard to prove, but this murder is what gets her arrested at the end of the season; between Chet and Belinda [[CaughtOnTape recording]] her JustBetweenYouAndMe confession and Brian FramingTheGuiltyParty by planting her gun (the murder weapon) at the scene of the crime, the authorities have more than enough evidence to indict her for it.
* NoHonorAmongThieves: One of the major reasons the rogue Stratemeyer Global agents' plans fail is that more and more of the top members turn against each other. Once BigBad Angela Todd and TheDragon Mack Malone discover that Frank has the power of the Eye in him, Malone wants to report it to their boss, but Angela promptly betrays him and knocks him out so it'll stay a secret, and keeps Mack prisoner in her motel bathroom and later murders him. And then it turns out that said boss, Brian Conrad, has been a MoleInCharge all along, works to bring the whole group down, and pulls a FramingTheGuiltyParty on Angela to get her arrested at the end of the season.
* NoodleIncident: However JB got his face busted up. Malone tells Angela that his face already looked like that when the Stratemeyer goons found and captured him, and JB just dismisses it when Joe asks about it.
* NotMeThisTime: As Callie, Biff, Belinda, and Chet check the list of who's both taking senior chemistry and on the track team, they find one name in common: Donald Dukay, whom Callie earlier confronted about possibly falsely accusing her of cheating, and when they all confront him again, Chet and Belinda recognize his voice as one of the teen vandals who pranked Tom at his house. Donald does admit to being one of the pranksters, but emphatically denies knowing anything about the bomb plot, and the intel they pry out of him puts them onto the real bomber: his ex-girlfriend, Vanessa Bender.
* ObliviousGuiltSlinging: Callie initially intends to keep her visit to Gloria in prison a secret from Frank, at Fenton's encouragement, but when Frank tells Callie that she's what got him through the past year and compliments her, she's overwhelmed by guilt and blurts it out to him.
* ObviouslyEvil: Mack Malone just screams "bad guy" the second he shows up onscreen, from his cold, menacing sneer and threatening body langauge, to telling the Hardys and friends to leave Demon's Paw "before you get hurt" (and not in a way that sounds concerned for them).
* OfficialCouple:
** Frank and Callie are now dating after their BigDamnKiss from the previous season.
** Trudy and Jessie got together between seasons as well.
** Chet and Belinda are implied to get a RelationshipUpgrade midway through the season (which is confirmed by the end of it) to become the show's BetaCouple.
* OhCrap:
** Frank and Joe when Stratemeyer's dark blue van [[VehicularKidnapping pulls up to kidnap them]], with Frank quickly pushing Joe behind him.
** In the same episode, Jessie Hooper when she sees that the bomb she's attempting to disarm has been armed and is about to blow.
** Belinda and Chet, especially the former, when they're hiding with the rest of the gang in George's secret room from the Stratemeyer intruders attempting to track the Eye, and recognize one of their voices as Angela's (who's been dating Belinda's dad, Brian).
** The Eye gives Frank a vision of George finding the Crystal many years in the past. He turns around...and ''actually sees Frank'' somehow, giving both of them this.
* OnceMoreWithClarity: In the climax of the season, the flashback of George's final conversation with Gloria is replayed, but there are some additions to it that change the context. [[spoiler:Namely, the first time, it appeared that George was essentially disinheriting Gloria because of her hunger for power while he had turned over a new leaf. Instead, it's revealed that this was part of George's plan all along, to load himself into the Crystal and await Frank's arrival so he could take his body, showing that he was considerably more EvilAllAlong than was previously indicated and never truly did go through a HeelFaceTurn.]]
* OnlyInItForTheMoney:
** Vanessa Bender and Lola Burton are revealed to have held Dennis prisoner in Elroy's shack, where he witnessed them planning a bomb attack on Wilt's Deli. When cornered, Lola insists that they were paid to do so by someone else, which was their motive, and didn't hurt Dennis before handing him over to whoever paid them.
** Angela reveals to Chet when he asks that this is her reason for wanting to get the Eye from the Hardys; she outright states that she has no interest in using a "mystical moon rock that messes with your mind" for herself, but knows that a lot of other people would kill for it, so she plans to sell it.
* OutGambitted: Near the end of "Captured!", in the confusion at the marina when Chet and Brian show up to save the Hardys, JB apparently steals the relic from Joe before escaping. Joe reveals to Frank and Chet in the car afterwards that JB took a fake that he swapped in during the chaos, while Joe has the real one. Though JB does bounce back quickly when he breaks into their attic once again and steals the scroll that [=McFarlane=] gave to Fenton (which he was previously shown to be looking for).
* PunkInTheTrunk:
** The gang figures out that the bad guys abducted Dennis and shoved him in the trunk of a blue car.
** When Phil finds and investigates said blue car in "Heading for Destruction", he gets jumped and knocked out, and wakes up to find himself in the trunk of this same car as well.
* RedHerring:
** When Elroy is framed for being behind the bomb plot, he tells Frank that he saw someone lurking by his car who fits the description of JB's most recent disguise, leading the Hardys to believe that Stratemeyer Global is behind it and forced JB to plant evidence. It's later revealed that Stratemeyer actually had nothing to do with the bombing; this was the plot of the Shadow Man (another member of the BigBadEnsemble), and JB was lurking around Elroy's place because he thought the Hardys might have hidden the Eye there and was searching for it.
** Frank and Joe, after being kidnapped by Angela Todd and her cronies, are released from captivity thanks to an in-universe one. Angela took them because she's certain that they have the Eye or know where it is, and she can only track it when it's actively being used. Frank starts to have a vision while they're in captivity, and despite his attempts to suppress it, it sets off Angela's tracking device...except the tracker pegs the energy as coming from a completely different location (namely, Gloria's house, where the Crystal was being stolen by the other Big Bad, and apparently emmitted some of the Eye's energy in response to Frank's vision), making Angela think that the Eye is being used elsewhere by someone else and the boys are telling the truth about not having it. Later, she realizes that they ''do'' have it after all (specifically, that it's inside Frank) and renews her pursuit of them.
* RelationshipReveal: Trudy and Jessie are revealed to have begun dating between seasons.
* RememberTheNewGuy: When Callie discovers that she's been falsely accused of cheating on her Rosegrave entrance exam, she thinks the person responsible is Donald, who apparently took the test with her and Frank and was one of the rejected candidates. None of the students at this exam in the previous season were named as "Donald Dukay," and if one of them was supposed to actually be him, he's [[TheOtherDarrin played by a different actor here than he was then]].
* TheReveal:
** The Eye transferred its energy from the relic to Frank, meaning that Frank is now a vessel for its power.
** Fenton Hardy has been working with Gloria to bring down the remnants of the Circle. Also, Gloria is the real leader of Stratemeyer Global, and the Stratemeyer criminals that the Hardys deal with this season are rogue agents.
** Belinda's father is also in on the plot and is Angela's boss, but has secretly become a MoleInCharge.
** JB Cox (which is an alias, not his real name) was a Rosegrave Academy student.
** The Shadow Man is [[spoiler:Adrian Munder, a teacher at Bridgeport; his brother Aaron was part of the failed Project Midnight experiment. His motivation is to essentially bring his brother back by uploading Aaron's consciousness into Frank's body.]]
** [[spoiler:George Estabrook didn't die when his plane crashed into the ocean, because he wasn't on the plane to begin with (though his piece of the Eye was); his consciousness had been loaded into the Crystal, waiting for an opportunity to upload himself into Frank's body as his new host. The final {{Wham Line}}s of the season show that he succeeded.]]
* RewatchBonus:
** Throughout the season, Frank has many visions from the Eye, some of which are legitimately {{Helpful Hallucination}}s while others are much more cryptic, confusing, or downright misleading. The nature of which ones are which become clearer after the CruelTwistEnding of the season: [[spoiler:some of the hallucinations related to Dennis and the Shadow Man are helpful because they allow the boys to progress in solving the mystery, but the misleading ones are meant to keep them from finding out information they're not supposed to know or lure them somewhere. Most notably, the vision of the Shadow Man at the school dance abducting someone who appears to be Lucy, which Frank sees right as he's about to give up the Eye's power and return it to the relic, prevents him from doing so and brings Frank, Joe, and Chet to the dance, so the former can be kidnapped by Munder to kick off George's and the Eye's plan of letting George steal Frank's body. However, the visions about the rogue Stratemeyer operatives' attempts to hurt or capture him and Joe are all helpful, because they want to steal the Eye from Frank to use for their own purposes, which would ruin George's plan if they succeed, so the Eye is actively trying to help Frank avoid this.]]
** During the climactic battle at the docks in "Captured!", once you know to look for it, you can see Joe swap out the real relic with the fake right before JB steals it, moments before Joe reveals to Frank and Chet that he did so.
** One that is only fully understood after watching Season 3: once Olivia has kidnapped Fenton and briefly leaves him alone in the car, she comes back with some kind of gold tube-shaped capsule before they have to flee the scene. [[spoiler:This was her stealing the first of George's four codexes, which Gloria uses her video will to secretly tell viewers the locations of. More specifically, this is the one from George's "first apartment in Dixon City," while the codex that Olivia finds in the season finale before Fenton confronts her and confiscates both of them is the one from George's shipping warehouse.]]
* SayingTooMuch: In "A Disappearance", Lucy refuses to tell the Hardy Boys where Dennis was filming because that would give away what his video's about, which he didn't want Phil to know. However, Joe is able to use this to deduce that the opposite is also true: if they know what Dennis's film is about, they can figure out where he was filming. The boys and Phil break into Dennis's AV Club locker to get this info, and sure enough, this does narrow down their search area.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: As Frank prepares to give up the power of the Eye, it gives him a vision of the Shadow Man abducting someone who appears to be Lucy from the school dance. He tells Joe and Chet about the upcoming attack, and they quickly head there. [[spoiler:In fact, the vision was a trick to lure them to the school. The Shadow Man ''does'' attack someone there: Frank himself, once he and the others arrive.]]
* SequelHook: Seasons 2 and 3 are a TwoPartTrilogy, and the finale introduces a {{Cliffhanger}} and leaves open some plot points from this season to be resolved in the next one.
** When Biff gets in touch with Abigail Owens, her birth mother, the person who returns Biff's call is not Abigail, but her daughter (meaning that Biff has biological siblings).
** JB sneaks into the Hardy attic and steals the scroll piece that Fenton entrusted to the boys--given to him by [=McFarlane=]--which JB was shown earlier to be searching for, and is last seen opening it up and looking at it in his car.
** 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 as well that she's working to gather together with a partner, whom she claims won't be corrupted by them like the Circle was; these include the Crystal, JB's scroll, the scrolls Trudy now has, and presumably more.
** [[spoiler:Despite Joe telling "Frank" (actually George) that he gave the relic, now restored with the Eye, to Brian to make sure it "never sees the light of day again", it's later shown that he actually kept it, for reasons unknown.]]
** A woman in a black hooded coat shows up in the warehouse where Fenton is keeping Olivia. The woman removes her hood, revealing herself to be [[spoiler:'''Laura Hardy''' (or someone borrowing her appearance)]].
** Coupled with CruelTwistEnding: [[spoiler:George Estabrook did succeed after all in his plan to transfer his mind into Frank's body, essentially resurrecting himself in his great-grandson's body, while the real Frank is still trapped inside the Crystal.]]
* ShipTease:
** Belinda and Chet get huge amounts of it pretty much from the moment they meet, culminating in a RelationshipUpgrade halfway through the season.
** Very notably ''averted'' for Joe and Biff, who, in addition to being inseparable best friends, had quite a bit of this in the first season. This time around, though, Joe and Biff actually share relatively little screentime together and have next-to-no teasing; in fact, each of them receives ship tease with someone ''else'' instead:
*** Joe has a crush on Lucy Wayne, Dennis Gilroy's girlfriend; once she reveals partway through the season that she and Dennis have actually broken up, she begins to reciprocate Joe's feelings, and they kiss at the school dance.
*** Biff, meanwhile, gets teased with Phil, although it's mostly one-sided on his part. A line of dialogue from Phil's sister Tiffany suggests that he's had a crush on her for a while, even though they had no romantic tension whatsoever in the first season.
* ShoutOut: Joe's reaction to learning that his older brother has the Eye inside him, starting to ask him what different superpowers he has and talking about needing to test them, is ''very'' reminiscent of ''[[Film/Shazam2019 SHAZAM!]]'', where Freddy Freeman, who's similar in age to Joe, responds almost exactly the same way to his foster brother becoming a superhero. Complete with both boys asking if their brothers have [[EyeBeams laser eyes]].
* SixthRanger:
** Belinda Conrad, the new girl at school, joins the main cast and pretty quickly graduates to the seventh member of the TrueCompanions.
** Lucy Wayne, Dennis's girlfriend (or actually ex-girlfriend) and Joe's crush; she's not part of the Hardy Boys' main friend group and doesn't know nearly as much about the case as the rest of them do, but does tag along to help a few different times during the season.
* SlaveToPR: The Hardy Boys are excited when, after successfully finding and rescuing Dennis, the mayor of the town wants to take a picture with them at Wilt's. Once they actually get there, they find that Mayor Krassner pretty much has no respect for them, their friends, or their mystery solving skills, using the entire affair as a chance to plug his political values to the witnessing cameraman and reporter to put in the paper, and even plans to crop Chet and Phil out of the photo altogether. Later, Krassner proves to be uncooperative in the investigation of Vivian Burelli's murder because of how it may reflect poorly on the town and his leadership.
* StableTimeLoop: The Eye creates one by giving Frank a vision that causes him to physically appear in the past to George (when he was still an old man, but before he tried to leave the Circle), who can actually see him (unlike Frank's other visions) and thus learn of Frank's future existence before he's even born at that point in the timeline. [[spoiler:Because he knows this, when he seemingly leaves Gloria and the Circle behind, George really loads his consciousness into the Crystal (and thus doesn't truly die) to wait for the Eye to bring Frank into it as well someday so he can steal his body for himself.]]
* StringTheory: The Hardys once again make one of these for their new case, though they don't bother to conceal it this time since their investigation isn't a secret from their family.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Joe, Biff, and Phil sneak out to look for Dennis, heading up to an old mine where they think he ''might'' be held prisoner (without any solid evidence to back it up, going there simply because it's where "The Demon of Bridgeport" is said to be located), and completely ignore the "Danger: Do Not Enter" sign blocking it. Not only do they not find Dennis, they don't get very far into the mine before all three of them pass out from the indeed-dangerous noxious fumes there and have to be rescued by Frank, Chet, and Callie.
** Joe's impulsiveness and constant lack of planning for most of the things he does, which boils down to "come up with basic starting point for a plan, [[IndyPloy figure the rest out once we get there]]", is called out numerous times by most of his friends as being reckless and a bad idea, and it's pointed out that the majority of the time that this approach actually ''does'' succeed, it's mostly just luck.
** Belinda recognizes in "A Clue on Film" that her dad is lying to her, and has Chet tail him so they can find out what he's really doing. Considering Chet's bright yellow truck isn't exactly stealthy and they park at a distance but relatively out in the open to spy on Brian, it's unsurprising that, the first time Brian's physically facing in their direction and looks up, he instantly spots them.
** In "The Doctor's Orders", Joe sneaks into Dr. Burelli's office to snoop, but gets caught red-handed when he leaves through the office door just as she's returning. He then confronts her over the suspicious information he found there; she responds by having security escort him out of the hospital for trespassing into her office, and bars him from returning.
** Though Chet did his best over the past six months to get over what happened with him, Callie, and Frank (how, even though Callie started liking someone else, Chet had to be the one to end things between them, and how Frank basically stole his girlfriend), and tried to let it go for the sake of their happiness and his friendship with both of them, he does still have unresolved frustration and hurt feelings over it, no matter how hard he's tried to suppress them and despite his new feelings for Belinda. It takes until "The Doctor's Orders" (the seventh episode) for him to come clean to Frank and Callie about this, but once he does, and they both apologize for it, he's finally able to get proper closure, feel a lot better, and move past it for real.
* TapOnTheHead:
** Averted with Dennis, who's found in the woods with a concussion; he has to stay overnight in the hospital because of it, and can't remember anything that happened to him in the last 24 hours.
** Played straight with Phil, though, who's knocked out by Lola when he finds the car that was used to abduct Dennis. He wakes up later in the trunk of the car, and is no worse for wear other than appearing to have a bit of a headache.
* ThatCameOutWrong: Belinda confronts Brian about who he really met up with when he falsely claimed to her that he'd be in a work meeting all day, and he answers that it was a real estate agent. She assumes this means they're about to move ''again'' and reacts with dismay, and Brian says this word-for-word in response before clarifying that the woman is a real estate agent whom he's ''dating''.
* ThereAreNoCoincidences: Gloria reveals that Frank and Callie being the final two students standing in the Rosegrave entrance exam in the previous season wasn't because they just so happened to be the two best students among those who took it; it was rigged in their favor from the start because of them being Gloria's grandson and her protegee.
* TimeSkip: Six months have passed between the end of the previous season and the start of this one.
* TouchedByVorlons: After Frank touched the Eye while it was reforging in the Season 1 finale, this season reveals that the Eye's energy transferred from the stone that was the original artifact (and is now an ordinary carved stone) into Frank himself, giving him visions when trying to communicate with him, which Frank is not able to control. Once the villains of the season realize this, he becomes a LivingMacGuffin.
* ToxicFriendInfluence: The Eye (by taking the form of a younger version of George Estabrook) acts as one for its "vessel", Frank, gradually making him more and more irrational, paranoid, and suspicious of his friends, and bringing him back to the mindset he was briefly in during Season 1 of wanting to use its power to see Laura. It gets to the point that ''everyone'' else in the group wants to get the Eye's power out of Frank, believing it's only going to keep getting worse and hurting him.
* TrashTheSet: Subverted with Wilt's Deli. A large portion of it gets badly damaged from the bombing in "Heading for Destruction" and the gang's hangouts there temporarily cease, but by Season 3--which starts only a couple of weeks later in-universe--it's repaired and pretty much back to normal.
* TroubleEntendre: Right after the Hardys' friends figure out Vanessa is the bomber, we cut to Trudy finishing up her Demon Day dress and telling her to enjoy her big moment. Vanessa responds with "For sure. It's going to be '''a blast'''." Not long after, when the kids catch up to Trudy and fill her in, she remembers these exact words and realizes this trope was in play, to her consternation.
* TwinSwitch: [[spoiler:Used by the Big Bad to throw the heroes off his trail. Frank and Callie figure out that Adrian Munder is the Shadow Man, but when Joe, Phil, and Lucy go to his house to confront him, they apparently find him catatonic. They later discover that the catatonic man they found was Aaron Munder, Adrian's twin brother who underwent Project Midnight and never recovered; Adrian put his brother in his own place so everyone would think he was a victim of the Shadow Man.]]
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee:
** Frank's plan to break into Tom Elroy's house is fully stated and shown happening as he's explaining it, so naturally, it doesn't go as planned; Frank gets caught in the act by Elroy, and it turns out that the latter is innocent.
** Joe, Biff, Phil, and Lucy use a hospital map and knowledge of Dr. Burelli's evening routine to plan out a "heist" of Dennis at the hospital to keep her from handing him over to the Shadow Man. The first stage of the plan--getting Dennis out of his room--goes smoothly, but things rapidly spin out of control from there: the elevator that the kids plan to use to sneak him out is out of order, requiring them them to take a detour and risk being seen; then Biff gets spotted by Deputy Riley and Mayor Krassner, the latter of whom wants to photograph her for a publicity stunt, forcing her to send Dennis down in the elevator alone. By the time Phil gets to the elevator, Dennis is gone, although it turns out he just wandered off by himself. Ultimately downplayed, since despite the plan hitting so many snags, the group does accomplish their goal of saving him from the Shadow Man.
** A double-whammy when JB recruits Joe to help him with the latter's own request to steal the relic from Stratemeyer:
*** JB describes exactly how he would need Joe to help him pull off the heist. What's more, this is already combined with some DramaticIrony, since the audience knows that Malone was deceiving Joe with the information he gave him about the relic's location in the previous episode. Sure enough, Angela is there waiting with her men to turn the tables on them.
*** Frank crashes the party and has a vision that allows him to foresee Angela originally capturing the three of them; he and Joe then attempt to use this to flip the script on her, with Joe describing his whole idea to Frank. Naturally, the second the two of them step out of the cargo hold, they find that Angela has already captured JB (who tried to bail) and has them cornered, having used her tracking device to find Frank on the ship after he had his vision.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Several towards the CruelTwistEnding:
** Joe notes in "A Clue on Film" that perhaps the reason Frank's having trouble controlling the Eye's visions is because he's reflexively resisting it, and suggests he try "letting it in." Frank increasingly doing just that causes him to fall further and further under the Eye's [[TheCorruptor corruptive]] influence, driving a wedge between the brothers in the process, which sets him up to be kidnapped [[spoiler:and body-snatched]].
** When Joe, Phil, and Lucy find [[spoiler:Mr. Munder, their prime suspect, seemingly catatonic]], Joe talks aloud with Phil about how Frank could have the Eye and still have been wrong. It turns out that [[spoiler:the "Mr. Munder" they know--the twin of the man they found catatonic--was listening in nearby from hiding, and this is how he learns that Frank has the Eye in him and motivates him to kidnap him]]. Joe is distraught when he realizes this after Frank is taken, though his friends attempt to reassure him that [[spoiler:Munder would have found out anyway. And then the ending reveals that Joe still hasn't gotten his brother back....]]
** The BigBad, [[spoiler:Mr. Munder]], kidnaps Frank with the intention of [[spoiler:uploading his twin brother's consciousness into Frank's body in an attempt to bring the former back. Frank's mind is successfully removed from his body and stored in the Crystal...where the Eye reveals to Frank that Munder's plan was never going to work, and he was being used. This gives [[GreaterScopeVillain George]] the opportunity to take over Frank's body, unleashing him back into the world.]]
** As Joe and Frank flee Angela and Malone and run to the beach, this triggers another vision in Frank that essentially causes him to time-travel, allowing his great-grandfather George to see him. [[spoiler:As a result, George's grand plan to avoid being killed by his partners involves him transferring his mind into the Crystal to wait until his great-grandson Frank appears there, so George can hijack his body.]]
* UnwittingPawn: The season finale reveals that [[spoiler:the Eye]] was using [[spoiler:Frank]] as one all along, [[spoiler:seemingly being helpful by giving him visions and insight that were vital in solving the case, while actually acting as TheCorruptor to him to drive him away from his loved ones who would be able to reel him in, all for the purpose of allowing George to resurrect himself by stealing Frank's body]].
* VehicularKidnapping: Happens to Frank and Joe in "Heading for Destruction". They go to visit JB at his motel but find Angela there instead, and her Stratemeyer goons promptly pull up in their dark blue van, grab the boys, put bags over their heads, and drag them into the van before driving away.
* WhamEpisode:
** "Heading for Destruction", the mid-season finale. The Hardy Boys are kidnapped by Stratemeyer Global and spend most of the episode out of the action, but are released when, for some reason, Frank experiencing a vision from the Eye causes their tracking device to track its power source to a completely different location. Phil is also knocked out and locked in a car trunk during the parade. The gang figures out that the bomb is at Wilt's and that Vanessa and Lola are behind it, but fail to stop them from detonating it, and Jessie Hooper is critically injured in the explosion. Fenton Hardy is revealed to be hunting down the remnants of the Circle and finds Paul [=McFarlane=] dead, and meets Anya Kowalsky's daughter Olivia, who is also fighting the Circle to get revenge for her family. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And Chet and Belinda finally hook up.]]
** "Captured!", the penultimate episode. Jessie finally wakes up from her coma, and gives her blessing in Biff's search for her birth mom. Frank's and Joe's simmering tension over the Eye finally boils over and they have a fight, which leads to Frank agreeing to give up the Eye's power. They and JB get captured by Angela and her goons (both in a vision and in reality), who almost force Frank to hand over the power until Chet and Brian rescue them. JB fails to take the relic thanks to Joe pulling a switcheroo, but instead steals the scroll he'd been looking for from the Hardy home, which [=McFarlane=] left with Fenton, who entrusted it to the boys. Finally, Callie, Belinda, Biff, and Phil figure out the true identity of the Shadow Man [[spoiler:(namely, that they were right about it being Munder all along, and he performed a TwinSwitch to throw them off the trail)]] just as the latter succeeds in kidnapping Frank at the end.
** The finale, "An Unexpected Return". [[spoiler:Munder tries to put his brother's consciousness into Frank's body, transferring Frank's mind into the Crystal in the process. There, Frank learns that George Estabrook didn't actually die in the plane crash that seemingly killed him; instead, he transferred his mind into the Crystal so he could wait there for Frank (whom he'd seen on the beach thanks to a time-travel vision given to him by the Eye) and steal his body himself, though Frank is seemingly able to thwart him. Fenton learns that Olivia was lying about knowing who ordered Laura's death, but she reveals that there are many other magical relics out there besides the Eye, and other forces trying to gather them. Fenton then apparently sees Laura, meaning she's either still alive or someone is impersonating her. Frank still hasn't recovered from his experience with the Eye and breaks up with Callie for no apparent reason, and the very ending of the episode reveals why: thanks to the Eye, George ''succeeded'' in his plan to transfer his consciousness into Frank's body, meaning that he's essentially come back to life, while the real Frank is still trapped inside the Crystal.]]
* WhamLine:
** When Belinda and Chet go to meet Angela in "The Doctor's Orders", and find Brian there too:
--->'''Belinda''': You two were never dating, were you?\\
'''Angela''': No, Belinda. It would be very inappropriate for me to date my boss.
** And then, not too long afterwards:
--->'''Brian''': Angela doesn't know, so I had to keep up the front, but I'm a whistleblower.
** In the finale, first when [[spoiler:the Eye, in the form of young George, essentially turns on Frank]]:
--->"The Eye's [[spoiler:loyalty has always been with its original master]]."
** And then, when [[spoiler:the real George reveals that he's going to take over Frank's body and leave his mind stranded in the Crystal]]:
--->[[spoiler:'''George''': The transfer's about to begin. And then I'll be free. The Eye has shown me the path, Francis. This is all part of it. I truly wish there was another way.]]
** Pretty much everything Frank says in his visit to Gloria at the very end of the season finale. [[spoiler:Namely, that it's more and more clear that he's not actually Frank, but George's mind inside Frank's body, until he outright calls Gloria "my darling, darling daughter", fully confirming it.]]
* WhamShot:
** When Callie is crying outside of the prison after visiting Gloria there, she and the audience see Fenton pull up in his car and go inside, clearly to visit Gloria as well.
** The end of "The Missing Camera" shows JB listening in on the boys' conversation (and learning that they still have access to the Eye), revealing that he bugged their house somehow.
** Brian Conrad introduces his new girlfriend to Belinda and Chet, and we see that it's ''Angela Todd'', the leader of the Stratemeyer Global rogue agents who are trying to steal the Eye.
** Frank and Joe visit JB at the motel in town, only for Angela to answer the door instead. And almost immediately after, the dark blue van drives up right next to them (and some goons jump out to abduct them).
** Trudy gets a box of files from the attic for Fenton in "Captured!" and leaves to go meet him. The door swings closed behind her to reveal JB standing behind it once more, and shows that he stole the scroll that Fenton got from [=McFarlane=] and left with the boys (which JB was also searching for).
** While Fenton is holding Olivia captive near the end of the season finale, a woman in a hood arrives, and Fenton demands that she turn around and reveal her face. She does so...and it's [[spoiler:apparently ''Laura Hardy'']].
* WorkingTheSameCase: Unusually for the Hardy Boys, this is averted. Frank, Joe, and Fenton assume their investigations are connected, but it turns out that the boys are chasing two ''[[BigBadEnsemble different]]'' culprits--the Shadow Man (who's behind the bombing at Wilt's, the theft at Gloria's, and everything that happens with Dennis) and Stratemeyer Global (or rather, rogue agents, who want to steal the Eye and sell it)--and ''neither'' of them are directly related to Fenton's case, where Olivia Kowalsky is the BigBad who's trying to bring down the rest of the Circle [[MurderIsTheBestSolution in the most murder-y way possible]].
* WouldHurtAChild: Stratemeyer Global has no problem with kidnapping, hurting, torturing, or killing teenagers, as seen with Frank, Joe, and their friends.
* YouAreInCommandNow: Jessie Hooper is the new Chief of Police in Bridgeport to replace Chief Collig.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Angela outright states that this is why she murdered Malone.
* YoureJustJealous: A sign of how much [[TheCorruptor the Eye]] has corrupted Frank is when, during his fight with Joe, he angrily accuses the latter and their friends of wanting to remove its power from him out of "jealousy" that the Eye "chose" him and not them. Joe, of course, is in complete disbelief. Thankfully, Frank snaps out of it soon after.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Season 3]]
* AbortedArc:
** 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 Biff never meets her bio mom after all the time she spent trying to find her, though she ends up being okay with it after hearing that Abigail tried, 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. Ultimately, the adoption storyline is considered wrapped up after the one scene with Tess.
** Joe's budding romance with Lucy was one of his bigger subplots last season, but Lucy doesn't appear at all in this one, nor is she even mentioned or alluded to in any way.
* AndTheAdventureContinues: This final season, and thus the series, ends on this note. In the denouement of "[[SeriesFinale A Wild Ride]]", Joe and Frank are debating whether to keep solving mysteries or try to just be normal teenagers, but then Sam brings Fenton a new case involving missing stamps, and since he's now retired, Fenton gives it to the boys instead. The final scenes show the brothers sharing the details of the case with their friends and discussing possible theories (making it quite clear that yes, the Hardy Boys and friends will continue solving local mysteries), and then ends on a BrickJoke of Wilt being shown to have some involvement in it and being worried that someone's onto him (in a scene completely PlayedForLaughs rather than any kind of foreboding).
* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:The Hardy Boys' investigation throughout most of the season is based on trying to find their mom, Laura, after Quill (representing Sparewell Tech) gives them a picture that indicates she's still alive, and Olivia and Drew likewise reference her being alive and Fenton having found her. Then the boys learn in "At the Old House" that she really was still DeadAllAlong, only "living" inside the LotusEaterMachine that Drew has created, trapped Fenton in, and temporarily puts them in, too.]]
* AllJustADream:
** [[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 her, that Laura was still alive all this time and had her death faked, and that the four of them are visiting their old home in Dixon City together.]]
** [[spoiler:What's more, it's revealed that ''everything'' Fenton has experienced all season, including everything with Laura seemingly being alive, wasn't real either; he's been trapped in the simulation since the end of the previous season. All the phone calls that the Hardys seemingly got from him were faked by Drew and Olivia.]]
* AndStarring: "and Bailee Madison as Drew Darrow". Also an example of EvolvingCredits; once Drew's real full name is revealed, this changes to say "and Bailee Madison as Drew Sparewell".
* AntiquatedLinguistics: George does his best, but there are certainly several occasions where he sounds like an old man in a teenager's body, such as referring to "malt" for milkshakes and saying "Silence!" to Joe and JB when they're arguing, instead of the slang you'd expect Frank to use. It's soon revealed that Joe ''did'' pick up on this, and it's one of many factors that made him suspicious.
* 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. [[spoiler:Except it actually turns out to be the other way around; Hurd's innocent, and his two daughters are the ones who are evil.]]
* 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, can't make a modern-day milkshake and doesn't try to learn even though Frank is known to regularly do so at his job, 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.
* BaitAndSwitch:
** Right after the museum heist in the first episode goes wrong, JB decides to flee, while "Frank" has Joe hide and instructs him not to leave without the codex. Cut to the Hardy home, where Chet and Belinda are guarding the safe in case JB doubles back to steal the rest of the scrolls; the power goes out, and someone is shown moving outside the window behind Belinda, implying that he did indeed return to do so. But then Biff reports to Joe over the walkie that she saw JB being arrested by the cops, meaning the intruder is someone else; it soon proves to be George, who actually found the last scroll at the painting and came back to get the rest.
** [[spoiler:After Drew's EvilPlan to put the whole world in her LotusEaterMachine has succeeded, she's shot the Hardy Boys dead, and there's no one left to stop her, she goes upstairs, blasts loud music, and indulges in [[DancePartyEnding some victory dancing to celebrate]]...and then looks up to see ''[[WhamShot Chet]]''--whom she and the audience saw get caught in the simulation--staring in her window at her. Then Callie comes up from behind and casually greets her, and Drew [[OhCrap realizes with horror]] that ''she herself'' is in the simulation too and only imagined everything that just happened.]]
* BaitAndSwitchComment: Frank and Joe listen to JB's tapes of calls from clients after he's murdered, and one such tape is just their dad, Fenton, calling to make sure that JB isn't going to be a toxic influence on them. When he introduces himself, JB responds with, "Well well well, if it isn't the world's greatest detective...[[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments s' dad]]", once again highlighting how highly he regards the boys' skills.
* BatmanGambit: The Hardy Boys use one of these to re-imprison George in the Crystal, with first Joe and then Frank acting as decoys to lure him into his secret room, then lock it. He tries to escape through the trap door in the floor, only for them to reveal that they blocked off that escape route and shut the trap door over him.
* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Part of the reason George is such a SmugSnake is because the Eye has shown him "the end", so he truly believes that he knows what'll happen and mocks the TrueCompanions that their plot to save Frank will fail because YouCantFightFate. They insist that they'll be able to ScrewDestiny and prove him wrong, and the boys do indeed manage to outsmart and defeat him and trap him in the Crystal, all while George can only pathetically protest that this can't be right because it's not what the Eye showed him.
* BigBadFriend:
** Subverted. As soon as Joe realizes "Frank" was the traitor in the museum heist group, rather than believing him to be this for even a second, it instantly confirms his sneaking suspicions that "Frank" isn't actually his brother and someone else is using his body.
** [[spoiler:Played utterly straight, though, with Drew Darrow, actually Drew Sparewell, 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.]]
* BlatantLies: When Joe confronts "Frank" after the museum heist gone wrong--in which George told Joe to stay hidden and not leave without getting the codex, only to steal it himself--"Frank" tries to pull the "Oh thank goodness you got away safely, someone betrayed us!" routine. Joe, understandably, is not buying it anyway because he knows Frank's BigBrotherInstinct is ''way'' too strong to ever leave him behind like that, but George's [[BadLiar unconvincing tone]] does not help.
* {{Bookends}}:
** The first season practically began with Laura's funeral, with a deeply saddened Gloria giving a eulogy for her. This final season begins with Gloria's own funeral, which is likewise attended by her own mourning parent.
** One of Joe's earliest encounters with JB involved the latter saving his life from the Tall Man in a carnival funhouse, while barely surviving it himself. Their final meeting here once again has JB saving Joe's life from known murderer in black in a dimly-lit, crowded room full of neon lights; this time, though, he's KilledOffForReal.
** [[spoiler:The first time the viewer sees Laura is at the Hardys' old house in Dixon City with her family in the series premiere. The last time we see her, in the penultimate episode, is also at this house, although this time, it's all in a LotusEaterMachine.]]
** The opening scene of the series was Frank and Joe playing a video game together, bickering about how to beat it, then Joe getting a GameOver thanks to them scuffling over the controls. The brothers' final scene in the SeriesFinale features the same video game, but this time with Belinda at the controls and all their friends present, and she successfully overcomes that same obstacle and wins.
* BoundAndGagged: Happens a few times, quite reminiscent of the source material:
** George knocks Chet and Belinda out when he sneaks back to the Hardy home to steal the scrolls after betraying 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, the boss immediately murders him as soon as they show up.
** [[spoiler:In the climax, Fenton finds Trudy, Brian, and Jessie tied to chairs back-to-back with tape over their mouths.]]
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: [[spoiler:This is what Fenton ''thinks'' happened to Laura, that she was still alive but was brainwashed by Sparewell. Ultimately, this is revealed to just be a simulation that Drew put him in.]]
* BreakingSpeech: 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. He then wonders aloud 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.
** That being said, George's criticisms to the girls of the team are pretty weak and based on prejudice. He accuses Biff and Belinda of trying to "fill a void" created by their "broken homes" just because they don't have "nuclear families" and have 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.
* 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 them returning to their titular old house in Dixon City from the beginning of the series, realizing it's Frank's birthday and having a 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 Drew put them in.]]
* 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 friends are given a new case to investigate related to some missing stamps, Phil likewise suggests Wilt could be involved, and the rest of them 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.
* TheBusCameBack:
** 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" (or, at least, that's what they ''claim'', as all sides actually intend to [[InevitableMutualBetrayal betray and kill each other]]). Since Kanika and Stacy are both killed in the mine explosion caused by the woman in the black coat in the very first episode after only a few scenes (and in Kanika's case, her ''only'' scene), it also counts as BackForTheDead.
** 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, later telling Callie her real identity.
* BusCrash: When Agent Driscoll informs Chet, Belinda, and Brian that Olivia is not actually Anya Kowalsky's daughter (as she was childless), he also informs them that Anya passed away offscreen "the previous winter" (so most likely in the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2).
* ButNowIMustGo: Downplayed. Trudy Hardy moves out of the Hardy home--which she grew up in with her family, and has lived in ever since--in the SeriesFinale, but only to move in with Jessie Hooper, her girlfriend, so she'll still be living in Bridgeport and will be able to see her brother and nephews and their friends all the time, especially since this also means she's living in the same house as Biff.
* ChainOfPeople: [[spoiler:Used to stop Drew's plan with ThePowerOfFriendship. Frank tries to shut down the Core by himself with the Eye's power, but in an echo of the Season 1 finale, starts to become overwhelmed. Joe grabs onto him to try to share the burden, then Callie grabs Joe, Chet grabs her, Belinda grabs him, Biff grabs her, and Phil grabs Biff. Joe then shouts for Phil to touch the Eye, completing the human circuit between the two relics and deactivating the Core.]]
* CharacterDeath:
** Stacy Nabokov returns to attend the funeral, and agrees to work with "Frank", along with Kanika Khan, to resurrect the Circle, although [[InevitableMutualBetrayal both sides plan to betray and kill each other]]. Just before they draw their guns, though, the mysterious woman in the hood blows up the Chamber of the Eye, killing Stacy, Kanika, and their goons, while "Frank" barely gets out alive. Also counts as BackForTheDead, since both of them were completely absent from Season 2 and only get a few scenes here before being killed off.
** In a BusCrash example, Anya Kowalsky is confirmed to have passed away during the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2, leaving all her money to charity (as she doesn't actually have any children).
** 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, only to be horrified when said boss just shoots Quill to death 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.
** [[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 after being shot and tries to crawl out of the compound so she'll get caught in the simulation and can pass more painlessly that way, but is too weak to make it, and Fenton finds her on the stairs just before she succumbs.]]
** Also a few more that aren't technically deaths, but for all intents and purposes might as well be: Frank and Joe succeed in re-banishing and trapping George Estabrook in the Crystal for eternity once again, and when Adrian Munder enters it at well and finds Aaron's consciousness there, both of the Munder twins willingly stay behind to be {{Together In|Death}} {{Not Quite Dea|d}}th so the Hardys can escape, rendering Adrian permanently catatonic in the real world along with Aaron.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: The Sparewell Tech commercial shown in "A Strange Inheritance". This ad proves to be essential in "Revelation" for recognizing Hurd Sparewell's voice in it as the same voice that made the phone calls to the gang and to JB. Furthermore, Phil gushes to the other kids about how much he'd love to own one of the portable laptop computers it's advertising; [[spoiler:by the denouement of "A Wild Ride", after the gang has saved the day, they all receive one of these Sparewell laptops "in exchange" for signing the [=NDAs=].]]
* ChekhovsGun:
** The painting behind Gloria's desk of the house on the cliff was shown to have a hidden safe behind it in the first season. Here, it's also revealed that she hid George's final codex in the painting itself, before donating it to a museum to be preserved.
** Also in the first season, when the boys first found George's SecretRoom, Joe was shown admiring his sword on display there before Frank told him to put it down. George, with Frank's body, uses this same sword to try to ''kill'' Joe during their confrontation in the room.
** JB tells Joe in "A Strange Inheritance" that he doesn't know who his clients are (which tracks with all previous jobs shown) because he's hired via answering machine, so there are no names or faces. The boys discover with his DyingClue in "Revelation" that he tape-recorded all of these messages, and they're able to use them to figure out who hired him to steal the scrolls.
* ChekhovsGunman:
** The Hardys and co. learned about two different victims of Project Midnight in the previous season: Patient A, who died on the spot and his death was covered up as an aneurysm, and Patient B, who was left catatonic. Patient 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, Patient 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. [[spoiler:Subverted, though, when it turns out this was all a lie to give Drew an excuse to insert herself into the TrueCompanions' investigation, and she doesn't even have a brother.]]
** Frank's flashback-vision of George first finding the Crystal on the beach back in "Hunting an Intruder" showed one of his employees there with him, identified by the subtitles as his chauffeur. This season, we learn this man's name (William Vogel), and he becomes plot-relevant.
* ChokeHolds: George subjects Joe to a few of these:
** He does this two different times while trying to kill him in "A Vanishing Act", pinning him to the ground, straddling him, and trying to strangle him. The first time, Joe grabs something heavy from the floor nearby and smashes George in the head to get him off, and the second time, Chet and Belinda pull George off him.
** He also does this in the Crystal when trying to take the Eye back. Then he sees that Joe has already passed the power to Frank, so George stops throttling him and shoves him aside to pursue Frank instead.
* ConscienceMakesYouGoBack: When the Hardys, Biff, and Phil come to 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.
* 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.]]
* CrazyPrepared: Chet asks Joe if he has a map of Bridgeport in his backpack. Joe, in fact, has ''four'' of them--one each for if another gets lost, stolen, or damaged. The others give him "WTF" faces, and he points out that in a treasure hunt, everybody should have a map.
* 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 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.
* DiedInYourArmsTonight: JB dies, after TakingTheBullet for the Hardy Boys, while Joe is still gripping his jacket and trying to hold him upright.
* 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: For all his talk about the Eye "showing him the path" and his plans decades in the making, George Estabrook is taken down relatively easy by the Hardy Boys and friends after only about a week or so of inhabiting Frank's body. They successfully re-upload him into the Crystal in the third episode, and the boys defeat and re-trap him in there for good this time. This leads to Sparewell Technology taking over as the main antagonists for the rest of the season.
* DismantledMacGuffin: The map that George drew, which he split into four pieces that were each hidden in their own codex, and he had Gloria hide each one in a different location until he could return in the future to retrieve them. Her video will contains the clues to find them, and by the end of the season premiere, he has indeed gotten all four.
** 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 held 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.
** The gang deduces from a visual clue from Gloria that the final one is hidden in the painting behind her desk, and that she donated it to the Heritage Museum after her house was condemned and she couldn't save it with the Heritage Act.
* DisownedParent:
** 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 answer 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 boarding 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.]]
* DistressedDude and DamselInDistress:
** Continuing from the 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.
** [[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 LotusEaterMachine 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 simulation 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 this season'', all occurred within the LotusEaterMachine, with all the phone calls from him since then being faked.]]
** [[spoiler:Once Drew uses the Core to launch her simulation worldwide, Chet is the only one of the TrueCompanions who doesn't make into the compound (the only place not affected by it) in time, and temporarily gets caught in it along with the rest of the world. Thanks to having some faint remains of the Eye's power in them, the Hardys are able to go outside while avoiding getting pulled in themselves, bring Chet inside, and wake him up from it.]]
* 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.
** There's also the fact that Joe and Callie both (separately) initially suspect that "Frank" is Aaron Munder. The viewer would know this theory doesn't make sense because George ''pretended'' to be Aaron in "An Unexpected Return" long enough to trick Adrian into freeing him before revealing the truth, which the real Aaron would have had no reason to do; however, Callie and Joe were still unconscious when this happened and didn't witness it.
* DrawAggro:
** 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 trying to) during their heist in the last season, in an attempt 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, who 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 continue their search.
* DyingClue: JB survives long enough after being shot InTheBack by the woman in the hood to give Joe the code to the combination lock on the filing cabinet in his safe room (12-23-14), which contains voice tapes of all calls he received from clients wanting to hire him, including the bad guys ultimately responsible for his death.
* EmptyShell:
** As usual for Project Midnight. The Hardy Boys' bodies are briefly left as this once Joe puts his own mind in the Crystal to find Frank and then George is re-uploaded as well, but the boys' souls are luckily able to properly return to their respective bodies. 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 Frank and Joe escape as intended, 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 take her out of 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, 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 admitted to a mental hospital for the rest of her life.]]
* EnemyMine:
** Even though Joe is pretty thoroughly sick of JB betraying him at this point, he still agrees to work with him to steal the final codex from the painting at the museum so they can assemble the whole map, after which Joe acknowledges to the rest of the group that it'll turn into a scramble between them and JB for who gets the whole thing. Unknown to all of them, since "Frank" is really George, who doesn't actually give a shit about any of them, he's in one of these with JB ''and'' with Joe and friends.
** Once the rest of them discover that "Frank" is George, they mostly just hold him prisoner until they can switch him back with the real Frank, but after George temporarily escapes, he and Joe have one of these when confronting Cadmus Quill, both in agreement that they don't want to give him the scrolls.
** The kids also ''very'' reluctantly form one with Adrian Munder, who put Frank in the Crystal in the first place, 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 side agenda of finding out if Aaron is still in the Crystal somewhere too, he doesn't actually double-cross the Hardys and co., and [[LoveRedeems once he finds Aaron]], [[HeelFaceTurn is more than happy for Frank and Joe to escape unimpeded]].
* EntertaininglyWrong:
** Since JB was hired to steal only two scrolls, he speculates that some of the others racing to get them, such as Olivia, might not know there are actually four. In reality, she is working with the same group who hired him--Sparewell Technology--and at the time JB was hired, already had (or at least was about to get) two of the scrolls herself, the ones that Fenton later confiscated and had Trudy hide, meaning that Sparewell only needed JB to find the remaining two.
** 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 incorrect 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.
* EtTuBrute:
** Subverted with "Frank", as the rest of the gang don't ever truly believe he just betrayed them; once Joe figures out that "Frank" was the one who sold them out during the museum heist, he immediately deduces that it's not really Frank and someone else is using his body.
** [[spoiler:However, it's played entirely straight 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.]]
* EvilAllAlong:
** 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 by having his driver William sabotage it so everyone would think he died in the crash, had him kill three doctors as well 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.]]
* 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, or that they also care about all the other people he's hurt and are determined to prevent him from causing any more damage.
* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler:The Sparewell Girls are the evil SiblingTeam counterpart to the Hardy Boys. While they're also very intelligent (Drew in particular being even more of a TeenGenius than either of them) and 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]], refusing to listen when Olivia tries to reason with her.]]
* EvilRedhead: Double subverted with Olivia. After she was the BigBad of Fenton's storyline in the previous season, killing members of the Circle and framing him for it, it's apparently subverted at the start of the season when she drops the UndercoverCopReveal that she was a DSA agent the whole time. But then it's later shown that this was a lie, as was her claim that she's Olivia ''Kowalsky'', Anya's daughter; Anya never had kids, her true name is Olivia Sparewell, and she's TheDragon to the BigBad.
* EvilVsEvil:
** A three-way version: George and Stacy are about to each pull a gun and try to murder the other, but then someone else, later revealed to be part of the Sparewell faction, blows up the Chamber of the Eye to try to kill ''all'' the Circle remnants present, succeeding with Stacy and Kanika, although George is able to survive and get away.
** Olivia's rampage against remnants of the Circle in the previous season was already this, but when she was believed to be Anya's daughter taking revenge for her family, it at least painted her as the LesserOfTwoEvils. But with the reveal here that her name is actually Olivia Sparewell, it becomes a more clear-cut case, especially as the Circle vs. Sparewell feud continues into this season. Both sides want the relics for very different reasons that are still malevolent in either case, and both groups are more than willing to commit murder to get what they want, including of the Hardys and their friends.
* FakingTheDead:
** George did this by letting others think he was fleeing to his private island on his plane, only to give the pilot the idol to take there without him, then sabotage the plane so it went down, the piece of the Eye was lost, and everyone believed he died in the crash. Then he had William help him upload his brain into the Crystal to wait it out until Frank arrives two decades later.
** [[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 subverts it with the reveal 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.]]
* 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 arrived, 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.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Mountains of it once again, including FiveSecondForeshadowing, found on [[Foreshadowing/TheHardyBoys2020 its own page]].
* ForgottenBirthday: [[spoiler:In the simulation that Drew traps the Hardy family in, they visit their old home after getting Laura back and realize it's Frank's birthday and they'd all forgotten about it. The fact that this is such a ContrivedCoincidence is an early hint that things are not quite right.]]
* FriendshipMoment:
** 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, she assures him she's still there for him despite the breakup, 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.
** [[spoiler:Belinda goes into a HeroicBSOD, breaking down in sobs, after Chet gets caught by and pulled into Drew's worldwide simulation while buying enough time for the rest of his friends to reach the compound, where they'll be safe from it. Callie gives her a big hug before going off to catch up with Drew and help the Hardys, while Biff and Phil stay with Belinda to comfort her.]]
* GambitPileup: In just the first episode alone, numerous different characters and groups have conflicting goals that collide, even within the TrueCompanions:
** As shown in the SequelHook last season, Joe actually kept the Eye for unknown reasons despite claiming to "Frank" and his friends that he gave it to Belinda's dad to be destroyed, and here we learn that Joe told Brian himself that it was vaporized in the Sleep Room. And once Brian, Belinda, and Chet compare notes and realize he lied, the latter two end up with their own 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 plot 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.
** 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 other one he was hired to find. And then he soon learns from the boys that there are actually ''four'' of them, not two. It's made pretty clear that, once they steal the fourth one from the museum, it's going to turn into a standoff between JB vs the Hardys and friends for who gets ''all'' 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 plans to murder him after getting it. Unbeknownst to them, 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. This ends up making her a SpannerInTheWorks for George, preventing him from taking the Crystal and vamoosing with it (along with the scrolls) before Joe catches up with him.
* TheGlomp:
** Frank gives one to Joe when the latter shows up in the Crystal to rescue him, and Joe wholeheartedly returns it.
** [[spoiler:Both boys, as well as Fenton, exchange several with Laura in "At the Old House". Which makes it all the more heartbreaking when they eventually realize they're just stuck in a LotusEaterMachine and it's not really her.]]
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: Subverted. Once our heroes defeat the BigBad and save the day, they're asked to LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain and sign an NDA about all that went down. [[spoiler:They each get their own shiny-new, advanced-tech Sparewell laptops in exchange, and Callie promptly uses hers for some LoopholeAbuse, exploiting the fact that ''Drew'' never signed an NDA (having been left an EmptyShell) to publicly air all of the Circle's and Rosegrave's dirty laundry on the now-greatly-advanced internet under Drew's name so the rest of the world ''can'' hear about it.]]
* GuiltComplex: [[spoiler:Revealed to be a major part of why Fenton has significantly more difficulty breaking out of the simulation than the boys do; he feels incredibly guilty that he couldn't save Laura, and also carries a lot of guilt for leaving his sons behind in Season 1 when they needed him the most. The simulation gave him a chance to have everything perfect, where he was able to find and save Laura and repair their fractured family; but once the boys get him to realize they're in a simulation, this same guilt is what allows him to resist the fake Laura's attempts to get him to stay, because he doesn't want to fail to protect them too. Ultimately, simulation-Laura convinces him that he needs to let go of this guilt, learn to forgive himself, and move forward.]]
* 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 plan to use it for their own ends, as well as finding out what Sparewell actually knows about Laura.
* HeKnowsTooMuch: Once Joe confronts "Frank" about being an impostor using his brother's body, George promptly takes out a gun and tries to murder him, and then stab him with a sword after Joe disarms him. Unfortunately for him, Joe didn't come alone.
* HeelFaceTurn: Adrian Munder agrees to Joe's request to help save Frank, albeit with ulterior motives to see if he can save his brother too. But he ultimately completes one of these when he enters the Crystal after the Hardys to find Aaron, and does so with the boys' assistance. They're willing to try to help both Munders get out too somehow, but Adrian, now that he's found his twin and gotten what he wanted after all this time, warmly assures them that he always planned for his trip to into the Crystal to be one-way and urges them to return.
* HeroicSacrifice: JB sees the mysterious figure in the black hood coming up behind Joe and Frank with a gun as they enter the bar, and ends up TakingTheBullet while trying to move them out of harm's way. Joe in particular is left devastated by this.
* HiddenVillain: Despite the beginning of the season heavily setting up George Estabrook ascending to become the final BigBad after previously being revealed as the GreaterScopeVillain of the series, he turns out to be a DiscOneFinalBoss. [[spoiler:Then the new bad guy appears to be Hurd Sparewell, the head of Sparewell Technology, whom Drew claims is an AbusiveFather who's trying to use the Core for his own purposes. It's not until late "The Spider's Net" that they discover the real ringleader of the Sparewell villains is Drew ''herself'', with Olivia, her older sister, as her [[TheDragon Dragon]].]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: George, unsurprisingly, is a big one.
** He gets angry at Joe ''for lying to him'' after the latter reveals he still has the Eye, despite ''everything'' that George has done and lied about himself. Joe calls him out on it without missing a beat.
--->'''George''': You lied to me!\\
'''Joe''': [[GrandTheftMe You body-snatched my brother]]. Don't get all high and mighty about it.
** Once he's pulled into the Crystal with the boys, he tries to persuade them to come out and talk it over, great-grandfather to great-grandsons, calling them "family", despite having tried to murder Joe several times with Frank's body. He then attempts to kill him ''again'', and once the boys have trapped him, tries to convince them to work with him [[WeCanRuleTogether and let "the Estabrooks" return to power once again]].
--->'''Joe''': [[DisownedParent You're not family. You never were.]]
* 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 to their dad 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.]]
* IChooseToStay: Once Adrian Munder finds his brother Aaron's consciousness inside the Crystal, as he always believed it was, he knows that all four of them can't exit it, and [[TogetherInDeath chooses to remain behind there with Aaron while the Hardys escape]].
* IHaveYourWife: Sparewell Technology 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 their plans.
* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Inverted; as Joe assures "Frank" that JB will show up to meet them as invited, "that last one" is the only part that JB ''isn't'' bothered by:
-->'''"Frank"''': What makes you so sure?\\
'''Joe''': 'Cause he's a weasel and a snake. Can't resist the grift.\\
'''JB''': ''([[StealthHiBye Standing in the back of the store]])'' Ouch! That was harsh, Joey. The last part was...pretty accurate, but the first two were just ''mean''. That's not like you.
* IdiotBall: Biff sees JB, who was earlier competing with the Hardys and friends for the scrolls, being released at the police station. When he looks over and sees her too, she casts a nervous, ''very'' unsubtle pointed glance at the black bag nearby with the scrolls in it, which "Frank" was forced to leave there after being brought into the station. It's so obvious that it initially looks like she purposely draws JB's attention to it so he'll take the bag and get it away from George, but when he does indeed do this and walk out the door, Biff tries to follow, only to be stopped by her mom coming up to talk to her, letting him get away with the scrolls. So either it's this trope because she DidntThinkThisThrough before pointing the bag out to JB, or if it really wasn't on purpose, it's this because she couldn't have been more obvious about it if she ''had'' tried.
* ImmediateSequel: Building off the plethora of {{Cliffhanger}}s at the end of last season, Fenton's storyline starts with the same scene it ended on before and continues it, so it literally is "immediate" for him. The Bridgeport crew's story, meanwhile, resumes less than a week after the final scene where Gloria died after George stole Frank's body.
* InevitableMutualBetrayal: "Frank" and Stacy agree to work together to use the map to 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 eventually get the Eye's powers all to himself and hide the other relics from them, while Stacy hates the Circle and especially the Estabrook bloodline due to Gloria killing her dad, it's not at all surprising that they both plan to betray and murder 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.
* InterfaceSpoiler: The subtitles give away a few characters' names well before the rest of the cast learns them.
** Finding out who hired JB to steal the scrolls becomes a major point of the case for the gang in "Revelation", and it takes about half an episode of investigating before they're able to identify the voice as Hurd Sparewell's. However, all the way back in the season premiere, the voice on the answering machine message threatening JB to get the scrolls and the voice on the Sparewell Technology TV ad are both identified by the subtitles as belonging to Hurd, so viewers who watch with subs can figure out very early on that it's the same person.
** Downplayed with Cadmus Quill, as the subtitles first call him "Quill" only a minute or so before he tells the boys his name himself.
* InternalReveal:
** Joe discovers partway through the season premiere that JB stole [=McFarlane=]'s scroll from them in the previous episode.
** The entire gang learns fairly quickly in succession that George Estabrook is the person who returned from the Crystal and took over Frank's body, starting with Joe, then everybody else except Callie, and finally Callie herself.
* 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.]]
* ItsAllMyFault: Joe, completely devastated by JB's death, says this to Frank, feeling that he (Joe) got JB killed by convincing him to stay in the game and help them a little longer when he wanted out, only for him to [[HeroicSacrifice die saving them]]. Frank assures Joe that it wasn't his fault, and JB's DyingClue was to help them solve the case, meaning that he wanted them to stick with it and see it through.
* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: The Circle of the Eye, as a whole, finally gets its proper comeuppance for good.
** 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. 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, but she's killed before she and George can attempt to murder each other by the hooded figure blowing up the Chamber of the Eye.
** Kanika Khan also got off relatively easily for having her nephew Rupert kidnapped in the first season, planning for him to be murdered, and trying to get Fenton killed as well, escaping any jail time in exchange for getting damning evidence against Gloria, with her only punishment being that she can never return to Bridgeport or be involved in the Circle again. She goes back on this promise in the season premiere to team up with Stacy and "Frank" to lead the Circle once again (albeit with the intention of betraying at least "Frank"), and is likewise killed in the Chamber explosion.
** After this season confirms what an appallingly horrible 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 up tightly within the realm there.
** Overall, the innermost ring of the Circle is permanently dissolved, as all of its leaders are dead ([[FateWorseThanDeath 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.
** [[spoiler: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.]]
* KarmicDeath: Or in some cases, a karmic FateWorseThanDeath:
** In addition to everything that George Estabrook did in the backstory as part of the Circle, he also stole his great-grandson's body, locked an innocent boy's consciousness (Aaron) deep inside the Crystal realm for 10 years, tries to kill his other great-grandson several times, and intends to subject both of them to the same end as Aaron. He himself meets this final fate instead, locked under a trap door in his own private office within the Crystal realm and stuck there permanently, and to say he had it coming would be a massive {{Understatement}}.
** Downplayed with Adrian Munder. He caused the entire plot of the first three episodes to happen by forcibly uploading Frank into the Crystal and allowing George to escape, and Adrian ends up trapped there for good instead in "A Promise of Trouble" while Frank escapes. However, he willingly chooses this fate for himself and is content with it, since it means being TogetherInDeath there with Aaron.
** [[spoiler:Olivia left a trail of bodies in her wake in the previous season trying to bring down the Circle, tried to frame Fenton for it, [[ILied lied to him]] about having info on Laura's death, as well as who she's related to, and as TheDragon to Drew, is complicit in her putting Fenton, then the Hardy Boys, then the ''whole world'' in her LotusEaterMachine. Olivia herself dies when someone she really ''is'' related to, her sister, [[ICanRuleAlone betrays]] and [[SiblingMurder kills]] her.]]
** [[spoiler:Drew puts the Hardy family through an emotionally traumatic experience by sticking them in her LotusEaterMachine, and briefly does the same to the ''whole world''. Then the TrueCompanions turn the tables by putting ''her'' in her own simulation, and once they've shut down the Core and thwarted her plans, Drew experiences some kind of glitch when the government tries to wake her up from it, leaving her in limbo and catatonic for the rest of her life.]]
** He's a fairly minor character, but Cadmus Quill and his goons break into JB's apartment, presumably to kill (or at least capture) him and the Hardy gang on orders from his boss. JB turns the tables and knocks him out, and Quill is soon murdered by said boss.
* KnockoutGas: The bad guys use this to abduct Trudy, Jessie, and Brian in the fifth episode, and then Frank and Joe too at the end of the sixth, wearing masks themselves in both instances so they don't pass out too.
* LastKiss: [[spoiler:Fenton shares one of these with Laura, as well as a final declaration of love, before leaving the simulation that created her, with Simulation-Laura urging him to finally forgive himself for her death and start moving forward, and promising that she'll always love him.]]
* LeaveNoWitnesses: When George originally had his loyal chauffeur, William Vogel, upload his consciousness into the Crystal for him, he also ordered Vogel to murder the three doctors who knew how the procedure worked as well, stating, "No loose ends." He actually ''intended'' [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness for Gloria to do this to William, too]], but she spared him and just laid him off while paying him for his silence.
* LetsSplitUpGang: [[spoiler:The three Hardys break out of Drew's simulation and go off to find and stop her, only to reach a fork in the hallway and decide to split up. Fenton actually attempts to buck the usual trend by offering Joe to come with him, but he chooses to stick with his brother, citing their dad's serial DistressedDude tendencies. Sure enough, while the boys' path leads them to a confrontation with Drew, Fenton finds the dying Olivia and then the [[ParentsInDistress three captured parents]], freeing them just in time for all four of them to be put in Drew's completed worldwide LotusEaterMachine.]]
* LoopholeAbuse: Once the main characters save the day, are pressured into [[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain signing an NDA]] [[TheGreatestStoryNeverTold about everything that happened]], and [[spoiler:are all given Sparewell laptops as bribes/rewards, Callie decides to go through with Drew's plan of "going nuclear" with all the info she gathered about the Circle of the Eye, Project Midnight, and Rosegrave and its secrets. When pointed out that this would immediately violate her NDA, Callie states that she's posting it on Drew's behalf, under her identity, since ''she'' never signed an NDA (having not been able to on account of being rendered catatonic after the events of the climax)]].
* 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 prototype 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.]]
** [[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 wherein they "discover" that she didn't actually die in the car crash in the first season, and was instead abducted and brainwashed, 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 before vanishing, reflecting how much sadness he still carries about JB's death as well, and his desire to see him again.]]
** [[spoiler: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 along with Joe. 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, and is only able to finally do so through a combination of his love for his boys (who've already escaped it) and Simulation-Laura helping him achieve InUniverseCatharsis.]]
** [[spoiler:Drew's ultimate plan for the completed version of her simulation is to use the Core's power to put ''everyone in the world'' into it, and [[NearVillainVictory temporarily succeeds]] before the good guys stop her and shut it down. Even Chet is briefly put under, too, before the Hardys save him and snap him out of it.]]
* LoveRedeems: After Adrian Munder was shown in the previous season to have [[LoveMakesYouEvil 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 to get him back, 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.
* 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 ([[FateWorseThanDeath 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.
* MamaBear: Once Trudy figures out that Olivia's lying to her and the boys about Fenton, she knocks her out and crashes the car to give her nephews a chance to escape.
* ManipulativeBastard:
** George was like this his whole life, never having real friends and manipulating and backstabbing everyone around him. This includes his own daughter Gloria, whom he always knew craved his approval and consistently exploited it for his own benefit.
** [[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 boys on the heist just because Drew finds it amusing to mess with them, and successfully sucker 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, now has to pretend to be Frank convincingly enough to not arouse suspicion until he can find 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 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.
* MeaningfulEcho: In the Season 2 finale, when George briefly pretended to be Aaron Munder to trick Adrian, he said, "You came for me." When Frank, Joe, and Adrian find Aaron's consciousness imprisoned in the Crystal, the real Aaron says this same thing to Adrian, genuinely.
* MistakenForRomance: Donald Dukay's enormous ego causes him to entirely misinterpret Callie's repeated interrogations from the previous season and this one--which are only to get vital info about the case from him, and are fairly antagonistic because he's such a {{Jerkass}}--as BelligerentSexualTension from her being in love with him, clearly not caring that she already has a boyfriend or when she tells him point-blank, repeatedly, that it's not true.
* MoralityPet:
** {{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, didn't trust even her with ''everything'' he did, and didn't plan to let her have access to the actual magic of the relics.
** Joe for JB as always, and more clearly 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 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 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 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 hooded coat.
* MurderInTheFamily:
** 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 whom he body-snatched--once George realizes HeKnowsTooMuch. He also seems perfectly unbothered to leave his other great-grandson Frank to AFateWorseThanDeath by leaving him trapped in the Crystal forever 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.
** There's a case of SiblingMurder in the series finale as well; see below.
* NearVillainVictory: [[spoiler:Drew really 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 she even appears to shoot the Hardy Boys dead when they try to stop her. But Callie actually 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 she 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.]]
* NeverTrustATrailer: The trailer for the season plays up George Estabrook heavily, hinting that he'll be the show's final BigBad, but he ends up being a DiscOneFinalBoss who's defeated for good in only the third episode, with the real villains being a completely different group. [[spoiler:However, this also allows it to completely avert TrailersAlwaysSpoil; the trailer and all promotions for the season advertise Drew Darrow as being a "fun but frustrating" new ally to the Hardys and heavily hint that she'll be the show's incarnation of Nancy Drew, only for her to end up being the BigBad instead.]]
* NoHonorAmongThieves: Stacy claims to "Frank" that she's willing to "let bygones be bygones" and work with him to find the other relics, but really 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 to resurrect the Circle once more, 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 in the ensuing collapse while George narrowly escapes.
* 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.
** JB tells Joe that he likes him because Joe trusts his instincts and questions everything, and JB himself is the same way.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The boys discover that, sometime during the TimeSkip between the first two seasons, their dad found JB's radio and note to Joe, successfully decoded it (which took Joe and Chet a little while to do) to get JB's phone number, and called him. They're suitably impressed.
* OneLastJob: JB is thoroughly tired of dealing with all the magic relics and [[ArtifactOfPower Artifacts of Power]], 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.
* PapaWolf:
** While listening to JB's voice tapes of people who called him, Frank and Joe hear one from Fenton, who, during the TimeSkip between Seasons 1 and 2, found the CB radio and note that JB left for Joe. Fenton isn't outright threatening, but does give him a firm warning that he doesn't want anyone acting as a bad outside influence on his sons or leading them down the wrong path. JB just assures him that the boys don't really listen to him anyway, and Fenton responds with a chuckle that he knows the feeling.
** [[spoiler:This also plays a big role in Fenton being able to break free of the simulation, despite his strong temptation to stay and be happy with Laura forever and forget about everything else. His sons have already escaped the simulation by then, and Fenton tells the fake Laura that he doesn't ''want'' to forget them. He already carries a lot of guilt for leaving their boys when they most needed him in the first season, and doesn't want to fail to protect them the way he feels he did with Laura.]]
* 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 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.
* ParentsInDistress: The boys' aunt, Biff's mom, and Belinda's dad knocked unconscious with gas and kidnapped by Sparewell in "Revelation".
* 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 or 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 give 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 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 interracial same-sex relationship, which would have been highly taboo in his day. Still, he does show prejudice against non-nuclear families by assuming that Belinda's and Biff's one-parent households, which had more stigma around them during his time, must be "broken homes", 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.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: [[spoiler:How the gang deactivates Drew's LotusEaterMachine: Frank, Joe, and their friends form a ChainOfPeople between the Core and the Eye, so the Eye's power is conducted and passed through each of them to reach, react with, and destabilize the Core, shutting it down and breaking the worldwide simulation. This is also hammered home by each of the kids experiencing [[FreezeFrameBonus brief flashback snippets]] of {{Friendship Moment}}s and/or romantic encounters they've experienced with each other throughout the series.]]
* PowerParasite: George's scene in the Crystal Realm elaborates on what was implied last season. One person can't normally steal the Eye's power from another just by touching them unless the holder willingly gives it to them, but George ''can'' take it against the other person's will, making him this, because the Eye is loyal to him above all others and will choose to transfer its power to him from anyone else when given the chance. However, he has to actually be touching them for it to work, and the Hardy Boys realize and take advantage of this by only letting George grab Joe after he's already passed the power over to Frank.
* RealEventFictionalCause: [[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.]]
* RedHerring:
** The season premiere, which reveals that Laura is seemingly 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 confirmed to indeed be evil and not a DSA agent, [[spoiler:and then the penultimate episode shows 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 he gives to the boys instead.
** 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 slightly-obstructing but honest government agent, and gets shot by Olivia while helping them escape (though luckily has a bulletproof vest and survives).
** 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 a recent picture of Laura Hardy looking like this, and the audience sees her this way a few times, the conclusion seems to be that Laura is the culprit, still alive but BrainwashedAndCrazy. [[spoiler:However, Drew later explicitly admits to the Hardys that she was the one who killed Quill and JB, and what's more, Laura wasn't even 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 was faked.]]
* RedemptionEqualsDeath:
** 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 agree to help Joe and the gang get him back, with the ulterior motive of finding out if Aaron really is still in there and if there's a way to bring him back too. He forces the Hardys' friends to send him into the Crystal as well, but has no intention of harming the boys or trying to stop them from leaving, and once he enters and does indeed find Aaron, he even encourages them to escape while they can, content to stay behind and be TogetherInDeath there with Aaron.
** Downplayed with JB, who has never been anywhere near evil, just a WildCard criminal. Nonetheless, in the previous seasons, he was largely self-serving and OnlyInItForTheMoney, caring most of all about getting paid and willing to double-cross even people he likes, like Joe, to accomplish his own goals. However, in "The Crash", he finally decides to drop out of the race for the relics, and stays involved for the entirely altruistic reason of keeping the Hardys and their friends safe and helping with their investigation, with absolutely no hidden agenda at all. He ends up [[HeroicSacrifice dying to save them]] by TakingTheBullet when the mysterious hooded woman tries to shoot them.
* ScyllaAndCharybdis: Frank is ''highly'' dismayed to discover that George, while using his body, broke up with his beloved girlfriend Callie. Joe points out that George '''not''' doing that and actually ''continuing to date her'' would have been '''even worse''' (and certainly far more creepy), and Frank realizes he's right:
-->'''Frank''': Man, this is so messed up!
* 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 Cadmus Quill comes to the apartment searching for them.
* SeriesFinale: The eighth and final episode of the season, "A Wild Ride", is this to the whole series. The creators knew ahead of time when the show was renewed once again that the third season would be its last, so they're able to give the series its planned wrap-up, with an AndTheAdventureContinues-style ending.
* ShipperOnDeck: For all that Joe would roll his eyes and tell Frank and Callie to GetARoom at their frequent displays of PDA, he ultimately is a supporter of their relationship. Before figuring out what's really going on with "Frank", Joe is disgusted by his callous, indifferent attitude to her and tells Callie outright that dumping her was the worst mistake Frank ever made, and after discovering that it's really George having hijacked his brother's body, tells their friends that somebody should call Callie with the "good news" that Frank didn't actually break up with her.
* ShippingTorpedo: Phil tells "Frank" and Joe in the season premiere that he plans to tell Biff about his feelings for her, and the latter quickly tries to discourage him from it. It's not because Joe does or doesn't ''want'' them to be a couple, just that he apparently already knows Biff sees them as JustFriends and nothing more (which she later confirms), and doesn't want the friend dynamic among the group to get even more awkward than it already is with "Frank"'s and Callie's breakup. When Phil won't be deterred, Joe just shrugs and wishes him luck.
* ShutUpHannibal: The main friends give George several in response to his {{Breaking Speech}}es:
** 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 and their families are functioning just fine. And then Chet, ''trembling'' with anger, actually does seemingly 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 trying to stop him over a boy, stating that she wants to bring him down because of all the lives he ruined with Project Midnight and the Circle, clearly thinking about Drew's brother Orrin and the Munder twins as well as Frank.
** Frank and Joe give George one final one when rejecting his WeCanRuleTogether offer:
--->'''George''': [[{{Hypocrite}} Together, the Estabrooks can be in control again!]]\\
'''Joe''': We're not Estabrooks.\\
'''Frank''': We're Hardys.
* 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 even with 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. Olivia tries to plead with her not to by reminding her that they're sisters, but Drew kills her anyway, although she takes no pleasure in doing so and sheds a few tears.]]
* SiblingTeam: Frank and Joe are always this, of course, but it gets highlighted all the more during this season:
** 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 will be a problem from the get-go. He's correct; despite George's attempt to play along and build this with Joe so he can be more believable as "Frank" (and also take advantage of his "brother"'s intelligence for his own ends), 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 emphasizing this.
** [[spoiler:The Sparewell sisters are this, too, as well as {{Evil Counterpart}}s to the Hardy brothers. Younger sister Drew is the {{Hidden|Villain}} BigBad, and older sister Olivia is TheDragon. Unlike the Hardys, though, they're a far less stable one, and Drew eventually pulls an ICanRuleAlone, turning on and [[SiblingMurder killing her sister]].]]
* SixthRanger:
** JB becomes this to the Hardys and co. in "The Crash", agreeing to help them try to get the Core in an attempt to keep them safe. Unfortunately for him, he's murdered at the end of the episode after TakingTheBullet to save them.
** Drew several times during the season, especially during the Sparewell heist for the Core. [[spoiler:But while the marketing for the season [[NeverTrustATrailer implies that she'll graduate from this to become the latest member of the]] TrueCompanions like Belinda did prior, Drew's actually a BigBadFriend to them, and uses the heist as a way to capture the boys.]]
* 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 efforts 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 he can't fail, making 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'' in said 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 escape plan.
* SpottingTheThread: Used to determine that "Frank" actually has someone else's consciousness inside his body.
** Multiple for how Joe figures it out, although he's already clearly suspicious from the beginning of the first episode:
*** By the end of the season 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, because 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 dressing differently and speaking in an old-fashioned way. 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 really his ''daughter'' and he's correcting himself before he accidentally refers to her by name.
---->'''Joe''': "Grandma." Never sounds quite right when you say it.
** Callie has less information to work off of than Joe does, so she doesn't specifically figure out that "Frank" is really George until Joe and the others fill her in. However, she actually starts suspecting ''something's'' up well before Joe does, pretty much as soon as "Frank" broke up with her, because, as she explains to Drew, when she looked him in the eyes, she didn't see someone who loved her. The real reason she goes to Rosegrave for the summer program and secretly takes the Crystal with her is to follow up on this hunch.
* SuddenlyShouting: When the BigBad has Frank and Joe captured and is explaining the whole plot to them:
-->[[spoiler:'''Drew''': No, [it's] not [Hurd]. No, I AM THE FUTURE, JOE!]]
* TakingTheBullet: JB dies doing this for Joe and Frank, seeing the mysterious hooded figure (whom he earlier saw murder Cadmus Quill) entering the club behind them, gun raised. He pushes them out of the way and takes two shots InTheBack while shielding Joe.
* TapOnTheHead: Like in the source material, ''several'' characters smack someone else in the back of the head to knock them out throughout the season, and it doesn't cause any lasting damage, such as Joe beaning George with the Eye relic, JB pistol-whipping Quill, and [[spoiler:Callie hitting Drew with a ''skull'']].
* TemptingFate: At the beginning of the fourth episode, JB's buyer threatens his life over the phone, and he responds that he gets many threats but always lives to see another day. Said episode ends with him being murdered.
* TogetherInDeath: Or at least in some kind of purgatory. Once Munder enters the Crystal and finds his brother there, he chooses to let Frank and Joe leave as planned (since not all four of them can go) and stay there with Aaron.
* TragicKeepsake: JB's wristwatch for Joe. Though in this case, he didn't directly give it to him; instead, Frank finds it in his apartment after his death and gives it to Joe himself, feeling sure (probably correctly) that JB would want him to have it.
* TrustPassword: Before Joe goes into the Crystal to get Frank, he and Callie work out a "safe word" for him to tell her when he gets back to prove it's really him and he's okay. Rather hilariously, the word he picks is "pamplemousse" (the French word for "grapefruit"), so when Joe does come back safe and says it to Callie, Phil's initial thought is that the Crystal left him with brain damage.
* UndercoverCopReveal: Olivia Kowalsky claims to be an undercover agent with the DSA, the same organization that Brian Conrad works for. Though it's later revealed that not only is this a lie, but she's not actually Anya Kowalsky's daughter either, as Anya never even had children.
* 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. [[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's use of the Core [[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.]]
* TheUnReveal:
** "JB Cox" was already revealed previously to just be an alias, and the last season also established that he was a Rosegrave Academy student back in the day, hinting at some kind of interesting backstory, especially with the question of how he went from attending Rosegrave to becoming a professional thief. Ultimately, the audience and the other characters never find out any more about this, either before or after JB dies, and never even learn his real name.
** [[spoiler:Drew's original claim to Callie of what she's doing at Rosegrave Prep is to find enough dirt about the school, the Circle, and Project Midnight to bring them down, due to Project Midnight causing the death of her brother, Orrin. But we learn much later that this was a bald-faced lie and Drew never even had a brother, lending the question of why she really came to Rosegrave and was so interested in their dirty secrets. She did need to get the Crystal to use with the Core for her plan, and since she deals in information, which she calls "the new atomic bomb", it's possible she was either planning to blackmail them or actually go nuclear and expose it all (like she told Callie she wants to) as a way of eliminating a potential rival to her power, but it's not made entirely clear.]]
** Once the TrueCompanions use the Eye to deactivate the Core (which also had the Crystal in it), it's not stated what happened to the relics afterwards. Since the Core's and Eye's magic "don't like each other" and the gang had to form a ChainOfPeople to connect them, it's implied that this may have [[TheMagicGoesAway drained the magic out of all of the relics]] and rendered them inert, but it's not confirmed.
** Gloria's video will in the season premiere leaves everything she owned to Frank Hardy, at George's request, because he knew that he'd be taking over Frank's body at some point, so she was really giving it to him. But once the boys succeed in getting rid of George and restoring the real Frank, he would inherit all of Gloria's assets for real. Presumably, anything 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.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: It's zigzagged throughout the season:
** Played straight with the museum heist in the first episode. Joe even has a "let's go over the plan again" moment where everyone discusses onscreen what they'll be doing during it. Only the first part of JB breaking into the building and letting the boys in goes as planned; beyond that, they never make it back to the Hardy house with the last scroll to look at the map together because the cops show up and "Frank", Joe, and JB all get split up, with the latter getting arrested and the former betraying the others to take the scroll for himself, then coming back to the house and knocking out Chet and Belinda to take the other three scrolls.
** It's zig-zagged in regards to rescuing Frank from the Crystal:
*** 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 talked about 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 subverts this, as it ''is'' discussed among the friends, extensively. The fact that the Eye shows Joe visions of it working and seeing Frank again hints that it's setting him up to fail the way it previously did to Frank, and will screw the boys over once again because of its loyalty to George, but 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.
** The Sparewell heist also plays it straight, with the gang going over it in detail and even making multiple adjustments after hitting the first few snags. But then Frank, Joe, and Drew get stuck in an elevator when the power is cut, Callie apparently gets made by Olivia, and then the boys get ''captured'' by Olivia and realize they've been LuredIntoATrap. [[spoiler:Specifically, that the heist was a hoax from the beginning because Drew is actually their BigBadFriend who was messing with them the whole time and framing her father as the one behind it.]]
** [[spoiler:Subverted when the boys tell their friends of their plan to go outside the compound to get Chet and the Eye and bring him back indoors, 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.]]
* VillainousBreakdown:
** After spending all of his screentime being 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 has a huge one 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.]]
* 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 as a team with him to "reap all the rewards the Eye has promised", and adds that, together, they can retake control for the Estabrook bloodline. It's [[{{Hypocrite}} quite hypocritical]] considering how many times he's tried to ''kill them'' and/or leave them trapped in the Crystal forever, and the boys naturally see it for the desperate lie that it is, just rolling their eyes at the offer and shutting 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, 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 him, 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.
* WhamEpisode:
** "A Promise of Trouble": Adrian Munder, one of the {{Big Bad}}s from the previous season, returns when Joe reluctantly seeks his help for transferring Frank out of the Crystal, but it's clear he has his own agenda. Joe is successfully able to enter the Crystal and finally reunites with Frank again, George is sent back into it, and the Hardy Boys succeed in defeating him for good and re-trapping him there. Munder also uploads himself to the Crystal and does indeed find the soul of his twin brother Aaron, and [[IChooseToStay decides to remain there with him]] so Frank and Joe can leave. Frank and Callie are reunited and the boys finally both return the power of the Eye to the relic, but the episode ends with Drew being knocked out and her computer stolen.
** "The Crash": The Hardys and friends are able to get the map back from JB, but he ends up having to protect them from Cadmus Quill and his goons, who are sent by Quill's boss and JB's buyer to get the map to the final relic from them. The gang manages to decipher the map and find the final relic, the Core, as it crashes down to Earth, and Olivia offers to keep it safe and reunite the boys with their dad (and possibly their mom too), but is hinted to be on the bad guys' side. Trudy crashes the car so she and the boys can escape, and they're forced to leave the Core behind with Olivia and the DSA. The mysterious hooded figure shows up at JB's apartment and murders the BoundAndGagged Quill there, and then later kills JB at the pool club as well while he protects the boys from them.
* WhamLine:
** An in-universe one for George when he realizes that Joe is onto him. Also for the viewer to a lesser extent, as it confirms that Joe's finally caught on.
--->'''Joe''': I know you double-crossed us. And now, I want to know who I'm talking to. Who did Munder upload out of the Crystal? 'Cause it's ''not my brother''.
** 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.\\
[[spoiler:'''Drew''']]: Join you, Olivia? You wish. [[spoiler:...Kinda makes it sound like ''you're'' the brains of this operation.]]
* 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 "A Strange Inheritance", and is quick to assume that everything he says or does is a trick. Ironically, this season sees JB at his most earnest and altruistic, where he not only never betrays the boys, but even 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 for 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, leaving Joe in turmoil.
* 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 a sword. It's also shown that he forcibly trapped Aaron, another teenage boy, deep inside the Crystal to prevent him from escaping.
** [[spoiler:Drew, Olivia, and their posse also have no issue with killing any of the members of the gang, and aim to put ''everyone in the world'', including all of its children, into a simulation.]]
* 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 in hindsight that the woman in the black coat who assaulted them and "stole" her computer was her sister Olivia, TheDragon, most likely to throw the gang off the trail, further trick them into thinking Laura is involved, and stop Donald's attempt to blackmail Drew with her true identity.]]
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: In the backstory, George had William Vogel, his loyal chauffeur, kill the three doctors who knew about Project Midnight once they'd done everything he needed for it to succeed, and planned for his daughter Gloria to do this to Vogel, too, after he finished driving her to where she could hide the codexes. However, Gloria, not the type to needlessly murder someone in cold blood, just paid William off and sent him away instead.
* 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 to him that he does actually have his own island.
-->'''Joe''': AndThenWhat Jet off to your private island and live out the rest of your days in your great-grandson's body?\\
'''George''': ''({{Beat}})'' You know about the private island?\\
'''Joe''': You actually have an island? Who inherited that?
* YouWouldntShootMe:
** Joe says this to "Frank", word-for-word, after outing him as an impostor and George pulls a gun on him. George quickly proves that he would, trying to shoot and then stab him numerous times.
** [[spoiler:Joe says this to Drew when she has him and Frank cornered at gunpoint, 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.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Season 1]]

-->'''JB''': You want "something?" Here's "something": I stole a golden idol from a ''killer''. The people who hired ''me'' are probably just as dangerous. So what were ''you'' gonna do if you caught up with them?\\

'''JB''': ''(Stops and turns around [[{{Beat}} after a moment]])'' [[{{Touche}} No. I wouldn't.]] [[ArmorPiercingResponse But I bet your mom wouldn't want you end up like her.]] ''(Pauses to let this sink it.)'' Get out of here.

** Most of the {{Sequel Hook}}s of the previous season get their proper follow-up here, with one exception: Stacy Nabokov does not appear again at all. A line of dialogue from Frank about how the Nabokovs and Khans "closed ranks" within their own families implies that she, like Kanika Khan from the previous season, decided to just leave Bridgeport for good and rid herself of the Circle conspiracy altogether. [[spoiler:She ultimately does [[TheBusCameBack come back]] in Season 3, though.]]

** Frank briefly considered using the Eye's power in the previous season to see and talk to Laura again, but Joe eventually got him to see that they were better off without it and he, too, decided to destroy it. As the season goes on and Frank falls deeper and deeper into the Eye's power to get "the thing he wants the most", said thing is revealed to be getting their mom back. Though, to be fair, it's made pretty clear that the Eye's power is TheCorruptor, so having it inside of him brought him back to a mindset he probably otherwise would have avoided.

** At the end of "The Missing Camera", Frank learns a valuable lesson after "cherry-picking" from the Eye's visions and single-mindedly investigating Tom Elroy, who turns out to be innocent. Frank acknowledges the dangers of relying on the Eye too much, asks Joe to keep him in check and promises to listen to him better from now on, and states that they'll solve the case with "good old-fashioned detective work". However, it only takes him a few episodes to go back on this (even as Joe attempts to stick by it) and become over-reliant on the Eye again, crediting it for most of their discoveries and saying they'd be "lost without it" while repeatedly dismissing Joe's concerns. It's somewhat {{Justified|Trope}} in this case, though, because the the Eye is TheCorruptor and increasingly messes with Frank's mental state while poisoning him against his loved ones.
** Similarly, Frank noted to Callie during his PartingWordsRegret after Joe and Biff went missing in "No Getting Out" that Joe tends to do stupid things when Frank doesn't listen to him properly. Indeed, this once again happens several times in this season where Frank is dismissive of Joe's concerns and feelings, Joe reacts impulsively in response, and Frank doesn't seem to see this coming and only finds out and gets involved after Joe is already in trouble or doing something dangerous.
* AffablyEvil: [[spoiler:George Estabrook's consciousness seems genuinely glad to meet Frank's in the Crystal, after seeing him on the beach many years before thanks to a time-traveling incident caused by the Eye. This doesn't stop him from planning for many years, since faking his death, to steal his own great-grandson's body while trapping his mind inside the Crystal.]]

* AlmostKiss: Belinda and Chet get one in "A Clue on Film", as Brian and his date walk in right before they can. They get to share their kiss for real in the next episode.

--->'''Frank''': "See, we love you, Aunt Trudy, it's just that, I mean, we can't be seen with you."

** 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 is 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.
** Though [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield it's not entirely clear where Bridgeport and Dixon City are supposed to be located]], they are clearly coastal towns with docks and bridges, and are implied to be in either the northeastern US (possibly New York State like the books) or Canada, where the show is filmed. However, when Joe solves JB's code to get his phone number and contact him, said number has an area code of 864, which is in South Carolina in RealLife--very unlikely to be the actual intended setting of the series--and for that matter, is for the most-inland portion of the state, rather than the part that borders the ocean.

* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:When "Frank" (or rather, George in Frank's body) regains consciousness in the climax of the season and sees that his friends are still unconscious and Munder is the first person to wake up, he pretends that the attempted mind transfer worked, faking that he is Munder's twin brother Aaron for long enough to get Munder to set him free before revealing that it failed.]]

*** In "A Clue on Film", when they're in George's SecretRoom, Joe hears a noise a few minutes later and steps out to check it out, but gets captured; Frank tries to lock the door at Joe's urging so they can't capture him too, only for them to attempt to break it down and trigger the explosive that destroys the room. It's never made clear exactly what the Eye is trying to tell him in this vision, but this is shown to be the first instance of Stratemeyer successfully tracking its use, although the boys have already left by the time they get to Gloria's.

** In the penultimate episode, Angela and her minions have Frank, Joe, and JB cornered and are about to force Frank to give up the power of the Eye. At that moment, Chet and Brian Conrad pull up to the dock in the former's truck, beginning an all-out brawl that allows them to get away.

* BreakUpMakeUpScenario: Downplayed since they don't actually break up, but Frank and Callie keeping secrets from each other causes them to have a fight near the end of "A Clue on Film", and there's still tension between them at the beginning of "Heading for Destruction". By the end, though, after Frank and Joe survived being kidnapped and Callie and the others survived a bombing, they make up and promise not to keep secrets from each other from then on.

* CassandraTruth: After Frank stops Joe and JB from walking into Angela's trap, Joe finally tells JB that the reason Frank knew this was because he has the power of the Eye inside of him. JB thinks he's just making up an outlandish excuse to not tell him what's really going on, and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere promptly decides to bail]] (though unfortunately for him, he gets caught in the trap anyway).
* CaughtOnTape: Chet and Belinda confront Angela in the season finale and get her to admit to killing Mack Malone, then reveal they have Brian and the cops listening in. Though they admit that this is a just a bonus on top of all the other evidence they have on her.

* ChekhovsGun: A ton building up to the bombing on Demon Day in "Heading for Destruction":
** In "Conflicting Reports", when searching Elroy's shack, Frank notes a powdery substance on the table, sniffs it, and realizes that it's flour. At the end of "A Clue on Film", Frank, Joe, and Callie realize that whoever was in the shack was mixing the flour with hydrogen peroxide to build a homemade dynamite bomb.
** The lightning symbol with the circle around one small part of it that Dennis repeatedly draws after he's rescued. It turns out to be part of the bombing plot he witnessed: the "lightning" is actually the route of the Demon Day Parade through the streets of Bridgeport, and the circle is where the target is located (which turns out to be Wilt's Deli).
** On that note, Wilt's is broken into and TP'ed a few days before Demon Day; Wilt chalks it up to a prank because nothing was stolen, but Frank and Chet do notice that one of the arcade games was moved out from against the wall, and put it back. In the mid-season finale, they realize that the break-in was actually done to plant the bomb, and when they search Wilt's, Chet remembers that the arcade game was the only thing out of place. Sure enough, they find the bomb there.
* ChekhovsGunman: Anya Kowalsky and Paul [=McFarlane=] are both name-dropped at the beginning of the season as two other people besides the Hardys and their TrueCompanions who might know that the Eye has magical properties. This comes back in some way for both of them:
** Anya was introduced last season as a woman who was wronged by the Circle; her father died in the mine explosion caused by Ahmed, George, and Sergei claiming the Eye, and they went on to become rich and powerful. This season, as Fenton hunts down the remnants of the Circle, he meets a woman trying to do the same thing; she turns out to be Olivia Kowalsky, Anya's daughter, who's seeking revenge for her family.
** After ex-Dean [=McFarlane=] became a case of WhatHappenedToTheMouse last season, he reappears [[BackForTheDead in time to be murdered by Olivia]].

* DidYouActuallyBelieve: Gloria asks Callie if she really believed that she and Frank--Gloria's protegee and grandson, respectively--just happened to be the two students who did the best on the entrance exam for Rosegrave Prep. Gloria reveals that ''everyone'' who took the exam aced it, but outright states the school's admission is not a meritocracy; Callie's admission was guaranteed from the start, long before she took the entrance exam, because--unknown to her--Gloria was grooming her to be part of the innermost ring of the Circle of the Eye.

* DistressedDude: Notably, this season, the only major female character put "in distress" is Jessie Hooper; otherwise, it's the guys who take the brunt of the abuse:

** ''Also'' in the same episode, Fenton briefly gets captured by Olivia, though she doesn't really intend to harm him. A few episodes later, though, and she drugs him and knocks him out for real, in an attempt to frame him for murder.

** Belinda thinks that her dad is an ordinary salaryman, and he claims to have recently started dating Angela. Then she and Chet learn that the two were never dating; Mr. Conrad works for the Department of Special Affairs, is part of Stratemeyer, and is Angela's boss. '''Then''' Belinda discovers that he's actually a MoleInCharge at Stratemeyer.

** Frank assigns Joe the task of keeping him in check with his use of the Eye, and even as he becomes progressively more compromised by it and stops listening to him as much as he should, his BigBrotherInstinct for Joe remains very intact. When Frank and Joe have a massive fight that results in a KickTheMoralityPet moment (see below), Frank is [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone so shaken and horrified by it]] that he immediately steps back from the brink of madness that the Eye has brought him to and finally agrees to return the Eye to the relic.

* NotMeThisTime: As Callie, Biff, Belinda, and Chet check the list of who's both taking senior chemistry and on the track team, they find one name in common: Donald Dukay, who Callie earlier confronted about possibly falsely accusing her of cheating, and when they all confront him again, Chet and Belinda recognize his voice as one of the teen vandals who pranked Tom at his house. Donald does admit to being one of the pranksters, but emphatically denies knowing anything about the bomb plot, and the information they pry out of him puts them onto the real bomber: his ex-girlfriend, Vanessa Bender.

** Chet and Belinda get a RelationshipUpgrade midway through the season to become this as well.

* ThatCameOutWrong: Belinda confronts Brian about who he was really meeting when he falsely claimed to her that he'd be in a meeting, and he answers that it was a real estate agent. She assumes this means they're about to move ''again'' and reacts with dismay, and Brian says this word-for-word in response before clarifying that the woman is a real estate agent whom he's ''dating''.

** Joe, Biff, Phil, and Lucy use a hospital map and knowledge of Dr. Burelli's evening routine to plan out a "heist" of Dennis at the hospital to keep her from handing him over to the Shadow Man. The first stage of the plan--getting Dennis out of his room--goes smoothly, but then rapidly spins out of control from there: the elevator that the kids plan to use to sneak him out is out of order, forcing them them to take a detour and risk being seen; then Biff gets spotted by Deputy Riley and Mayor Krassner, the latter of whom wants to photograph her for a publicity stunt, forcing her to send Dennis down in the elevator alone. By the time Phil gets to the elevator, Dennis is gone, although it turns out he just wandered off by himself. Ultimately downplayed, since despite the plan hitting so many snags, the kids do accomplish their goal of saving him from the Shadow Man.

** The BigBad, [[spoiler:Mr. Munder]], kidnaps Frank with the intention of [[spoiler:uploading his twin brother's consciousness into Frank's body into an attempt to bring the former back. Frank's mind is successfully removed from his body and stored in the Crystal...where the Eye reveals to Frank that Munder's plan was never going to work, and he was being used. This gives [[GreaterScopeVillain George]] the opportunity to take over Frank's body, unleashing him back into the world.]]

** When Belinda and Chet go to meet Angela in "The Doctor's Orders", and find Belinda's father there too:

* ChekhovsGunman: The Hardys and co. learned about two different victims of Project Midnight in the previous season: Patient A, who died on the spot and his death was covered up as an aneurysm, and Patient B, who was left catatonic. Patient 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, Patient 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. [[spoiler:Subverted, though, when it turns out this was all a lie to give Drew an excuse to insert herself into the TrueCompanions' investigation, and she doesn't even have a brother.]]

** Biff reveals to Joe in the 11th episode that she recently discovered she's adopted and learned things about her adoption that she didn't like, but never reveals what they are, leaving it open to explore further.

** Previously, Joe was one of the first people who wanted to destroy/get rid of the Eye, insisting that they didn't need it and could solve the case without it. But when he learns here that Frank has the entire Eye inside of him, Joe's initial response is to consider this to be awesome and encourage him to try to figure out what his "superpowers" are, while Frank is far more cautious about using a power he doesn't understand. To be fair, though, these roles pretty quickly swap and Joe remembers exactly why he wanted to get rid of the Eye in the first place, and once again returns steadfastly to this viewpoint when he sees how much danger the Eye is putting Frank in. [[spoiler:Though he does secretly keep the Eye at the end of the season, for as-yet-unexplained reasons....]]

** In the same episode, a thug in a Demon Day mask sneaks up on Phil after he finds the blue car, knocks him out, and [[PunkInTheTrunk locks him in the trunk of the Demon Day car]].

* GilliganCut: As the Hardy Boys try to convince Jessie that Elroy is innocent, Riley comes in to inform her that he's stated he's only willing to talk to Frank, who helped him earlier. As the boys triumphantly grin at her, she insists, "You're not going in there. It's not gonna happen." The scene promptly cuts to Frank entering the holding room to speak with Elroy.

* InternalReveal: The audience learns that JB (and by extension, Stratemeyer) have the Hardys bugged at the end of the third episode. The kids themselves don't learn this until the end of the seventh...right after they've just made a huge, important breakthrough in the case.

** When Phil finds and investigates said blue car in "Heading for Destruction", he gets jumped and knocked out, and wakes up to find himself in the trunk of a car as well.

* AmbiguousSyntax: At the beginning of the season, the Eye gives Frank a vision of his mother, Laura, inviting him to play a video game to try to find "one very special" gem, but warns him, "Be careful, or you'll lose everything, like your brother here," indicating Joe, who's silently standing next to them. Frank, and likely the audience, interpret the final part of her sentence to mean that Joe already played the video game and lost (as in, "you'll lose everything like your brother here '''did'''"), and don't focus much on it. [[spoiler:By the end of the season, it's clear in hindsight that what the Eye's version of Laura really meant is "you'll lose everything, '''including''' your brother here;" Frank wasn't careful enough and let himself be manipulated by the Eye, which leads to him being trapped inside the Crystal while George steals his body, so he really has lost everything and everyone important to him, most notably Joe.]]

** Though Dennis doesn't remember what happened on that night, he's initially mostly lucid after he's found in the woods, just suffering some memory loss, a concussion, and a few panic attacks. It also looks like he's gradually getting close to recovering his memory. Then he disappears again, and when the younger kids and Lucy find him at the school, he's catatonic, and only really starts recovering by the end of the season. It's later revealed that the Shadow Man briefly abducted Dennis again and messed with his mind to keep him from remembering.

* ChekhovsBoomerang: The Sparewell Tech commercial shown in "A Strange Inheritance". This ad proves to be essential in "Revelation" for recognizing Hurd Sparewell's voice in it as the same voice that made the phone calls to the gang and to JB. Furthermore, Phil gushes to the other kids about how much he'd love to own one of the portable laptop computers that the commercial is advertising; [[spoiler:by the denouement of "A Wild Ride", after the gang has saved the day, they all receive one of these Sparewell laptops "in exchange" for signing the [=NDAs=].

* ChekhovsGunman: The Hardys and co. learned about two different victims of Project Midnight in the previous season: Patient A, who died on the spot and his death was covered up as an aneurysm, and Patient B, who was left catatonic. Patient 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, Patient 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. [[spoiler:Subverted, though, when it turns out this was all a lie to give Drew an excuse to integrate herself into the TrueCompanions' investigation, and she doesn't even have a brother.]]

* DevilsAdvocate: Biff is the team member who most often challenges the others' viewpoints and suggests opposing ideas in discussions, even when her suggestions are far more cynical or uncomfortable. She even lampshades it in the second season by directly quoting the trope name.

* The gang trapping the Tall Man in "The Drop". Just a very basic, general premise of what they're planning to do--lure him to Chet's farm to catch him--is shared, while the details are kept hidden. It works perfectly, to the point that everyone at the police station is impressed.
* Actually averted with the plan to [[spoiler:rescue Callie]] in "While the Clock Ticked". This time, the entire brainstorming process and preparation is shown from beginning to end, but it also goes off without a hitch.

** Though Dennis doesn't remember what happened on that night, he's initially mostly lucid after he's found in the woods, just suffering some memory loss, a concussion, and a few panic attacks. It also looks like he's gradually getting close to recovering his memory. Then he disappears again, and when the younger kids and Lucy find him at the school, he's practically catatonic, and only really starts recovering by the end of the season. It's later revealed that the Shadow Man briefly abducted Dennis again and messed with his mind to keep him from remembering.

* ShipTease

** At the end of "The Missing Camera", Frank learns a valuable lesson after "cherry-picking" from the Eye's visions and single-mindedly investigating Tom Elroy, who turns out to be innocent. Frank acknowledges the dangers of relying on the Eye too much, asks Joe to keep him in check and promises to listen to him better from now on, and states that they'll solve the case with "good old-fashioned detective work". However, it only takes him a few episodes to go back on this (even as Joe attempts to stick by it) and become over-reliant on the Eye again, crediting it for most of their discoveries and saying they'd be "lost without it" while increasingly dismissing Joe's concerns. It's somewhat {{Justified|Trope}} in this case, though, because the the Eye is TheCorruptor and increasingly messes with Frank's mental state while poisoning him against his loved ones.

** Belinda's father is also in on the plot and is Angela's boss, but has also become a MoleInCharge.

** Belinda recognizes in "A Clue on Film" that her dad is lying to her, and has Chet tail him so they can find out what he's really doing. Considering Chet's bright yellow truck isn't exactly stealthy and they park at a distance but relatively out in the open to spy on Brian, it's not really surprising that, the first time he's physically facing in their direction and looks up, he instantly spots them.

* ThatCameOutWrong: Belinda confronts Brian about who he was really meeting when he falsely claimed to her that he'd be in a meeting, and answers that it was a real estate agent. She assumes this means they're about to move ''again'' and reacts with dismay, and Brian says this word-for-word in response before clarifying that the woman is a real estate agent whom he's ''dating''.

** [[spoiler:After Drew's EvilPlan to put the whole world in her LotusEaterMachine succeed, she's shot the Hardy Boys dead, and there's no one left to stop her, she goes upstairs, blasts loud music, and indulges in [[DancePartyEnding some victory dancing to celebrate]], she looks up to see ''[[WhamShot Chet]]''--who was caught in the simulation--staring in her window at her. Then Callie comes up from behind and casually greets her, and Drew [[OhCrap realizes with horror]] that ''she herself'' is in the simulation too and only imagined everything that just happened.]]

* ChekhovsGunman: The Hardys and co. learned about two different victims of Project Midnight in the previous season: Patient A, who died on the spot and his death was covered up as an aneurysm, and Patient B, who was left catatonic. Patient 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, Patient 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. [[spoiler:Subverted, though, when it turns out this was all a lie, and Drew doesn't even have a brother.]]

* 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 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 interracial same-sex relationship, which would have been highly taboo in his day. 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, must be "broken homes", 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.

* [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Where the Hell is Bridgeport?]]: Bayport from the book series is usually located in New York as a suburb of NYC, although it's also sometimes been put in New Jersey (or, in the 70's TV show, in Massachusetts), but 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 specified 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 (and the actors and their characters have Canadian accents). It's hinted to be ''somewhere'' north because the characters often wear long sleeves outdoors even in (what's supposed to be) summer.

** Previously, Joe was one of the first people who wanted to destroy/get rid of the Eye, insisting that they didn't need it and could solve the case without it. But when he learns here that Frank has the entire Eye inside of him, Joe's initial response is to consider this to be awesome and encourage him to try to figure out what his "superpowers" are, while Frank is far more cautious about using a power he doesn't understand. To be fair, though, these roles pretty quickly swap and Joe remembers exactly why he wanted to get rid of the Eye in the first place, and once again returns steadfastly to this viewpoint when he sees how much danger the Eye is putting Frank in. [[spoiler:Though he does secretly keep the Eye at the end of the season, for reasons unknown....]]

** The Crystal, which was created when lightning struck the sand on the beach near the Estabrook mansion; George found it, and later [[spoiler:had it sent after his faked death to]] Gloria, who hung it on the chandelier outside the library. It's stolen by the Shadow Man halfway through the season, and is eventually revealed to have been used in the Project Midnight tests on Rosegrave students; namely, by attempting to use it to store and transfer consciousness into different bodies. The Shadow Man wants it because he believes it contains the mind of [[spoiler:his twin brother, one of the test subjects of Project Midnight who was rendered catatonic when the tests failed]], but the big twist of the season reveals that [[spoiler:said brother is gone now, and the crystal instead contains the consciousness of '''George Estabrook''' himself, who manages to transfer his mind into Frank's body while leaving Frank trapped there instead]].

** Twice, Frank and Joe appear to end up in a life-threatening situation, only for it to be revealed as a vision that the Eye is showing Frank of what will happen if they continue down their current path:
*** In "A Clue on Film", when they're in George's saferoom, Joe hears a noise a few minutes later and steps out to check it out, but gets captured; Frank tries to lock the door at Joe's urging so they can't capture him too, only for them to attempt to break it down and trigger the explosive that destroys the room. After seeing this, Frank and Joe leave the house immediately before the thugs arrive.
*** In "Captured!", Frank, Joe, and JB reach the final stages of the latter's plan to steal the relic, only to find that they've been LuredIntoATrap by Angela, who holds them at gunpoint to try to force Frank to give up the power and shoots Joe for motivation when he's unable to do so. After seeing this, when JB arrives to continue the plan, Frank warns them that it's a trap. Though, unfortunately for them, they still get caught anyway, but avoid the outcome of the vision thanks to Chet's and Brian's BigDamnHeroes moment.

** Joe also states that Frank has come to trust and rely on the Eye far too much, while Frank has similar feelings about Joe continuing to work with JB despite him repeatedly screwing them over. They both turn out to be correct about this. JB ends up abandoning the Hardys when their heist of the relic is thwarted, and then tries to steal it from Joe [[spoiler:(though he reveals in Season 3 that this is an attempt protect them)]], only failing because the latter swapped in a fake; he then returns to the Hardy home and swipes [=McFarlane's=] scroll that Fenton gave the boys. Meanwhile, Frank finds out in the hardest way possible that [[spoiler:the Eye has always remained loyal to George, and was manipulating Frank the whole time, driving a wedge between him and his loved ones and setting him up for George to steal his body]].

* CaughtOnTape: Chet and Belinda confront Angela in the season finale and get her to admit to killing Mack Malone, then reveal they have Brian and cops listening in. Though they admit that this is a just a bonus on top of all the other evidence they have on her.

* DeadPersonConversation: Thanks to having accidentally absorbed the Eye's energy, Frank converses with multiple deceased characters in his dreams, including his mother Laura and a younger version of his great-grandfather George (who died before Frank was even born). [[spoiler:Though it's eventually made clear that Young George is really just the Eye taking AFormYouAreComfortableWith when speaking to Frank, especially since the real George is actually still alive.]]

* DoubleEntendre: Callie invites Frank to come over to her house in the evening to study. Frank replies that he has to work, but invites her to come do so at Wilt's while he's there, and she clarifies that that's not quite what she had in mind by "study", though she does still come there anyway.

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: The Eye, in Frank's vision, takes the form of a younger version of his great-grandfather George Estabrook to communicate with him.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: Brian Conrad, along with Chet, arrives at the docks to rescue the Hardys, and manages to steal Angela's gun, which she used to murder Mack Malone, holding it with a handkerchief so he doesn't leave his own fingerprints on it and doesn't smear hers. He then returns to her motel room and leaves the gun in the bathroom near Malone's body to ensure that the cops can trace the murder back to her.

* GoodBadGirl: Belinda is a PG version. She's a regular in detention, encourages Chet to join her doing things that are harmless but technically not legal (like climbing up to the rooves of buildings they're not supposed to be on), and generally likes to walk a bit on the wild side, but doesn't do anything destructive or harmful or worse than the rest of her friends do (considering how many times the gang [[TrespassingHero straight-up breaks into places]]), proves to be a loyal friend and competent member of the investigating team when she joins the TrueCompanions, [[spoiler:and is completely disgusted when she briefly believes her father to be a criminal before he reveals he's TheMole, and still calls him out on the unsavory things he did before he turned whistleblower]].

** Combined with IDidWhatIHadToDo: Joe finally convinces Frank to give up the Eye's power and return it to the relic by assuring him that they can still use the Eye, it'll just be where it belongs rather than inside of him. After Frank transfers the power, passes out, and wakes up in the hospital, Joe reveals to him that Belinda's father has the Eye and plans to make sure it'll never see the light of day ever again. Joe justifies the lie by saying that he had to save Frank from the Eye as well as from Munder, and wanted his brother back. Frank accepts this and thanks him for it...[[spoiler:Too bad it's not actually Frank, but George. And then it's shown that the part about giving the Eye to Brian was a lie, too, and Joe actually keeps and hides it.]]

* IronicEcho: Biff hears [[AlphaBitch Vanessa]] talk to friends about being named Demon Queen for the second year running and shares her recent discovery that her own (bio) mom was also a former Demon Queen, only for Vanessa to coolly and rather indifferently reply, "Hooray for you." During the Demon Day Parade once the gang has figured out Vanessa is the bomber, she tries to escape, but Biff tackles her to the ground; Trudy compliments her on it, and Biff says, "Yeah, ''hooray for me''," right in Vanessa's face.

** Joe discusses his status as this with a few other characters, particularly Lucy, outright admitting that he can be a jerk who's really pushy and insensitive in his investigations and questioning suspects. However, he clarifies that he does this only because he wants to get to the truth, because if he doesn't, people will get hurt, and he can't abide by that. It's also very clear that he cares a lot about his friends and family, and if he accidentally genuinely upsets them, does his best to make it right.

* LetMeGetThisStraight: JB going over Joe's request to steal the relic from Stratemeyer. He outlines what he'd have to do in a way that makes the heist sound incredibly difficult (which it is)...and then, to Joe's surprise, gladly agrees with no complaints, pointing out that he's good at what he does and it's still less difficult than the first time he stole a piece of the relic (taking it from an assassin and jumping out of an airplane).

* NeverTrustATrailer: The trailer for the season implies that the boys' friend Dennis going missing, and their search for him, will be a major story arc for the season. In fact, they actually find him at the end of the very first episode of the season, and the mystery is instead trying to figure out afterwards what happened to him (since he has amnesia from being knocked out and getting a concussion).

** Frank and Joe, understandably, when Stratemeyer's dark blue van [[VehicularKidnapping pulls up to kidnap them]], with Frank quickly pushing Joe behind him.

* OutGambitted: Near the end of "Captured!", in the confusion at the marina when Chet and Brian show up to save the Hardys, JB apparently steals the relic from Joe before escaping. Joe reveals to Frank and Chet in the car afterwards that JB took a fake that he swapped in during the chaos, while Joe has the real one. Though JB does bounce back quickly when he breaks into their attic once again and steals the scroll that [=McFarlane=] gave to Fenton (which he was shown in the previous episode to be looking for).

** [[spoiler:Belinda's father]] is also in on the plot and is Angela's boss, [[spoiler:but has also become TheMole]].

** [[spoiler:George Estabrook didn't die when his plane crashed into the ocean, because he wasn't on the plane to begin with (though his piece of the relic was); his consciousness had been loaded into the Crystal, waiting for an opportunity to upload himself into Frank's body as his new host. The final {{Wham Line}}s of the season show that he succeeded.]]

* SelfFulfillingProphecy: As Frank prepares to give up the power of the Eye, it gives him a vision of the Shadow Man abducting someone who appears to be Lucy from the dance. He tells Joe and Chet that the Shadow Man is going to attack someone at the dance, and they quickly head there. [[spoiler:In fact, the vision was a trick to lure them to the school. The Shadow Man ''does'' attack someone there: Frank himself, once he and the others arrive.]]
* SequelHook: Once again leaves a few:

*** Biff, meanwhile, gets teased with Phil (with whom she had practically no romantic tension whatsoever in the first season), and a line of dialogue from Phil's sister Tiffany suggests that he's had a crush on her for a while.

* StableTimeLoop: The Eye creates one by giving Frank a vision that causes him to actually appear in the past to George (when he was still an old man, but before he tried to leave the Circle), who can actually see him (unlike Frank's other visions) and thus learn of Frank's future existence before he's even born at that point in the timeline. [[spoiler:Because he knows this, when he seemingly leaves Gloria and the Circle behind, George actually loads his consciousness into the Crystal (and thus doesn't really die) to wait for the Eye to bring Frank into it as well, which he is confident will actually happen, so he can take Frank's body for himself.]]

* TrashTheSet: Subverted with Wilt's Deli. A large portion of it gets badly damaged from the bombing in "Heading for Destruction", but by Season 3--which starts only a couple of weeks later in-universe--it's mostly repaired and is pretty much back to normal. Impressively fast repair job!

* VehicularKidnapping: Happens to Frank and Joe in the midway point of the season. They go to visit JB at his motel but find Angela there instead, and her Stratemeyer goons promptly pull up in their dark blue van, grab the boys, put bags over their heads, and drag them into the van before driving away.

** "Captured!", the penultimate episode. Jessie finally wakes up from her coma, and gives her blessing in Biff's search for her birth mom. Frank's and Joe's simmering tension over the Eye finally boils over and they have a fight, which leads to Frank at last agreeing to give up the Eye's power. They and JB get captured by Angela and her goons (both in a vision and in reality), who almost force Frank to hand over the Eye's powers until Chet and Brian rescue them. After JB fails to steal the relic thanks to Joe pulling a switcheroo, he instead steals the scroll he'd been looking for, which [=McFarlane=] left with Fenton and the latter entrusted to the boys, from the Hardy home. Finally, Callie, Belinda, Biff, and Phil figure out the true identity of the Shadow Man [[spoiler:(namely, that they were right about it being Munder all along, and he performed a TwinSwitch to throw them off the trail)]] just as the latter succeeds in kidnapping Frank at the end.

--->[[spoiler:'''George Estabrook''': The transfer's about to begin. And then I'll be free. The Eye has shown me the path, Francis. This is all part of it. I truly wish there was another way.]]

** As mainstream attitudes about the LGBTQ+ community have only ''very'' recently become more accepting, only a couple of the most recent books have featured non-straight or non-binary side characters. Despite this series' timeline being in TheEighties, later seasons avert HideYourLesbians with a few main characters who aren't straight: the boys' Aunt Trudy and Biff's (now-unmarried) mother are both lesbians here, and get major ShipTease in the first season before getting a RelationshipUpgrade by the second, culminating in them moving in together by the series finale. Belinda, meanwhile, is bisexual, with her main LoveInterest being a guy (Chet) while her ex (Erica) is a girl.

* BrotherSisterTeam: Fenton and Trudy Hardy act as this a couple of times, such as when they interrogate [[spoiler:Chief Collig]] in "While the Clock Ticked" and confront Olivia in "An Unexpected Return".

* ElaborateUniversityHigh: Rosegrave Academy, a prep school founded by Frank's and Joe's great-grandfather George Estabrook, is an extremely prestigious one for the very best of the best, with a very competitive selection process and housing future leaders of the world. Frank and Callie are both accepted there, but are far less enthusiastic about the idea of attending after learning that it's really a SchoolForScheming, especially after discovering their acceptances were largely due to their connections to Gloria; however, Callie does enroll in a summer program there in Season 3 to go undercover. Laura Hardy got in as well when she was a teenager, but chose not to attend.

* TownWithADarkSecret: Bridgeport is certainly this. In addition to the town originally being founded by a secret society (the Circle of the Eye), just ''finding'' the Eye somehow completely changed the local agriculture, with the land was dry and barren to green and fertile. There's also no shortage of shady people in town, which Joe lampshades:

* [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Where the Hell is Bridgeport?]]: Bayport from the book series is usually located in New York as a suburb of NYC, although it's also sometimes been put in New Jersey (or, in the 70's TV show, in Massachusetts), but 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 specified 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 (and the actors and their characters have Canadian accents). It's hinted to be ''somewhere'' north, though, because the characters often wear long sleeves outdoors even in (what's supposed to be) summer.

** [[spoiler:The flashback that the Eye shows Frank includes Laura's meeting with Rupert, where she commented to him about the Circle, "The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing." Frank repeats this phrase when he realizes that Stefan, Gloria's '''right-hand''' man, was the only other witness to her argument with Laura, and that he killed her without Gloria's knowledge.]]

* EvilIsNotAToy: When JB gets his hands on the Khans' piece of the Eye, he gets a major PowerHigh from the good luck that it brings, and decides to try to assemble the whole thing and have even better luck, breaking into Stacy's house to steal the Nabokov piece. He gets badly beaten up by her CoDragons for his trouble, who also steal the piece that he has, giving Stacy two of them. This snaps JB out of it and he doesn't make the same mistake again when Gloria hires him to steal the third piece from Joe, turning it over without any visible temptation of double-crossing her to keep it for himself and later telling Joe in a letter that he'll be happy if he never encounters the Eye again for the rest of his life.

** Most of the {{Sequel Hook}}s of the previous season get their proper follow-up here, with one exception: Stacy Nabokov does not appear again at all. A line of dialogue from Frank about how the Nabokovs and Khans "closed ranks" within their own families implies that she, like Kanika Khan from the previous season, decided to just leave Bridgeport for good and rid herself of the Circle conspiracy altogether.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Brian Conrad in the ''Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers'' books is Belinda's juvenile delinquent older brother, who is TheBully in school and has a particular hatred for Frank because of Belinda's crush on him. In this series, Brian is instead Belinda's father, and while he has some BoyfriendBlockingDad moments in regards to Chet (who is her LoveInterest here instead of Frank), he's a far better and kinder person who is certainly not a bully. [[spoiler:He has been involved in criminal activity for a while, but by accident, and turned whistleblower because his conscience got the better of him, and in the penultimate episode, he brings Chet with him to pull a BigDamnHeroes moment for the Hardys and JB.]]

** After Fenton ended the previous season learning to trust his sons more, he starts off this one by getting very angry with the boys simply for going to Demon's Paw to look for Dennis (even though they didn't do anything dangerous while they were there and were simply looking around for clues), and [[YouAreGrounded grounds them]]. To his credit, he gets over this pretty quickly once they do succeed in finding Dennis, un-grounds them, and allows them to do detective work as long as they're smart about it and keep each other safe.

** Previously, Joe was one of the first people who wanted to destroy/get rid of the Eye, insisting that they didn't need it and could solve the case without it. But when he learns here that Frank has the entire Eye inside of him, Joe's initial response is to consider this to be awesome and encourage him to try to figure out what his "superpowers" are, while Frank is far more cautious about using a power he doesn't understand. To be fair, though, these roles pretty quickly swap and Joe remembers exactly why he wanted to get rid of the Eye in the first place, and once again returns steadfastly to this viewpoint when he sees how much danger the Eye is putting Frank in.
* AffablyEvil: [[spoiler:George Estabrook's consciousness is genuinely glad to meet Frank's in the Crystal, after seeing him on the beach many years before thanks to a time-traveling incident caused by the Eye. This doesn't stop him from planning for many years, since faking his death, to steal his own great-grandson's body while trapping his mind inside the Crystal.]]

** Olivia tells Fenton at the end of the season that there are many more out there, which seem to include or at least relate to several different scrolls that Fenton, Trudy, and JB have, and that [[spoiler:George]] is apparently determined to get back.

** 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.

** In "The Doctor's Orders", when Dr. Burelli calls [[BigBad the Shadow Man]] to inform him that Dennis has disappeared, the scene immediately cuts to [[spoiler:Brian Conrad (who was just shown a few moments ago to be involved with Stratemeyer)]] and shows his pager beeping, implying that ''he's'' the Shadow Man [[spoiler:and will become an ArchnemesisDad to Belinda]]. Then the latter is soon revealed to have been wronged in the past somehow by Stratemeyer, and [[spoiler:Mr. Conrad is revealed to be [[TheMole a whistleblower]] in the Stratemeyer group]].

*** In "Captured!", Frank, Joe, and JB reach the final stages of the latter's plan to steal the relic, only to find that they've been LuredIntoATrap by Angela, who holds them at gunpoint to try to force Frank to give up the power and shoots Joe for motivation when he's unable to do so. After seeing this, when JB arrives to continue the plan, Frank warns them that it's a trap. Though, unfortunately for them, they still get caught anyway, but avoid the outcome of the vision thanks to Chet's and [[spoiler:Brian]]'s BigDamnHeroes moment.

** In the penultimate episode, Angela and her minions have Frank, Joe, and JB cornered and are about to force Frank to give up the power of the Eye. At that moment, Chet and [[spoiler:Brian Conrad]] pull up to the dock in the former's truck, beginning an all-out brawl that allows them to get away.

** Joe also states that Frank has come to trust and rely on the Eye far too much, while Frank has similar feelings about Joe continuing to work with JB despite him repeatedly screwing them over. They both turn out to be correct about this. JB ends up abandoning the Hardys when their heist of the relic is thwarted, and then tries to steal it from Joe, only failing because the latter swapped in a fake; he then returns to the Hardy home and swipes [=McFarlane's=] scroll that Fenton gave the boys. Meanwhile, Frank finds out in the hardest way possible that [[spoiler:the Eye has always remained loyal to George, and was manipulating Frank the whole time, driving a wedge between him and his loved ones and setting him up for George to steal his body]].

** Likewise, Biff brought up to Joe last season that she was adopted and that she learned things about her biological parents that she didn't like, but didn't elaborate on it any more since they had bigger issues to worry about. This plays a major role in her arc for the season, starting off with Joe trying to get her to tell him what she knows in his desperation for some kind of mystery to solve. It's soon revealed that her birth father is dead, while she continues to search for her birth mother.

* CaughtOnTape: Chet and Belinda confront Angela in the season finale and get her to admit to killing Mack Malone, then reveal they were recording it. Though they admit that the recording is a just a bonus on top of all the other evidence they have on her.

** Dr. Vivian Burelli tells the Shadow Man in "The Doctor's Orders" that what his plan [[spoiler:(to revive his brother with Project Midnight)]] will fail, and he pursues her by car when she flees. Her car is later found abandoned on a bridge, and her body washes up from the river at the start of "A Midnight Scare". She counts as an AssholeVictim because of her role in experimenting on kids in the past with Project Midnight (despite becoming TheAtoner by the present) and initially agreeing to give Dennis to the Shadow Man until the kids stop her.

** After ex-Dean [=McFarlane=] became a case of WhatHappenedToTheMouse last season, he reappears here, [[BackForTheDead in time to be murdered by Olivia]].

** After Frank and Joe state that the only people who know about the Eye having actual magic power are either "at this table" (them and their friends) or "in jail" (their grandma), said friends proceed to bring up everybody else who knows this and doesn't fall into either category: Fenton Hardy, JB Cox, the Nabokovs, the Khans, likely Anya Kowalsky, and possibly Dean [=McFarlane=].

* CruelTwistEnding / {{Cliffhanger}}: [[spoiler:Initially, when Frank meets George in the Crystal and the latter tries to hijack his body, Frank appears to fight him off successfully and return to his own consciousness. However, the ending scene, in which "Frank" visits Gloria, reveals that George was in control the whole time thanks to the Eye's power, stopped Frank, and ''succeeded'' in stealing his body, leaving his mind trapped in the Crystal.]]

* DeadPersonConversation: Thanks to having accidentally absorbed the Eye's energy, Frank converses with multiple deceased characters in his dreams, including his mother Laura and a younger version of his great-grandfather George (who died before Frank was even born).

* DeusExitMachina: Frank and Joe insisting that Fenton meet Olivia in Dixon City in exchange for the information she offered him, despite his own reluctance to leave his boys, causes father and sons to be separated for the rest of the season, so that Fenton's not there to prevent Stratemeyer Global's continued harassment or Frank being kidnapped by the Shadow Man [[spoiler:and having his body hijacked by George Estabrook]].

** Frank, Joe, and JB are briefly captured by Angela and her men, until Chet and [[spoiler:Brian]] show up to save them.

** [[spoiler:Belinda thinks that her dad is an ordinary salaryman, and he claims to have recently started dating Angela. Then she and Chet learn that the two were never dating; Mr. Conrad works for the Department of Special Affairs, is part of Stratemeyer, and is Angela's boss. '''Then''' Belinda discovers that he's actually a MoleInCharge at Stratemeyer.]]

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

* FaceOfAThug: Tom Elroy initially sparks Frank's suspicions due to having similar black boots that their unknown perp wore, but his grumpy, loner-like tendencies and {{Perpetual Frown|er}} don't help at all. But then when he catches Frank breaking into his house and establishes his innocence, he's revealed to be a MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold, a war veteran who plants trees and picks up trash in the woods during his walks. Elroy was only unfriendly to the Hardys and friends because he has a long history of teens trespassing on his land and pranking him, and befriends Frank, Chet, and Belinda when they drive off one such group of pranksters. Frank later has to [[ClearMyName clear his name]] from a FrameUp.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: [[spoiler:Brian Conrad]], along with Chet, arrives at the docks to rescue the Hardys, and manages to steal Angela's gun (holding it with a handkerchief so he doesn't leave his own fingerprints on it and doesn't smear hers), which she used to murder Mack Malone. He then returns to her motel room and leaves the gun in the bathroom near Malone's body to ensure that the cops can trace the murder back to her.

** JB starts off being forced to spy on the brothers by Stratemeyer, but later escapes and does his own thing for the rest of the season, sometimes working with the boys and sometimes against them.
** Rogue agents from Stratemeyer are trying to find the Eye and sell it to the highest bidder, and resort to kidnapping and threats of violence (including against the teenage Hardy Boys) to get it. And then within their group, there's also [[spoiler:Brian Conrad, who is seemingly the boss, but actually a MoleInCharge trying to bring them down]]. Notably, they're so menacing and violent, and clearly up to ''something'' in the middle of the woods, that the TrueCompanions spend the whole first half of the season believing that Stratemeyer is behind ''everything'', and don't discover until the midpoint that someone else is responsible for the bombing at Wilt's and all that happens with Dennis.
** Said someone else, whom they nickname the "Shadow Man" for his mysteriousness, pays two high school kids to kidnap Dennis for him and to plant a bomb at Wilt's so it will damage the security shop next door and deactivate the alarm at Gloria's house, allowing him to break in. His goal in doing so is to [[spoiler:steal the Crystal from her chandelier, which he believes houses the soul of his twin brother, and he hopes to bring his brother back by transferring his soul into another body]].

* GoodBadGirl: Belinda is a PG version. She's a regular in detention, encourages Chet to join her doing things that are harmless but technically not legal (like climbing up to the rooves of buildings they're not supposed to be on), and generally likes to walk a bit on the wild side, but doesn't do anything destructive or harmful, proves to be a loyal friend and competent member of the investigating team when she joins the TrueCompanions, [[spoiler:and is completely disgusted when she briefly believes her father to be a criminal before he reveals he's TheMole, and still calls him out on the unsavory things he did before he turned whistleblower]].

* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler:The end of the season reveals that George Estabrook was this all along, and by extension, the Eye as well, which is ultimately loyal to George as its original holder (or one of them, anyway). The Eye causes a vision of Frank to travel across time and appear to George before he "died", and by thus learning of his great-grandson's existence, George formulates a plan to avoid his colleagues' attempt to murder him by faking his death, storing his consciousness in the Crystal, and waiting for Frank to appear there so he can [[GrandTheftMe essentially resurrect himself by stealing Frank's body]]. Unfortunately, the end of the season reveals that he succeeded in his plot.]]

* HonoraryTrueCompanion: Lucy Wayne, Dennis's girlfriend (or actually ex-girlfriend) and Joe's crush. She's not fully part of the Hardy Boys' friend/investigation group and doesn't know nearly as much about the case as the rest of them do, but does tag along to help a few different times during the season.
* HourglassPlot: Frank and Joe spent the entirety of the previous season wishing their dad was there and hadn't gone away to investigate, and they have some angst and, for Frank, a bit of resentment about him leaving and being gone for so long. In this season, when Fenton returns from Dixon City in "Hunting an Intruder" with a possible lead on who ordered Laura's death, ''he's'' the one who's reluctant to leave to look into it--partly because he knows it's likely to be a trap, and partly because he's worried about his sons' safety after Stratemeyer Global kidnapped them in the previous episode, and doesn't want to leave them alone--while the boys absolutely insist that he go check it out, even saying that they won't ''let him'' stay. This also serves as a DeusExitMachina to get Fenton out of the way for the rest of the season, since Stratemeyer Global wouldn't have had nearly as easy of a time continuing to menace his sons and their friends if he were around to play PapaWolf for them.

** Combined with IDidWhatIHadToDo: Joe finally convinces Frank to give up the Eye's power and return it to the relic by assuring him that they can still use the Eye, it'll just be where it belongs rather than inside of him. After Frank transfers the power, passes out, and wakes up in the hospital, Joe reveals to him that Belinda's father has the Eye and plans to make sure it'll never see the light of day ever again. Joe justifies the lie by saying that he had to save Frank from the Eye as well as from Munder, and wanted his brother back. Frank accepts this and thanks him for it...[[spoiler:Too bad it's not actually Frank, but George.]]

* INeverSaidItWasPoison: The first time the Hardys and friends encounter Mack Malone from Stratemeyer Global at Demon's Paw, they tell him they're there looking for a friend (Dennis), and Malone replies, "He's not here." Frank points out that he never said their friend is a "he". Though, it turns out that the "he" who ''Malone'' was thinking of isn't actually Dennis, but JB.

** JB remains a primarily-self-motivated thief who's still willing to steal from the boys if they have something he's being paid to get, bugs their house for Stratemeyer Global, and gives the latter information about the boys, but he makes it clear that this is not personal; he only works for Stratemeyer for a time because they threaten his life, and immediately tries to get them to leave the Hardys alone when he sees that they're planning on targeting them directly and warns them of the threat multiple times. He also has a ThouShaltNotKill rule, honors the deal he made with [[MoralityPet Joe]], and insists that, whatever else he may be, he would never harm Joe.
* KeepingSecretsSucks: Frank and Callie experience this firsthand; Frank spends the entire first half of the season concealing from everyone except Joe that he's absorbed the Eye's power and is seeing visions as a result, and Callie, for a bit, hides from him that she went to see Gloria in prison. This briefly drives a wedge between them mid-season before they make up and vow not to keep secrets from each other anymore.
* LetMeGetThisStraight: JB when going over Joe's request to steal the relic from Stratemeyer. He outlines what he would have to do in a way that makes the heist sound incredibly difficult (which it is)...and then, to Joe's surprise, gladly agrees with no complaints, pointing out that he's good at what he does and it's still less difficult than the first time he stole a piece of the relic (taking it from an assassin and jumping out of an airplane).
* LivingMacGuffin: Frank becomes this to multiple different members of the BigBadEnsemble who discover that he has become the Eye's new vessel.
* LoveInterestTraitor: Subverted. It looks like [[spoiler:Angela]] is being set up as this for [[spoiler:Brian]], but it's later revealed that [[spoiler:not only were they never actually dating in the first place, as this was a cover story that he gave Belinda and Chet when they saw them together, but he's well aware that she's the bad guy. In fact, he's her ''boss'' at Stratemeyer Global, though he's actually a MoleInCharge who's working to bring her down.]]
* LoveMakesYouEvil: [[spoiler:Adrian Munder is utterly twisted by his grief over his twin brother being rendered catatonic in Project Midnight, and the lengths he's willing to go in trying to revive him are far beyond the pale: abducting and damaging the mind of an innocent student; blowing up an unrelated store (which critically injures the chief of police) so he can break into a house; murdering a doctor previously involved in Project Midnight when she refuses to continue helping him; and kidnapping ''another'' innocent student, ''permanently removing his soul from his body,'' and trapping it inside a crystal forever to replace it with his brother's soul.]]

** It's also revealed that Stefan wasn't acting alone when he killed Laura, and was following orders from someone else. Though, ultimately, Fenton's lead on trying to find out who this "someone else" was doesn't pan out.

* MoodWhiplash: In-universe as well as out. In "Conflicting Reports", Frank cracks a joke about the Eye possessing him, Joe jokes back "Very scary," and they're both chuckling...until they look up and see the ''actually''-very-creepy abandoned shed in the woods, and their grins quickly fade.
-->'''Frank''': ''That'', on the other hand...\\

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Angela betrays her very capable [[TheDragon Dragon]] Mack Malone to keep him from reporting to their boss that Frank has become the Eye's new host, and her killing Mack once she feels that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's outlived his usefulness]] ends up being her downfall. Much of the rogue Stratemeyer group's prior criminal activities were hard to prove, but this murder is what gets her arrested at the end of the season; between Chet and Belinda [[CaughtOnTape recording]] her JustBetweenYouAndMe confession and [[spoiler:Brian]] FramingTheGuiltyParty by planting her gun (the murder weapon) at the scene of the crime, the authorities have more than enough evidence to indict her for it.
* NoHonorAmongThieves: One of the major reasons the rogue Stratemeyer Global agents' plans fail is that more and more of the top members turn against each other. Once BigBad Angela Todd and TheDragon Mack Malone discover that Frank has the power of the Eye in him, Malone wants to report it to their boss, but Angela promptly betrays him and knocks him out so it'll stay a secret, and keeps Mack prisoner in her motel bathroom and later murders him. And then it turns out that said boss, [[spoiler:Brian Conrad]], has been a MoleInCharge all along, works to bring the whole group down, and pulls a FramingTheGuiltyParty on Angela to get her arrested at the end of the season.

* OutGambitted: Near the end of "Captured!", in the confusion at the marina when Chet and [[spoiler:Brian]] show up to save the Hardys, JB apparently steals the relic from Joe before escaping. Joe reveals to Frank and Chet in the car afterwards that JB took a fake that he swapped in during the chaos, while Joe has the real one. Though JB does bounce back quickly when he breaks into their attic once again and steals the scroll that [=McFarlane=] gave to Fenton (which he was shown in the previous episode to be looking for).

* SixthRanger: Belinda Conrad, the new girl at school, joins the main cast and eventually becomes the seventh member of the TrueCompanions.

** "Captured!", the penultimate episode. Jessie finally wakes up from her coma, and gives her blessing in Biff's search for her birth mom. Frank's and Joe's simmering tension over the Eye finally boils over and they have a fight, which leads to Frank at last agreeing to give up the Eye's power. They and JB get captured by Angela and her goons (both in a vision and in reality), who almost force Frank to hand over the Eye's powers until Chet and [[spoiler:Brian]] rescue them. After JB fails to steal the relic thanks to Joe pulling a switcheroo, he instead steals the scroll he'd been looking for, which [=McFarlane=] left with Fenton and the latter entrusted to the boys, from the Hardy home. Finally, Callie, Belinda, Biff, and Phil figure out the true identity of the Shadow Man [[spoiler:(namely, that they were right about it being Munder all along, and he performed a TwinSwitch to throw them off the trail)]] just as the latter succeeds in kidnapping Frank at the end.

** When Belinda and Chet go to meet [[spoiler:Angela]] in "The Doctor's Orders", and find [[spoiler:Belinda's father]] there too:
--->'''Belinda''': You two [[spoiler:were never dating]], were you?\\
[[spoiler:'''Angela''']]: No, Belinda. It would be very inappropriate [[spoiler:for me to date my boss]].

--->[[spoiler:'''Brian''']]: [[spoiler:Angela]] doesn't know, so I had to keep up the front, but [[spoiler:I'm a whistleblower]].

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Unsurprising considering that Laura Hardy undergoes DeathByAdaptation in this series and her husband and sons are left mourning her murder. This makes both of them less upbeat and cheerful than they are in the original books, with Frank in particular being moodier and having far more emotional struggles than in the books. The boys also have serious disagreements with each other at several points that lead to actual fights, and also both have significantly more drama in their love lives.

** A minor one, but Frank's full name is "Francis" in this series, and Gloria often calls him this in a similar fashion to how she often calls Joe "Joseph". In all book series so far, Frank actually is his full name, not a nickname.

** Nothing at all is known about Laura's father (the boys' grandfather). She's hinted to have been married at one point since she's called "Mrs. Estabrook", but if that's the case, she kept her maiden name, and it's never stated whether or not he was in Laura's life at all.
* ElaborateUniversityHigh: Rosegrave Academy, a prep school founded by Frank's and Joe's great-grandfather George Estabrook, is an extremely prestigious one for the very best of the best, with a very competitive selection process and housing future leaders of the world. Frank and Callie are both accepted there, but are far less enthusiastic about the idea of attending after learning that it's really a SchoolForScheming, especially after discovering their acceptances were largely due to their connections to Gloria; however, Callie does enroll in a summer program there in Season 3 as part of an undercover investigation. Laura Hardy got in as well when she was a teenager, but chose not to attend.

* RaceLift: Since the books were originally written almost a hundred years ago, there wasn't much in the way of racial diversity in the boys' main friend group, who are all white in the books. This series does a better job of diversifying its main cast: Chet and Belinda are African-American, Callie is also a person of color, and Biff and her mother are Asian-American. Some supporting cast members get this as well, such as Deputy Riley (who is a white man in the books and a black woman in the show).

* TownWithADarkSecret: Bridgeport is certainly this.

* [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Where the Hell is Bridgeport?]]: Bayport from the book series is usually located in New York as a suburb of NYC, although it's also sometimes been put in New Jersey (or, in the 70's TV show, in Massachusetts), but 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 specified 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 (and the actors and their characters have Canadian accents).

* AncientArtifact: The Eye, which allows its user to see the outcome of events, and use this knowledge to change or influence the world. The three men who found it--George Estabrook, Ahmed Khan, and Sergei Nabokov--used it to become three of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the world, together known as the Circle of the Eye. After some unspecified event occurred that resulted in the deaths of 4,000 people, which the Circle apparently caused or at least did nothing to prevent, George came to believe that NoManShouldHaveThisPower and decided to break the Eye into three pieces, with each family keeping one, and flee with his piece to make sure it was lost forever so the Eye could never be fully assembled again. Ahmed and Sergei had him murdered by causing his plane to crash, allowing his daughter Gloria (who shared their desire to reassemble the Eye) to take over the family.

** With Callie as the Archie, her boyfriend Chet--who's lived in Bridgeport his whole life like her, is her ChildhoodFriend, and comes from a working-class family of farmers--is the Betty; Frank, the new kid in town from the big city who gets her involved with his and Joe's investigation, who's also the grandson of one of the richest and most powerful people in the world (who happens to be Callie's mentor), is the Veronica. In this case, Veronica wins, as Chet and Callie break up and she gets together with Frank by the end of the season.
** On the flipside, though, Callie is the Betty and Stacy is the Veronica to Frank's Archie. Callie is his friend and fellow academic, likewise from a working-class family who has to worry about costs of prep school, and acts as his confidant and investigating partner. Stacy, meanwhile, is the mysterious new girl who makes a big entrance into town by hitting the Tall Man with her car, is later revealed to be the heiress and new leader of the also-powerful Nabokov family, and [[TheVamp is much more aggressive and forward in pursuing her attraction to Frank]] and trying to get him to work with her. Their fashion senses also reflect this, as Callie is fashionable but not flashy, while Stacy "dresses like a pop star." On this side of the LoveTriangle, Betty wins, as Frank rejects Stacy and starts a relationship with Callie.

** Chet doesn't take his girlfriend Callie's suspicions of Stacy seriously at all, and in fact treats it with annoyance, because he's chalking them up to Callie having romantic feelings for Frank that she's refusing to admit to and [[YoureJustJealous her just being jealous of how much attention Frank has been paying to Stacy]]; this is making Chet jealous in turn--despite Callie's insistence that she's "just trying to look out for our friend"--and leads him to break up with her. Chet is completely right that Callie ''does'' have feelings for Frank (and he for her), to the point that the two of them end up getting together by the end of the season, and this is indeed most of the initial reason for her dislike of Stacy. Nonetheless, Callie follows her instincts, does some good detective work to prove her hunch, and turns out to be more correct than she ever suspected, [[spoiler:culminating in Stacy and her goons kidnapping her, after which Chet laments not heeding her warnings.]]

* TheButlerDidIt: [[spoiler:The season finale at last [[TheReveal reveals who killed Laura Hardy]]: it was Stefan, Gloria's butler, who did it to protect her reputation after Laura visited her and vowed to expose the Estabrook family secrets. Notably, this was ''not'' at all on Gloria's orders; Stefan acted on his own, and she is sincerely shocked and suitably upset and appalled when she learns this.]]

* DefectorFromDecadence: Laura was born and raised into one of the world's richest and most powerful families, the Estabrooks, but once she learned where it came from, she refused to have anything more to do with them and abandoned her life of privilege. She even broke up with her boyfriend when he chose to attend Rosegrave, and ended up marrying Fenton instead, who came from a modest working-class family.
-->'''Paul''': "[Laura] said that Gloria was writing her life for her, turning her into another privileged, powerful, rich Estabrook heir. And she was turning her back on all of it."

* TheDreaded: The Tall Man. Ern is terrified of him because he's the SoleSurvivor of the man's massacre on the ''Astghik''; JB is scared of him because he stole the idol from him and knows the Tall Man will kill him in revenge; and the Hardys are already scared of him because of the ''Astghik'' as well, but then become even moreso once he starts targeting them directly for Joe's piece of the Eye. Being a seven-foot-tall ImplacableMan who survives enough electricity to power a carnival, breaks out of jail, and multiple times chases after the Hardy Boys and their friends with a knife will do that for you.

** Gloria may be corrupt, [[ObnoxiousInLaws rude and passive-aggressive to her in-laws]], possibly at least indirectly responsible for her father's death by ratting him out to his partners, and [[spoiler:willing to kill her enemies who make moves against her, like Viktor]], but she does have some redeeming qualities:

* EvilMentor: Played with. Gloria turns out to be this to Callie, whom she's been mentoring for quite a while to help her get into Rosegrave Academy, the prep school founded by Gloria's father, which [[SchoolForScheming turns out to be a front for a secret society running Bridgeport]]. She's only ever been good to Callie, but Frank speculates that it's because she has plans for her, which is proven to be correct in the following season. She also shows a rather cold lack of concern for her protegee [[spoiler:when Stacy kidnaps her and [[HostageForMacGuffin holds her hostage for the piece of the Eye]]]], to her grandsons' disgust.

** Biff gives one to Joe after he and Phil save her from George's secret room where she was accidentally locked in. Joe returns it with a smile...[[ShipTease and then both of them get a bit flustered by it]].

* IntrafamilialClassConflict: An in-laws version between the adult Hardys and Gloria Estabrook, who are connected via Fenton's and Laura's marriage. Laura, out of disgust for the Circle's evil, power-hungry ways, abandoned the life of privilege she was born into in favor of the middle-class lifestyle she's leading with her husband and sons at the series' outset. Fenton and especially Trudy are deeply resentful of how unkind Gloria has always been to them and their parents simply because the Hardys aren't wealthy and well-connected like she is, Joe half-jokingly asks if she's "the queen of Bridgeport", and Frank is unimpressed and uncomfortable by the elitist attitudes of the students and faculty at Rosegrave, which his own great-grandfather founded and where Gloria wants him him to attend.

** Played much more seriously when Joe and Biff go missing after going to Demon's Paw and falling down a mine shaft. Frank blames himself for it because he and Joe had a fight beforehand about the Eye, and Frank, in addition to having PartingWordsRegret about it, also laments to Callie that he shouldn't have dismissed his brother's feelings so easily because Joe always does something stupid when Frank doesn't listen to him.

* MamaBear: Jessie in "No Getting Out" when Biff has gone missing along with Joe. She's furious that her daughter is in danger because of something she was doing with Joe, and once the two of them are found, she furiously threatens to arrest the Hardy Boys unless they let her in on what they've gotten Biff into, at which point they share with her everything they've discovered in the case so far.

* SketchySuccessor: Inverted; the quite-sketchy Gloria chooses straight-arrow Frank as her successor to the also-sketchy family legacy. Frank doesn't actually want any part of it, but plays along to gain Gloria's trust and find out what she's up to.

* WantedPoster: JB Cox has his picture on these in Bridgeport (and presumably other cities as well) after stealing the idol from the Tall Man and jumping out of the plane, becoming a fugitive. Seeing one of these, along with the police file on him, is how the Hardy Boys learn his name.

** Phil distracts Stefan by asking him to donate money (on Gloria's behalf) to the Nautical Club, giving Joe and Biff time to sneak into George's SecretRoom for information they need there.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: A justified example. Joe is panicking about the police having found the toolbox that he lent to JB before later finding out he's a criminal, as Joe's soldering iron with his name engraved on it is in there and he fears being arrested as an accomplice. Biff comes up with a plan to help him get it back while stating that since it's Joe's soldering iron, if he takes it back from the police while he's at the station, it's not really stealing. Of course, this is completely untrue, as taking something that's been classified as police evidence very much ''is'' stealing and is illegal, but these are two 12-year-olds saying it, not actual law enforcement. Still, considering both of their parents are/were cops, you'd think they'd know this.

** Gloria's shown multiple times giving polite thank-yous to her staff and treating them graciously, such as Sonia and Stefan, and appears to have considered the latter like family for many years, so much so that [[spoiler:he developed UndyingLoyalty to her and murdered her own estranged daughter in a highly misguided attempt to protect her interests]]. She also gives JB multiple second chances despite him repeatedly failing to bring her the pieces of the Eye she hires him to steal, and even after he tries to betray her at one point by taking the pieces for himself; when he finally does deliver it, she pays him as promised with a curt thanks and dismisses him, not having any intentions of double-crossing him.

** With Callie as the Archie, her boyfriend Chet--who's lived in Bridgeport his whole life like her, is her ChildhoodFriend, and comes from a working-class family of farmers--is the Betty; Frank, the new kid in town from the big city who gets her involved with his and Joe's investigation, and also the grandson of one of the richest and most powerful people in the world (who also happens to be Callie's mentor), is the Veronica. In this case, Veronica wins, as Chet and Callie break up and she gets together with Frank by the end of the season.
** On the flipside, though, Callie is the Betty and Stacy is the Veronica to Frank's Archie. Callie is his friend and fellow academic, likewise from a working-class family who has to worry about costs of prep school, and acts as his confidant and investigating partner. Stacy, meanwhile, is the mysterious new girl who makes a big entrance into town by hitting the Tall Man with her car, is later revealed to be the heiress and new leader of the also-powerful Nabokov family, and [[TheVamp is much more aggressive and forward in pursuing her attraction to Frank]] and trying to get him to work with her. On this side of the LoveTriangle, Betty wins, as Frank rejects Stacy and starts a relationship with Callie.

** Gloria may be corrupt, [[ObnoxiousInLaws rude and passive-aggressive to her in-laws]], responsible for her father's death by ratting him out to his partners, and [[spoiler:a killer]], but she does have some redeeming qualities:

* TheGlomp: Biff gives one to Joe after he and Phil save her from George's secret room where she was accidentally locked in. Joe returns it with a smile...[[ShipTease and then both of them get a bit flustered by it]].

* LoveDodecahedron: Callie is dating Chet and Frank is dating Emma, but Frank and Callie are growing increasingly attracted to each other. Then Emma breaks up with Frank at the start of Episode 4, though Callie doesn't learn this until Episode 6. Then new girl Stacy Baker comes to town and develops a huge crush on Frank, and he seems to appreciate it and possibly like her back, which makes Callie jealous (in addition to being genuinely suspicious of Stacy), which in turn makes Chet jealous, eventually resulting in Chet forcing Callie to recognize her feelings for Frank and breaking up with her, leaving things awkward between the three of them. Then Frank realizes that Callie was right and Stacy is hiding something, and confronts her at Wilt's, only for her to kiss him at one point to try to persuade him to work with her; Callie happens to see this and gets the wrong idea. Frank eventually rejects Stacy, [[spoiler:but before he has a chance to properly work things out with Callie, Stacy kidnaps her to use as a HostageForMacGuffin.]] It's only resolved at the end of the season finale when Callie and Frank finally become the OfficialCouple and share TheBigDamnKiss. Then there's Joe and Biff, and Trudy and Jessie, who seem to have their own budding relationships (a ToyShip, in the former case) on the side. Not to mention that Frank also meets his HappilyMarried mom's ex-boyfriend, who still carried a torch for her to the day she died.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Joe is able to steal his soldering iron back at the police station, but then tries to get more information about JB and is busted. The next day, Biff shows up at the Hardy home to give the boys JB's WantedPoster (which is how they learn his name), having somehow discreetly managed to get her hands on it at the station and make them a copy.

* PassiveAggressiveKombat: Gloria exchanges this with Trudy (and Fenton to a lesser extent) earlier in the season, sometimes even to the point that the "passive" is dropped altogether, though both women dial it back later on as they make an effort to bury the hatchet.

* WantedPoster: JB Cox has his picture on these in Bridgeport (and presumably other cities as well) after stealing the idol from the Tall Man and jumping out of the plane, becoming a fugitive. This is how the Hardy Boys learn his name.
* WeNeedADistraction: While visiting Rosegrave Academy, Callie purposely breaks a vase to distract the dean's secretary so Frank can sneak into his office, though he unfortunately does still get caught in the act.

** 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; Joe is determined to keep the bad guys away from his brother, even if he has to go behind Frank's back and against his wishes to do so. [[spoiler:Once Joe learns in Season 3 that Frank has been body-snatched by George, he's relentless in finding out how to get him back, and even uploads his own brain into the Crystal to find and save his older brother.]]
** For that matter, Chet and Callie also get this for Joe, as well as Biff and Phil. 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.

* ChekhovsGunman: In the very first episode, Gloria shows Frank and Joe a picture of her father (and their great-grandfather) George Estabrook, stating that he "made the discovery that made all this [wealth and luxury] possible," as well as founding [[SchoolForScheming Rosegrave Academy]]. Not only do the boys learn more about this discovery (the Eye) throughout the first season, but George turns out to be a far more important character than just a backstory PredecessorVillain: [[spoiler:the end of Season 2 confirms that he was EvilAllAlong, faked his death, and was still alive inside the Crystal all this time. He manages to steal Frank's body, so the main characters meet him in the present day and he becomes a major antagonist in Season 3.]]

** 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]].

** Nothing at all is known about Laura's father (the boys' grandfather). We don't even know if he was actually Gloria's husband (and if he was, she didn't take his last name) or just some kind of glorified sperm donor for her to have a child.

* 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, she chooses Frank to be her heir in the Circle, [[spoiler: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. Though this becomes heavily subverted with the reveal that George always planned to steal Frank's body one day and thus ordered Gloria in his instructions to will everything she owned to him; while it's [[AmbiguousSituation ambiguous]] how much she knew about these plans, it's heavily implied she focused more on Frank because she knew her father's plans involved him in ''some'' way]].
* PreviouslyOn: Every episode utilizes this (with the obvious exception of the series premiere) to highlight which developments and plot points of previous episodes will be most relevant to this one. For the Season 2 and 3 premieres, they're even longer, recapping the most important and relevant info from the entire previous season.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: An in-universe, justified example. Joe is panicking about the police having found the toolbox that he lent to JB before later learning he was a criminal, as Joe's soldering iron with his name engraved on it is in there and he fears being arrested as an accomplice. Biff comes up with a plan to help him get it back while stating that since it's Joe's soldering iron, if he takes it back from the police while he's at the station, it's not really stealing. Of course, this is completely untrue, as taking something that's been classified as police evidence every much ''is'' stealing and is illegal, but these are two 12-year-olds saying it, not actual law enforcement. Still, considering both of their parents are/were cops, you'd think they'd know this.

* BirdsOfAFeather: It's implied this is why Joe and Biff become such fast, close friends despite initially finding each other weird. They're both implied to have had {{Friendless Background}}s, with Joe being victimized by bullies and Biff apparently seen by other kids as a know-it-all loner weirdo. They also both have a cop for a parent and are ConstantlyCurious.

** One of the earliest scenes in the series has a soldering iron with "J. Hardy" engraved into it. It's later in the toolbox that Joe lends to JB on the beach, and he even notes the engraving when he looks at it. It's most likely what allows JB to find out where he lives by providing his surname, and Joe is later freaking out after the police find the toolbox because he knows this soldering iron will prove the tools are his and could get him into trouble for helping JB, though he's able to steal it back before the cops see it.

** On a related note, the Hardy Boys do a ''lot'' of their investigating separate from each other in this season and share their findings later, with Joe usually pairing off with Biff, Frank teaming up with Callie and often Chet too, and Phil joining either the older kids or the whole group. Phil is also the only member of the TrueCompanions who doesn't appear in every episode. The next two seasons have Frank and Joe teaming up with each other much more often to investigate, Biff and Phil usually being the ones to pair up out of the younger kids, and mixing up the groups more often, and all of the kids appear in every episode of Seasons 2 and 3.

** When Joe notices a stuffed boar head on Gloria's wall in her home, she comments, "That's the beast that got your Uncle Harry," sounding rather blasé about it. "Uncle Harry" is never mentioned again, and neither Gloria nor Laura are ever shown or mentioned to have had siblings.
* ElaborateUniversityHigh: Rosegrave Academy, a prep school founded by Frank's and Joe's great-grandfather George Estabrook, is an extremely prestigious one for the very best of the best, with a very competitive selection process and housing future leaders of the world. Frank and Callie are both accepted there, but are far less enthusiastic about the idea of attending after learning more about it, though they haven't fully made decisions about it by the end of the season. Laura Hardy got in as well when she was a teenager, but chose not to attend.

* FemmeFatale: Anastasia "Stacy" Nabokov is a classic example, wanting to bring down the Circle to avenge her murdered father [[spoiler:and wanting to take the Eye for herself, being willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish her goals, including kidnapping and murder]]. She also [[TheFakeCutie pretends to be]] TheIngenue to win Frank's trust and get him to tell her what he knows, and once he figures out her real identity, acts aggressively forward and seductive with Frank to try to get him to work together with her, later becoming a WomanScorned after he rejects her.
* ForWantOfANail: Joe's OddFriendship with JB Cox plays a huge role in the entire series. The two only meet in the first place because 1) Biff just so happens to be walking along the beach where JB washed up from jumping out of the plane and is camping out, approaches him, and agrees to buy him supplies in exchange for some cash; 2) Biff goes to Wilt's to buy said supplies when Joe happens to be there as well; and 3) Joe gets curious enough about the situation to tail her back to JB.

* InterfaceSpoiler: JB Cox's name is not officially revealed until the end of "Secrets and Lies" when the boys learn it from his WantedPoster (though sharp-eyed viewers could spot one of these posters in "Of Freedome and Pleasure" in a FreezeFrameBonus and learn his name that way); before this, they just call him "the guy on the beach." However, audience members watching with subtitles can learn his first name, JB, from his very first line in his debut episode ("Where the Light Can't Find You"), thanks to the subs identifying him as such.

* LuredIntoATrap: Fenton's entire case is an extended, season-long version. Kanika Khan tells him about her nephew Rupert working together with Laura on the latter's latest story, claims Rupert has been kidnapped possibly by the same party who had Laura killed, and hired Fenton to find him. It turns out Kanika herself had Rupert kidnapped and hired Fenton just to get him out of Bridgeport so he wouldn't interfere with the Circle's schemes, and intended for both of them to die.

* SarcasticConfession: After JB steals the Khan piece of the Eye and experiences the good luck that comes from holding it in a game of Solitaire, he seeks out Joe, who's had the Estabrook piece in his possession, the next day to try to find out what else he can do with it. Joe quips, "Win teddy bears" and JB just chides him that he's being serious, even though that is, in fact, exactly what Joe actually did with his piece--winning every single game he played at the carnival, and getting several stuffed animals as prizes--which is how he himself figured out in the first place that it has supernatural powers.
* SchoolForScheming: Rosegrave Prep is a front for a secret organization that runs Bridgeport, as Frank discovers when he visits it for a tour. Even the dean of the school, Paul [=McFarlane=], is just a pawn in their scheme, and is afraid of them.

* ThreeLinesSomeWaiting: Most episodes have Frank and Joe each pursuing separate avenues of investigation on the case, and the story jumps back and forth between the two of them; on the occasions when they're together, it jumps between them and other characters, sometimes including the villains. There's also Fenton's separate storyline of searching for Rupert Khan, which does not appear in every episode.

** Ern, an important supporting character in the first couple of episodes as the SoleSurvivor of the ''Astghik'' (the ship that the Tall Man blew up), skips town with his girlfriend to escape from the Tall Man and never shows up again for the rest of the season.

** Though [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield it's not entirely clear where Bridgeport and Dixon City are supposed to be located]], they are clearly coastal towns with docks and bridges, and are implied to be in either the northeastern US (possibly New York State like the books) or Canada, where the show is filmed. However, when Joe solves JB's code to get his phone number and contact him, said number has an area code of 864, which is in South Carolina in RealLift--very unlikely to be the actual intended setting of the series--and for that matter, is for the most-inland portion of the state, rather than the part that borders the ocean.

** 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 washes up from the river at the start of the next episode. She counts as an AssholeVictim because of her role in experimenting on kids in the past with Project Midnight (even if she has become TheAtoner by the present) and initially agreeing to give Dennis to the Shadow Man until Joe and co. stop her.
** TheDragon to the rogue Stratemeyer group, Mack Malone, is murdered in "A Midnight Scare" 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 his entire screentime.

* IronicEcho: Biff hears [[AlphaBitch Vanessa]] talk to friends about being named Demon Queen for the second year running and shares her recent discovery that her own (bio) mom was also a former Demon Queen, only for Vanessa to coolly and rather indifferently reply, "Hooray for you." During the Demon Day Parade once the gang has figured out Vanessa is the bomber, she tries to escape, but Biff to tackles her to the ground; Trudy compliments her on it, and Biff says "Yeah, ''hooray for me''," right in Vanessa's face.

* BaitAndSwitch: Right after the museum heist in the first episode goes wrong, JB decides to flee, while "Frank" has Joe hide and instructs him not to leave without the codex. Cut to the Hardy home, where Chet and Belinda are guarding the safe in case JB doubles back to steal the rest of the scrolls; the power goes out, and someone is shown moving outside the window behind Belinda, implying that he did indeed come back to do so. But then Biff reports to Joe over the walkie that she saw JB being arrested by the cops, proving the intruder was someone else; it soon proves to be George, who actually found the last scroll at the painting and came back to get the rest.

* 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 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 interracial same-sex relationship, which would have been utterly taboo in his day and age. 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.

* 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, leaving Joe in turmoil.

** 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. It's also shown that he forcibly trapped Aaron, another teenage boy, deep inside the Crystal to prevent him from escaping.