Season 1, Episode 13:
While the Clock Ticked
The Hardy boys and the gang embark on a daring mission to finally uncover the truth…but in revealing the truth, could they unleash a dark power beyond their control?This episode contains examples of:
- The Big Damn Kiss: Between Frank and Callie in the denouement, while Joe is sitting right there. Naturally, he promptly mocks his brother about it.
- Bookends: The first time the Hardy Boys went into town in the series premiere as the "new kids in town", they rode 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.
- Both Sides Have a Point: The argument Frank and Joe have with Gloria, where they finally turn on her for good. 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 Ax-Crazy she's grown. 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.
- Brick Joke: When Frank started working at Wilt's in "Of Freedom and Pleasure", he didn't know how to make coffee and had to ask his pals for help. Much later when Fenton came home in "Eye to Eye" and Joe told him about this job, he noted that Frank "still can't make a coffee to save his life." This is proven true here when Frank tries to make coffee at breakfast for Fenton, who gags on it.
- Brother–Sister Team: Fenton and Trudy work together to convince Collig to tell them what he knows, taking turns laying out all the evidence that they (along with Jesse) have on him.
- The Butler Did It: We at last learn 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.
- Caught on Tape: Kanika, in exchange for Rupert and Fenton not pressing charges against her for her actions, got Gloria to privately admit to killing Viktor when they were alone together in the previous episode and secretly recorded it, and turns the tape over to them, which is the evidence they need to bring Gloria down.
- Character Death: Stefan dies in the mine collapse while trying to take back the Eye, soon after the reveal that he killed Laura.
- Chekhov's Gun: Back in "The Drop", Joe made a fake copy of the piece of the Eye to trick the Tall Man when they confronted him, but ended up with both the fake and the real one still in his possession. Now, Stacy has abducted Callie and demands the piece if they want her back alive, but Gloria is the one who has it, and it's unlikely they'll be able to get it back from her in time to exchange it. Joe remembers that they still have the fake, and they rig it up well enough to convince Stacy's mooks it's real for the time they need to get Callie back.
- Conflict Killer: Callie's kidnapping serves as this to her, Chet, and Frank. The latter highly regrets his argument with her, and both guys lament not taking her claims about Stacy seriously enough and care more than anything else about getting her back safely. Callie, meanwhile, just tells them not to give Stacy the piece and thanks everybody for helping to rescue her once she's safe, and is determined to join the Hardy family in taking down the Circle. In the denouement, Frank and Callie finally kiss and get together for real.
- Continuity Snarl: Callie told Frank back in "Secrets and Lies" that his grandmother lied to him about her argument with Laura, and what she remembered overhearing of it: that Laura said something about the titular "secrets and lies", and ended it with "This all has to stop!" before she stormed out. When the Eye actually shows Frank the argument, though, most of this is absent; the closest Laura comes to saying 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?"
- Damsel in Distress: Callie for the first part of the episode after being taken by Stacy as a Hostage for MacGuffin. She gets back at Stacy later by punching her unconscious in the climax.
- Defiant Captive: Even as Callie's sitting tied to a chair after Stacy and her Co-Dragons have captured her, she just coldly tells them that she can't wait to make them pay for 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 obviously being scared the whole time and knowing Stacy will kill her if she doesn't get it.
- "Eureka!" Moment: The Pensieve 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.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Gloria may be corrupt, rude and passive-aggressive to her in-laws, somewhat responsible for her father's death by ratting him out to his partners, and willing to kill her enemies who make moves against her, like Viktor, but she would never harm her offspring or order someone else to do so, not even when her daughter was threatening to bring her down and expose her secrets. She's appalled to learn that her manservant, Stefan, murdered Laura and claimed it was for her sake.
- Everyone Has Standards: Stacy has made herself a hated enemy of the Hardy Gang at this point by kidnapping Callie, but Frank, who still genuinely can sympathize with the loss of her father, is horrified to learn that his own grandma killed Viktor. When Fenton reveals this in front of Stacy, Frank immediately swears to her that he had no idea, though she clearly doesn't believe him.
- Fakin' MacGuffin: 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 fake, his wrist will set off Stacy's Geiger counter and trick her mooks into thinking it's legit. Sure enough, Stacy doesn't catch on until after Frank, Chet, and Callie are long gone.
- Frame-Up: Played with. After the Hardy Boys turn against Gloria and leave to save Callie, she siccs Collig on her grandsons to detain them and keep them from potentially interfering with her plans, with the pretense being that Frank is wanted for questioning in Callie's disappearance because he was supposedly the last person seen with her (certainly not true), which forces the boys and their friends to lie low until they rescue her. However, Collig explicitly knows this isn't true and is just following Gloria's orders; still, it's not made clear if any of the other officers looking for Frank, like the sergeant, know this too, or if Collig lied to them and they genuinely think they're doing their jobs.*
- The Glomp:
- 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...and then both of them get a bit flustered by it.
- Also, Biff happily glomps Callie when the younger kids get back to Wilt's and see that she's okay after Frank and Chet rescued her.
- Heel Realization: Combined with Break the Haughty for Gloria 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 Undying Loyalty 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.
- Helpful Hallucination: In the climax, 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 "Eureka!" Moment he and Joe need to realize who killed her: Stefan, Gloria's butler and Number Two.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: After kidnapping Callie, Stacy and her minions demand that Frank and Joe turn over their piece of The Eye (the only one she 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 for Frank and Chet to escape with Callie.
- I Choose to Stay: Despite the boys' initial reluctance to move to Bridgeport that lingered well into the season, in the end, Frank, Joe, and Fenton decide to make the move permanent rather than returning to Dixon City, to the delight of Trudy and Callie in particular.
- I Did What I Had to Do: At the start of Stacy's ransom call, Joe hears Callie's voice on the line and demands, "What did you do?!", and Stacy replies, "What I had to." That is, kidnapping her love rival to use as a pawn against the latter's Love Interest. She's clearly full of it.
- I Have Your Friend: Stacy makes this phone call to the Hardy home at the beginning of the episode. She was clearly intending it for Frank, but he's not home, and she's just fine with giving the message to Joe instead, demanding the piece of the Eye in exchange for getting Callie back despite the latter telling him not to do it (not seeming to believe Joe, or care, when he tells her they don't have it anymore), and includes a "don't call the police" condition, "unless you want to find your brother's girlfriend in a ditch somewhere."
- It's All My Fault: Both Chet and Frank deeply regret not listening to Callie well enough when she repeatedly tried to warn them about Stacy 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 her 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 also see her true colors even before the abduction, and nobody, not even Callie, predicted just how much Stacy would end up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and how far she'd go.
- Karma Houdini:
- Downplayed with Kanika. She doesn't face any direct consequences for having Rupert kidnapped and trying to get him and Fenton killed, but this is in exchange for helping them get the evidence they need to put Gloria away and having to leave Bridgeport for good, with Fenton promising that this deal will be void if he ever hears of her being involved with the Circle again.
- As Callie tells her friends in the denouement, Stacy and her goons got away in a van after Callie followed them through the mine tunnels and avoided arrest, although her plans were still completely thwarted since she left without the Eye and didn't get to inflict direct revenge on her father's killer, Gloria, like she wanted to, having to settle for her being arrested for the murder instead.
- Karma Houdini Warranty:
- Gloria Estabrook betrayed her father and caused his death, murdered Viktor Nabokov not too long before the series began, and has been controlling Bridgeport from the shadows for many years. She gets arrested in the ending.
- Ezra Collig, after acting as Gloria's stooge and doing her dirty work for years, likewise has been arrested.
- Stefan murdered Laura in the season premiere, with everyone remaining none the wiser for months. Soon after this comes to light, he dies trying to steal the Eye back for Gloria when the Chamber of the Eye collapses.
- The Key Is Behind the Lock: 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.
- Mama Bear: Trudy for her nephews, multiple times:
- Chief Collig shows up at the Hardy home to arrest Frank for questioning in Callie's disappearance, which is really a Frame-Up by Gloria to get the boys out of her way. Trudy, who knows Collig is corrupt and is very uncomfortable in his presence, lies to him that Frank's not home, and when he's not looking, signals to the boys, who are listening at the top of the stairs, to make a break for it and sneak out.
- After Fenton has attempted to sideline his sons for their safety and is upset to learn they've snuck out, Trudy—despite having previously not been thrilled about their investigating either—finally calls him out on the boys' behalf for leaving them behind all summer when they were already grieving their mom and needed answers about her death like he did, and firmly tells him to stop pushing everyone away and go help them.
- Papa Wolf: 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.
- Pensieve Flashback: The Eye's vision to Frank of the day Laura died works like this. From his perspective, he's standing right there in the room with her and initially tries to get her attention before realizing she can't see him, and when he follows her around a corner after she leaves one place, it cuts to a different scene. Though the last few seconds before he wakes up show a few of his happiest moments with her.
- Pet the Dog: After his Heel Realization in the previous episode, JB attempts to make amends for working with Gloria and betraying the Hardys by giving the authorities a signed confession against Gloria and Collig to help get them arrested, and he leaves Joe the radio that the latter repaired for JB when they first met, along with a note promising him a favor someday if he needs it.
- Please Wake Up: 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.
- The Reveal: Despite most people believing for most of the season that Laura and Viktor were killed by the same person, it's confirmed this is not the case, and everyone finally learns who really killed each of them:
- Gloria Estabrook murdered Viktor Nabokov, which she tells Stacy was in response to Viktor planning to try to steal the Estabrook piece of the Eye once Gloria had a general idea of where to find it and actively started searching for it. She also directly states to Kanika, right to her face, that she'd do the same to her to protect the Eye if she had to.
- Gloria's Dragon, Stefan, killed her own daughter Laura out of Undying Loyalty to her after witnessing the argument between the two of them, where Laura vowed to go public with everything she'd learned about the Circle, which risked destroying Gloria's reputation.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Frank's Pensieve Flashback from the Eye shows Laura directly discussing this with Rupert about the Circle, saying "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing." This ends up giving Frank a "Eureka!" Moment to deduce that Stefan is the killer.
- Sanity Slippage: Stacy already had one after Frank's previous rejection, leading to her abducting Callie, and undergoes this further once she finds out the Hardy Gang tricked her and handed over a fake piece. Then she gets another one after Fenton reveals that Gloria—whom she just made a truce with—is the one who murdered her father, especially since Stacy thinks Frank secretly knew this all along and lied to her.
- Say My Name: Joe shouts Frank's name repeatedly as the latter is touching the Eye while it reforges, yelling that he has to destroy it. Gloria also shouts Joe's name as he breaks away from her to grab Frank's arm.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Once Kanika gives Gloria's recorded murder confession to Fenton and Rupert as evidence, she leaves Bridgeport forever and washes her hands of the Circle altogether, especially considering she no longer has a piece of the Eye. 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.
- Season Finale: One that was also meant to work as an And the Adventure Continues Series Finale if needed, wrapping up all the major mysteries and unanswered questions of the season since it was unknown at the time if there would be another, though the show did up getting renewed.
- Sequel Hook: A few that set up story arcs for later seasons:
- 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.
- Smart Ball: Downplayed with Phil, who's always been the "nerdy" kind of smart, but his contributions to the case have mostly consisted of playing lookout and providing distractions. But when the Hardy Gang are realizing that Joe's fake piece of the Eye won't set off Stacy's Geiger counter the way the real one would, Phil deduces the real piece must give off radioactivity, and suggests using the americium in the smoke detectors in Wilt's store to create a false positive on the Geiger counter and trick Stacy and co. into believing their fake is the real one. This works just as planned, and Frank and Callie both separately give Phil serious kudos for coming up with it.
- So Proud of You: After getting very upset at first to learn his sons were investigating their mom's death while he was away, Fenton gets a pep talk from Trudy in which she encourages him to trust them more. He takes it to heart and works together with the boys to stop the Circle, and is quite impressed with all they've accomplished. In the denouement, he tells them that he's very proud of them, and their mother would be, too.
- Thicker Than Water: 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 for good after learning about the Astghik and that she was trying to get her piece of the Eye back, and Gloria warned her that this would mean she would no longer be able to use her influence to keep her safe. 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 she still loved her and never wanted her to die.
- This Is Unforgivable!: After her Hostage for MacGuffin plan fails, Stacy has no choice but to agree to a truce with Gloria so they can both reassemble the Eye together. She does this without knowing yet that Gloria was the one who murdered her father; once the Hardys get to the Chamber of the Eye and Fenton announces it to everyone present, Stacy's not so keen on a truce anymore, refusing to believe that Frank didn't know anything about it and stating she should have killed "all the Estabrooks" from the beginning.
- The Un-Reveal: 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.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Subverted with the plan to rescue Callie. The entire brainstorming process and preparation is shown from beginning to end, but it goes off without a hitch. It's the younger kids' break-in to Gloria's place that runs into more trouble.
- We Need a Distraction: Phil distracts Stefan by asking him to donate money (in Gloria's name) to the Bridgeport Sea Cadets, giving Joe and Biff time to sneak into George's Secret Room for information they need there.
- You Killed My Wife: As the Hardys and Gloria are escaping the collapsing mine, Fenton risks not making it out at all when he starts practically throttling Stefan and screaming "YOU KILLED MY WIFE!", until Joe shouts that he has to let him go so they can get out of there. Fenton does, Stefan dies a moment later anyway while trying to steal the Eye for Gloria, and she and the Hardys survive.
- Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: Stacy uses this in her ransom demand phone call with Joe, referring to Callie as Frank's "little girlfriend".
