Season 3, Episode 8:
A Wild Ride
As the Core’s true purpose is revealed, the Hardy Boys and their friends must band together to save themselves, and the world, from an unheard-of technology that could forever change life as they know it.This episode contains examples of:
- And the Adventure Continues: The series ending. In the denouement, 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 Brick Joke of Wilt being shown to have some involvement in it and being worried that someone's onto him (in a scene completely Played for Laughs rather than any kind of foreboding).
- Anti-Escapism Aesop: Drew's Evil Plan is to use the Core and the ley lines with her virtual reality simulation, which she calls the Sim, to trap the entire world inside of it. She seems to see herself as some kind of Well-Intentioned Extremist, referring to this as "an upgrade" for the people in it (such as how Fenton, Frank, and Joe were able to imagine Laura being alive again, and JB as well in Joe's case). This does not make her any more sympathetic in or out of universe, and the heroes reject the idea of living in a fake world, with Frank pointing out that he and Joe willingly chose to escape the prototype Sim and accept the truth once they realized it wasn't real even though it meant losing their mom for good.
- Asshole Victim: Olivia, as The Dragon to Drew, was fully complicit in and even supportive of her Evil Plan, has killed many people with zero remorse to help advance said plan (including JB, Quill, and McFarlane), and has always shown a near-total Lack of Empathy towards everyone, including Drew herself. So it's hard to say she didn't have it coming when Drew turns on her and fatally shoots her (even if her reasons for doing so somewhat fall under Disproportionate Retribution).
- Bait-and-Switch: After Drew's Evil Plan to put the whole world in her Lotus-Eater Machine 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 some victory dancing to celebrate...and then looks up to see 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 realizes with horror that she herself is in the simulation too and only imagined everything that just happened.
- Bookends: 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 Game Over thanks to them scuffling over the controls. The brothers' final scene in the Series Finale 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.
- Bound and Gagged: Fenton finds Trudy, Brian, and Jesse tied to chairs back-to-back with tape over their mouths. Just as he frees them, they all get caught in Drew's worldwide Lotus-Eater Machine.
- Brick Joke: The series ends on a hilarious one. Simulation-Laura previously Frank that she always thought Wilt might be hiding something, which Frank was incredulous about. In the finale, once the friends are given a new case to investigate related to some missing stamps, Phil suggests Wilt could be involved, and the rest of them don't take it seriously. Then the final shot of the series, which is Played for Laughs, 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.
- But Now I Must Go: Downplayed. In the ending, Trudy Hardy moves out of the Hardy home—which she grew up in with her family, and has lived in ever since—but only to move in with Jesse 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.
- Chain of People: Used to stop Drew's plan with The Power of Friendship. 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.
- Character Death: Olivia Sparewell, alias Olivia Kowalsky, meets her end at the hands of her own younger sister Drew, who has apparently carried some resentment for her for years and decides that I Can Rule Alone. 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.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: The Sparewell Tech commercial first shown in "A Strange Inheritance", which has been shown again and proven important several times. At the time, Phil gushed to the other kids about how much he'd love to own one of the portable laptop computers it's advertising; by the denouement here, after the gang has saved the day, they all receive one of these Sparewell laptops "in exchange" for signing the NDAs.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: In the 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. 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 Brick Joke confirming that Wilt is, indeed, part of the operation, and is worried that someone's onto him.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Drew steals Olivia's gun and goes on a rant about how her sister never made any attempt to stop Hurd from sending William away (despite knowing that Drew cared for him) or shipping her off to boarding school. Olivia doesn't apologize or seem contrite about any of this, just responding to the part about boarding school with "You came back!" and dismisses William as "just a chauffeur" and then "just some guy," rather than showing any sympathy for her. Needless to say, this doesn't exactly appease Drew, who concludes Olivia doesn't deserve to be part of her vision and shoots her.
- Dies Wide Open: Olivia, after being shot by her own sister. Fenton finds her right before she dies, and closes her eyes afterward.
- Distressed Dude:
- Fenton finds Trudy, Brian, and Jesse Bound and Gagged and frees them, only for all of them to temporarily be put in Drew's Lotus-Eater Machine along with the rest of the world until their kids save the day.
- Once Drew uses the Core to launch her simulation worldwide, Chet is the only one of the True Companions 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 Hardy Boys are able to go outside while avoiding getting pulled in themselves, bring Chet inside, and wake him up from it.
- Dissonant Serenity: Downplayed after Drew murders Olivia. She does shed a few tears right afterward, but wipes them away and otherwise doesn't show much emotion, and in her next scene right after this, is cheerfully humming to herself since her plan's about to be set in motion.
- Empty Shell: Drew's final fate. 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.
- Evil Gloating: Pretty much everything out of Drew's mouth qualifies once she holds the Hardys at gunpoint, mocking them about how they're too late to stop her Evil Plan, but especially once they all see the boys' friends on camera trying to break into the house, with Drew stating that they'll never get inside and will all get caught in the Sim. Which makes it all the more satisfying when Callie and the Hardys turn the tables.
- Friendship Moment: Belinda goes into a Heroic BSoD, 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.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Subverted. Once our heroes defeat the Big Bad and save the day, they're asked to Let Us Never Speak of This Again and sign an NDA about all that went down. They each get their own shiny-new, advanced-tech Sparewell laptops in exchange, and Callie promptly uses hers for some Loophole Abuse, exploiting the fact that Drew never signed an NDA (having been left an Empty Shell) 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.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: In a sudden turn of events, Drew steals Olivia's gun and goes on a rant that reveals she's had this for her sister for a very long time. Despite Olivia 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 her sister, she didn't do anything to prevent Hurd from sending William away or later shipping Drew off to boarding school. Olivia doesn't help her case by showing her usual Lack of Empathy while trying to talk her sister down and referring to William as "just some guy," and Drew shoots her dead (though she doesn't take any enjoyment from it).
- I Can Rule Alone: The Big Bad, Drew, ends up shooting The Dragon to death (her own sister Olivia), with the reasoning that she feels Olivia didn't make any attempt to stick up for her interests to their dad when they were kids, so she "doesn't deserve to be part of" the new sim-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.
- Karmic Death:
- 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, lied to him about who she's related to and having info on Laura's death, and as The Dragon to Drew, killed numerous people on her behalf (like McFarlane, JB, and their own subordiate Quill) and is complicit in her putting Fenton, then the Hardy Boys, then the whole world in her Lotus-Eater Machine. Olivia herself dies when someone she really is related to, her sister, betrays and kills her.
- A karmic Fate Worse than Death: Drew put the Hardy family through an emotionally traumatic experience by sticking them in her Lotus-Eater Machine, and briefly does the same to the whole world. Then the True Companions 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 DSA tries to wake her up from it, leaving her in limbo and catatonic for the rest of her life.
- Kick the Dog: Just to make it extra clear to the audience that Drew is not the Well-Intentioned Extremist she tries to pretend to be and is not in any way sympathetic, when mentioning how people in the Sim are willing to find any way to make their Wish-Fulfillment come true and believe that over a "flawed" reality, she mocks Joe for having seen JB alive inside the prototype Sim even though it didn't make any sense and rubs it in his face how he essentially had to lose JB a second time upon realizing it wasn't real. Joe even warningly tells her to watch it.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: The three Hardys have broken 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 Distressed Dude tendencies. Sure enough, while the boys' path leads them to a confrontation with Drew, Fenton finds the dying Olivia and then the three captured parents, freeing them just in time for all four of them to be put in Drew's completed global Lotus-Eater Machine.
- Loophole Abuse: Once the main characters save the day, are pressured into signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement about everything that happened, and are all given Sparewell laptops as bribes/rewards, Callie decides to follow through on Drew's intention to "go nuclear" with all the info she gathered about the Circle of the Eye, Project Midnight, and Rosegrave Academy and their 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).
- Lotus-Eater Machine: 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 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.
- Mood Whiplash: Drew shares a (darkly) heartwarming moment with Olivia where she thanks her older sister for believing in her vision and the two of them share a hug...which Drew uses as an opportunity to steal her gun and point it at her. Olivia tries and fails to talk her sister down, and is shot to death for her trouble.
- Near-Villain Victory: Drew really does succeed in using the Core to launch her Lotus-Eater Machine worldwide, capturing Chet, the parents, and everyone else in the world in it except for the rest of the True Companions, 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.
- The Power of Friendship: How the gang deactivates Drew's Lotus-Eater Machine: Frank, Joe, and their friends form a Chain of People 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 brief flashback snippets of Friendship Moments and/or romantic encounters they've experienced with each other throughout the series.
- Real Event, Fictional Cause: 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 Real Life timeline.
- Series Finale: As well as the Season Finale for Season 3. 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 And the Adventure Continues-style ending.
- Sibling Murder: As Drew is about to succeed in trapping everyone inside the Sim, she turns against The Dragon, her own older sister Olivia, out of lingering resentment from their childhood. 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.
- The Unmasqued World: 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 (whose numbers have been gradually whittled down even more from being killed off); 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. But then at the climax of this season, Drew uses the Core to temporarily put the entire planet into a simulation until the True Companions 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 apparently greatly sped up the advance of technology and the internet in this universe. It's further hammered home by Callie "going nuclear" like Drew planned to and posting all the dirt Drew got on Rosegrave, the Circle, and Project Midnight online for anyone to find and read.
- The Un-Reveal:
- 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 learned 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 could've come there to find it, 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 none of this is made entirely clear.
- Once the True Companions 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 Chain of People to connect them, it's implied that this may have drained the magic out of all of the relics and rendered them inert, but it's not confirmed.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: 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.
- Villainous Breakdown: Drew has a huge one inside her own simulation, after Callie tricks her into revealing (through a Sarcastic Confession) the "kill switch" for the Core and then escapes when the Hardys pull her out. Drew realizes that the heroes can now thwart her plot in the real world while she's still stuck in the Sim and has no way of getting out to stop them, and is reduced to a screaming temper tantrum.
- Wish-Fulfillment: In-universe, Drew explains to the Hardy Boys that the Sim works like this for the people in it, and no matter how much it may defy all logic, they'll still nearly always choose to believe this over "a flawed reality," using Fenton as an example. He desperately wishes Laura were still alive, so the prototype Sim came up with the scenario that she'd had her death faked; however, since that didn't really make sense (seeing as he'd buried her dead body), he then subconsciously invented a storyline of his best friend Sam being a Dirty Cop and Olivia being a government agent, and believed it even though this also didn't make sense so he could plausibly have Laura back.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: 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.
