Nightmare Fuel / The Hardy Boys (2020)

"Joe, there is someone out there that wants to kill you. Does that scare you? 'Cause it scares me."

— Frank Hardy, "A Figure in Hiding"

Unsurprisingly, considering this is a series abounding with secret society conspiracies, kidnappings, and murders, there's plenty of this to go around.

Warning: All Spoilers Unmarked

Season 1

• Pretty much everything regarding the Tall Man, a seven-foot-tall assassin who Would Hurt a Child:
  • One of the very first scenes in the series is the Tall Man coming aboard the Astghik to get the box with the idol. Once he gets it, the whole boat turns into a total bloodbath, with him shooting everyone onboard except Ern, who escapes and becomes the Sole Survivor.
  • Him stalking Joe, a 12-year-old boy, at the carnival, after breaking into his house and stealing a photo of him. Joe has a massive Oh, Crap! when he sees the Tall Man there, and tries to hide from him in the funhouse, which is dimly lit, full of Jump Scares, and has a lot of confusing turns and dead ends. The Tall Man catches up to him there, in an isolated area with no other visitors around, and grabs him, demanding the piece of the Eye, while Joe can only futilely try to break out of his grasp and desperately shout for help. Thank goodness JB shows up Just in Time to punch and stun the Tall Man long enough for Joe to run away.
  • The only way JB survives his subsequent fight with the man is to use one of the carnival's power cords to electrocute him, which causes a power outage in the whole carnival for a few minutes. The man takes enough electricity through his body to power an entire carnival, and this still doesn't kill him, just leaves him comatose for a few days before he wakes up none the worse for wear.
  • The boys go back to the abandoned brick factory to investigate more, only for the Tall Man to confront and chase after them with a giant hunting knife, and they barely escape. They later set a trap for him at Chet's farm, which includes him once again chasing Joe with the knife; while their plan succeeds, Biff points out that they could have been in dire straits if something went wrong, seeing as they were luring an armed killed to an isolated location "with no one to hear you scream for miles around".
  • The Tall Man's final attack on the boys has him literally lifting Frank off the ground, demanding the piece, until Joe makes him drop Frank and they start running. He tries to follow them, only to get run down by Stacy's car, which finally does him in. The Hardy Boys are both very shaken up by the whole ordeal and at seeing his corpse on the ground.
• Joe being "abducted" by JB—despite the latter denying that that's what's happening—is still this for both him and his loved ones.
  • From Joe's point of view: A known criminal that he previously helped, who has cottoned on that he planned to turn him in to the authorities, orders this 12-year-old kid to get into his car by telling him that they're "going for a ride" and that he's going to be "leverage", and then drives them to a remote wooded area and refuses to tell Joe where they're going. It's understandable that he's pretty scared, and his voice is a little shaky when he realizes he doesn't have his walkie to call for help; there's also a catch in it when he admits the thought crossed his mind that JB might be planning to kill him. The latter is honestly shocked by this and quickly assures him that it's Not What It Looks Like and he has no intention of harming him, which does put Joe at ease, but it's no wonder why he got the wrong impression.
  • There's also everyone else's reactions. Phil calls Biff for help and they promptly go to the police station to report it to Jesse, and it's later revealed that Biff moved the piece of the Eye to a new hiding place not long after because she genuinely feared JB might torture Joe to find out where it is. Trudy is also obviously frantic when Jesse calls her about it and upset about being delegated to staying at home. And Frank happens to be at Gloria's to witness JB using Joe as a hostage, and his voice has an audible tremor when he says "Let him go, JB."
• Joe and Biff, alone at night in the woods, falling down an abandoned mineshaft, with their families frantic as no one knows where they are. As they wander around and try to find a way out, there are rats everywhere, and at one point Joe falls and ends up literally face-to-face with a corpse, and promptly starts screaming.
• Once Callie realizes Stacy tricked her into coming to Wilt's, she tries to go out the back door to avoid her...only to find her and her goons waiting there. Callie tries to run away, but is quickly grabbed and dragged kicking and screaming into Stacy's van. Certainly a fear that any woman out alone at night can relate to.
• The mine beginning to collapse after the Eye is reforged, reminiscent of what happened when the original founders took it. Stefan is killed in the collapse while trying to get the Eye back, while the Hardys and Gloria barely escape before the Chamber seems to just explode, complete with lightning shooting out of the mine shaft along with a giant cloud of dust.

Season 2

• The three younger kids venture into a boarded-off mine cave to look for Dennis, only to inhale the noxious sulfurous fumes in it and become woozy. It causes Joe to hallucinate the Bridgeport Demon, towering and wearing black, with horns, a deer-skull-like face, and glowing red eyes. He's too weak to run away and can only futilely try to scramble backwards while shouting for Biff and Phil, who've both already passed out. The last thing Joe sees before he blacks out too is the "demon" charging him.
• Frank and Joe find Elroy's shack in the woods while investigating, in the dead of night, and acknowledge how creepy it is. As they check it out, they hear someone coming and hide under the bed; it's Dennis's kidnapper, and they can't see anything but his feet. They're both visibly scared out of their wits and trying not to breathe so the man won't hear them, and get even more scared when they see him toss gas all over the floor and set it on fire to cover up any evidence that may be there. Joe's backpack gets stuck when they try to flee, slowing them down, and they only very narrowly escape through the window before the whole shack completely goes up in flames.
• Though it's soon revealed to be just a vision from the Eye, the scene with Frank and Joe in George's Secret Room in "A Clue on Film" is pretty scary. Joe hears a noise outside and steps out to close the bookcase door, and then Frank hears sounds of him struggling and goes to check it out. He sees a bearded guy holding Joe and putting a razor to his neck, flanked by two others in Bridgeport Demon costumes, and shouts for them not to hurt his brother. Joe tells him to shut the locking door so they can't get him too, but the thugs in the demon costumes try to break in by force, causing the whole thing to explode and kill Frank. It's unclear what, exactly, the Eye is trying to tell Frank with this vision considering that the "bearded man" turns out to be the latest disguise of JB, who wouldn't hurt Joe, tries to warn the boys instead, and has nothing to do with the culprits in demon costumes from the next episode; however, it's still frightening, and Frank is shaken up by it.
• The rogue Stratemeyer Global agents, especially leaders Angela Todd and Mack Malone, are frequently Knights of Cerebus who are quick to resort to or threaten others with violence:
  • After they capture JB for information about the Eye and later confront him again in his motel room, Angela is very quick to order Mack to take a knife to him whenever he shows reluctance to answer their questions, forcing JB to talk just to avoid being horribly maimed. It's little wonder that he skips town to escape from them at the first opportunity he sees.
    Angela: We had a deal. You find the Eye, you get to keep both of yours.
  • Stratemeyer's kidnapping of the Hardy Boys. They go to visit JB at his motel, only to find Angela waiting for them instead. The navy blue van then pulls up, trapping the brothers between her and it, and Frank can only push Joe behind him to futilely try to shield him before a bunch of thugs jump out and grab them, put bags over their heads, yank them apart while they call out for each other and struggle in vain, and shove them in the van and drive off.
  • The subsequent interrogation scenes are also incredibly tense. Both boys are tied to chairs and completely unable to move, and quite clearly terrified despite doing their absolute damndest to conceal it. They're both subtly trembling a few times, and their voices and breaths are very shaky; even when they're briefly alone together, they're audibly unsteady as they realize JB wasn't bluffing about Stratemeyer being able to track the Eye, and when Frank notes that their captors will probably kill them eventually. Mack also holds his knife pretty close to their faces several times, and when the Hardys still refuse to talk, Angela promises to come back later and try again "the hard way." These are two teenagers—or, in Joe's case, basically a tween—proving that Angela and her cronies absolutely Would Hurt a Child. Thank goodness other circumstances intervene to convince them to let the boys go before it gets to this point.
  • At the end of "Hunting an Intruder", after Angela has discovered that Frank has the power of the Eye in him and turned on Mack, she's shown to have a bunch of photos of the members of the Hardy Gang in her motel room, revealing that Stratemeyer's been stalking them for a while. And she's shown zeroing in on Chet's photo; while subsequent episodes demonstrate that this is because she plans to use him as the link to get Frank to give up the Eye, it's nonetheless creepy to see after she's demonstrated everything she's capable of.
  • By "A Midnight Scare", Angela demonstrates that she truly is The Sociopath; she's Only in It for the Money in terms of why she wants the Eye, has no problem threatening to hurt one of Chet's and/or Frank's loved ones if they don't get it for her, and once she decides Mack is no longer useful to keep alive, puts a bullet in his brain with zero hesitation or remorse whatsoever.
  • In "Captured!", Joe, JB, and Frank are Lured into a Trap thanks to Mack and Angela. Frank gets a vision of what will happen if they proceed with the theft and walk into the trap: Angela and her goons bring the three of them outside, hold them at gunpoint, and she forces Frank to return the power to the relic in exchange for their lives. Frank tries, but struggles because he doesn't really want to give it up, and Angela very quickly loses her patience and steps up to murder Joe for "extra motivation" while Frank screams for her not to. And in reality, when Frank and Joe try to use what he saw to turn the tables on her, they get captured anyway, implying they would have met the same fate as in the vision if Chet and Brian hadn't shown up Just in Time.
• While fleeing from Angela and Mack in "Hunting an Intruder", Frank has a vision on the beach of George finding the Crystal...and then he turns around and actually sees Frank standing there, to both their shock and confusion. And as soon as Frank recovers from it, lightning strikes the beach nearby right next to the boys, knocking them both out. What's more, it's revealed by the end of the season that this vision, along with a couple more where George really sees Frank, formed a Stable Time Loop and is what caused George to hatch his plan to fake his death and eventually steal Frank's body.
• Frank's Sanity Slippage from the Eye really kicks into high gear in the second half of the season as it increasingly corrupts him, making all his loved ones more and more concerned about him.
  • It gets to the point where the visions start causing him physical pain (in addition to the headache flashes he's always had). His second one of George seeing him through time involves the latter trying to grab him by the shoulders, causing Frank, who's halfway up the stairs in the real world, to fall down to the landing. And when he and Callie are in the Sleep Room, his subsequent vision there actually causes him to have a seizure, and Callie touching him to try to pull him away causes her to see the vision, too, all of which scares her enough to start secretly working with Joe to get the Eye out of Frank for his own safety.
  • The Eye also seriously messes with Frank's mind by telling him that he can't trust any of his loved ones because they all want to take its power, which makes him increasingly paranoid and suspicious of and short-tempered towards his brother and friends, such that, by "Captured!", he's become Not Himself. He has an rather disturbing interaction with Chet when the latter tries to warn him about Angela, at first brushing off his concerns and then accuses him of lying to him, and Chet is clearly a bit perturbed by the time he walks away.
• Adrian Munder, a.k.a. The Shadow Man, gets plenty of this as well.
  • In "A Midnight Scare" after Frank and Callie figure out his identity, Joe, Phil, and Lucy go to his house...and then they apparently find Munder catatonic in his room, to their horror. But then "Captured!" reveals that he pulled a Twin Switch and this was actually his brother, Aaron, and Adrian really is the Shadow Man; the gang figures this out just as Adrian jumps Frank at the school, knocks him out with chloroform, and kidnaps him.
  • In "An Unexpected Return", Frank is Alone with the Psycho as Munder goes on a Motive Rant: he wants to bring back his beloved twin brother who was rendered catatonic in Project Midnight. A very noble goal on paper, except that his plan to do this is to forcibly remove Frank's consciousness from his own body, trap it in the Crystal forever, and replace it with Aaron's instead, willing to consign an innocent teenager to A Fate Worse Than Death to get his brother back. Love Makes You Evil is an understatement, and Frank is utterly horrified and futilely begs him not to.
  • Once George is uploaded into Frank's body, tricks Adrian into thinking he's Aaron so the former will set him free, and then reveals the deception, Adrian hits his Rage Breaking Point and tries to strangle Frank/George, having to be pulled off him by two adults.
• The big twist of the season: not only was George Estabrook Evil All Along, having faked his Heel–Face Turn, but he didn't even die when his plane crashed, as he'd already put his mind in the Crystal to wait for over 20 years until Frank, whom he previously saw in a vision on the beach, was brought there by the Eye, so he could take his body for himself and leave Frank's mind trapped, just like Munder planned to do.
  • There's also the build-up to it. Once he's in the Crystal, Young George (Frank's projection of the Eye) shows him visions that makes it increasingly clear to the viewer that George faked his death. Then the Eye betrays Frank, revealing that it's always been loyal to its three original users above everyone else, and the real George reveals himself, acting grandfatherly at first for long enough to touch Frank's face and steal the Eye's power, then coolly makes it clear what his real intentions are.
  • At first, it looks like Frank is able to fight George off and return to his body, but after returning to the real world, "Frank" acts more and more strange, showing little concern for his friends and coldly breaking off his relationship with Callie. Then the final scene shows why, as he visits Gloria in the hospital and tells her that the plan worked and she did wonderfully. We then get a flashback of what really happened: Frank wasn't able to come back because he wasn't strong enough without the Eye. George tossed him aside, and Frank could only helplessly scream in horror while watching him leave to steal his body.
  • The final scene also sees Gloria apparently die from shock. While her father is glad to see her, he insists that she needs to tell him where the scrolls are, and as she flatlines, he does look a bit sad, but almost more disappointed in a detached way, showing that even his beloved daughter isn't as important to him as his ambitions.

Season 3

• One for those who may be claustrophobic and/or hate being underground: As "Frank" and Stacy prepare to each shoot the other in the Chamber of the Eye, a third party triggers an explosion that causes much of the ceiling to cave in, crushing and/or burying alive Stacy, Kanika, and their men while George narrowly escapes.
• When Joe confronts "Frank" about being an impostor, Rohan Campbell's entire face shifts on-camera, over a couple of seconds, from looking similar to Frank's usual facial expressions from George trying imitate him into being very cold, focused, and murderous as he stops pretending and resolves to murder Joe for figuring out the truth. It's quite creepy to watch.
  • This also applies to most of his facial expressions in general once George drops the act. For two seasons, we've gotten used to Campbell's looks and mannerisms as Frank, a good-hearted kid, and George's evil personality causes his eyes and his grin to look all wrong on Frank's face.
  • If there was ever any doubt, George proves he has no affection at all for his great-grandsons. He's completely remorseless about having left Frank stuck inside the Crystal for what would be eternity and just calls him "collateral damage", tries to kill Joe several times in several ways (shooting, stabbing, strangling) for catching onto his ruse and getting in his way, and once both Hardy Boys are inside the Crystal with him, gloats that he's going to trap them there forever like he did with "that other boy" (Aaron). Would Hurt a Child indeed.
• Once JB promises to burn the scroll map if any harm comes to the Hardys and friends after his buyer threatens them and refuses to continue working for said buyer anymore, they send a literal small army of goons, led by Quill, to his apartment while Joe, Frank, Phil, and Biff are there. Luckily, JB sees the cars just as he was pulling a Screw This, I'm Outta Here and goes back to save the kids Just in Time and hide them in his safe room, but it's not pleasant to think about what fate awaited JB and/or the Hardy Gang if Quill and co. had caught them, especially considering Quill himself is mercilessly shot to death later by his boss after they find him Bound and Gagged in that same apartment.
• The Hardy Boys discover the hard way that they still have enough lingering power from the Eye inside them, even after they got rid of all they voluntarily could, when they touch the machine in the Chamber. The power reacts with it, giving them visions, while in the real world, they start shaking uncontrollably and can't let go of their own accord.
  • JB is naturally quite freaked out and tries to pull them away from it, but has significant difficulty with Frank, who was touching it longer since he pulled Joe away first. It very much resembles someone who's being electrocuted and physically can't release their hand.
  • Even after JB does pull Frank away too, both boys are still lying on the ground stunned and violently shaking like they're having seizures, while he can only futilely try to revive them. Definitely pretty scary from his perspective of an adult with two teenagers under his care.
• The woman in the hooded cloak, later revealed to be Olivia, killing Cadmus Quill and JB Cox.
  • JB knocks out Quill and leaves him for his boss to find, luring them there to find out who they are. Instead, he can only watch in horror over his security cams as the cloaked woman shoots Quill dead with no hesitation while he's Bound and Gagged and struggling on the floor. JB clearly did not expect this and didn't mean to get Quill killed, and it proves that the villains are even more ruthless than he realized.
  • Unfortunately, JB did see the Olivia's face on the camera, but is forced to leave without the tape of security footage before she finds and kills him too...only for her to track him to the pool bar where he's supposed to meet the Hardys. He clearly thought meeting in public would give them some level of safety, but nope; Olivia doesn't care, and shoots him to death in front of Frank, Joe, and dozens of other patrons.
  • How horrifying this must be from JB's and the Hardys' perspectives. JB sees the boys walking toward him, and then spots the cloaked woman, a known dangerous murderer, coming up right behind them and raising her gun while they have no idea. Even though he's probably aware he's her real target, he won't risk her shooting them to get to him, and rushes forward to take the bullet for them, knowing as he does it that this is the end for him.
  • And since JB is gripping Joe's shoulders from turning him away from the killer when he gets shot, Joe literally feels his body jerk from it. And then JB dies in his arms while Frank can only watch the whole thing in Stunned Silence. When they get back to JB's apartment, Joe has JB's dried blood all over his hands, as he tries to wipe it off with tears in his eyes. No wonder the poor kid's so traumatized.
• Drew's first Evil Plan we hear about—using microchips to exert Mind Control on the whole world—is this even though it turns out to be All Just a Dream within her simulation and not actually the real plan.
  • Considering that there are Sparewell microchips in technology all around the world, it's major Paranoia Fuel that ordinary household items like microwaves, televisions, and the likes can have their technology suddenly hijacked to brainwash you.
  • Laura is also shown (in the sim world) to have been totally Brainwashed and Crazy by a chip put into her brain and, when telling the boys about what happened to her, states with some subdued horror that she's been forced to do terrible things under its influence. And when they confront Drew, she tries to hijack the chip again to force Laura to commit her most horrible crimes yet: murder her own sons. Thank goodness the chip was deactivated by then and it didn't actually work.
• Then when the Hardys find out what Drew's real plan is, it's even more horrifying: using the Crystal and the Core as a combined power source to launch a worldwide Immersive Sim VR so powerful, it's pretty much a Lotus-Eater Machine. Even worse, for a few minutes, she succeeds.
  • Even the prototype version of it seen in "At the Old House", powered with just a small fragment of the Crystal from Drew's necklace, is already very powerful. It's revealed that Fenton has been trapped inside of it since the end of Season 2, and was never able to notice it despite the increasing discrepancies in the world around him until his sons figure it out and get him to see it. And they were only able to do this themselves thanks to still having some traces of the Eye's power left in them that made them more easily able to spot A Glitch in the Matrix; otherwise, the three of them may have been stuck there forever, unable to stop Drew from enacting the full version.
  • Even though it's a pretty clear Bait-and-Switch since the series would never kill its two main characters, it's still unnerving to see Drew's The Bad Guy Wins scenario inside the simulation: she shoots the Hardy Boys dead and just goes upstairs to give herself a Dance Party Ending for succeeding with her plan, before Chet's and Callie's separate arrivals clue her in that she's in the sim.
• After escaping the prototype sim, one of the very first things the Hardys find is a literal skeleton in a closet. They conclude that it's George's body; apparently, after it was rendered catatonic from George putting his mind in the Crystal, it just got left there. It makes sense he couldn't be given an official burial since he was supposedly killed in a plane crash at sea, but instead of even just putting it in an unmarked grave somewhere, it was stuck in a closet to rot away completely for 25 years.
• Drew turning on and killing Olivia, her own sister. While it was certainly pretty obvious that the Sparewell sisters don't have the same warm, trusting relationship that the Hardy brothers do—not surprising considering both women are psychopaths—it's still very sudden, as one second they seem to be sharing a heartwarming moment and sisterly hug, only for Drew to snatch Olivia's gun. She's revealed to have been harboring some resentment towards her sister for years, and when Olivia's attempts to talk her down just end up solidifying Drew's feelings even more, she murders her sister, her last remaining ally, in cold blood.

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