History Recap / TheHardyBoys2020Season2E8AMidnightScare

** Chet sneaks back up to the attic to secretly tell Angela to call him at Wilt's, and when she does, agrees (with conditions) to help her take the Eye's power away from Frank, asking her to meet him there the next day. It looks like Chet's still harboring enough resentment against Frank that he's decided to betray him or at least go behind his back, but then we see that his friends are there with him at Wilt's as he makes the call, and this is a plan they came up with together for Chet to go undercover as a DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent so they can stop Angela.

* BigBrotherInstinct: Both Frank and JB for Joe; when Frank briefly thinks he's the Shadow Man, one thing he angrily accuses him of is trying to run Joe down with his car the previous night at the hospital, and JB actually takes major offense to this and snaps that he would ''never'' hurt Joe.

* ChekhovsBoomerang: Phil being a paper delivery boy was revealed and provided a ChekhovsSkill in "The Missing Camera". It comes in handy again here when he, Joe, and Lucy go to confront Munder at his home, since it's how Phil knows his address.
* ChekhovsGun: The seemingly-random instructions that Young George gave Frank in his vision in "The Doctor's Orders" to tell him which way to move while standing in George's office, to Frank's confusion. This turns out to be what Frank needs to do to open the codex device built into George's desk and find the scroll hidden inside, which JB came there to steal (though it's ultimately already gone).

* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: JB is already annoyed with Frank and Callie accusing him of being the Shadow Man (not even knowing what that means), but tries to just walk away and leave. Then Frank adds on claims that he's been hurting Dennis and tried to hit Joe with a car the night before, and JB, after saying he doesn't even know who Dennis is, sounds quite pissed that Frank would think he had anything to do with trying to harm Joe, and sells him and Callie out to the Rosegrave teacher who comes over to talk to them just to get them off his back.

* KilledOffscreen: We never actually see the Shadow Man attack Burelli in the last episode or this one. Brian found her car abandoned after the Shadow Man already caught up to her, and it's confirmed here that he killed her only after her body is pulled from the water where he dumped it.

* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Angela reveals to Chet when he asks that this is her reason for going rogue and wanting to get the Eye for herself from the Hardys; she outright states that she has no interest in using a "mystical moon rock that's gonna mess with my mind" for herself, but knows that a lot of other people would kill for it, so she plans to sell it.

* RedHerring: When JB reveals to Frank and Callie that he once attended Rosegrave, they ''very'' briefly suspect him of being the Shadow Man because he's about the right age to have been going to school there ten years ago when Project Midnight took place, and he's always been at least tangentially connected to their cases. JB pretty quickly puts this to rest by stating he doesn't even know who Dennis is, and is straight-up offended by Frank's accusation that he [[CarFu tried to run Joe over with a car]] in the events of the previous episode.

* VillainousRescue: While Chet is waiting for Angela at Wilt's, Deputy Riley comes in and starts asking him about his truck being seen driving away from the bridge the previous night, where Dr. Burelli was murdered.[[labelnote:*]]It was actually Belinda driving it after meeting her father there, but Chet doesn't want to get her in trouble.[[/labelnote]] Luckily, Angela then arrives and vouches that he was with her (which is in fact true) and gets Riley to back off the questioning and leave by threatening to call one of Stratemeyer's "big, fancy lawyers." Notably, though, this isn't done out of the kindness of her heart, and is only because she thinks Chet is going to help her get the Eye and still needs him.

* AmbiguousSituation: The last episode made it appear--and Joe and co. certainly believed--that Dr. Burelli reluctantly agreed to give the catatonic Dennis back to the Shadow Man, likely in response to coercion, and only changed her mind once the kids pulled the rug out by sneaking away and hiding Dennis from them. However, Brian's reveal to Belinda that Burelli has been working with him to some extent to find out who's trying to revive Project Midnight and came to Bridgeport to check on Dennis after hearing of his condition muddies the waters. ''Was'' she still threatened into compliance but had second thoughts after being foiled, like it first seemed? Or was she genuinely planning to send Dennis to the facility in Dixon City like she claimed, and lying to the Shadow Man all along about handing him over? Regardless of which one is true, though, Joe and friends' actions certainly did thwart any attempt by the Shadow Man to take Dennis back.

** Dr. Burelli's a lesser example. She's not all that sympathetic thanks to her role in experimenting on kids in the past with Project Midnight--despite apparently becoming TheAtoner by the present--and [[AmbiguousSituation may or may not have]] initially intended to give Dennis to the Shadow Man until the kids thwarted her.

** Vivian Burelli, the doctor who ran Project Midnight, is implied to have become this to a much lesser extent. She came to Bridgeport to check on Dennis after he ended up similarly catatonic to a previous Project Midnight victim, and apologized to the Shadow Man, also hinted to be a victim, in the previous episode about "what we did to you."

** Dr. Burelli's a lesser example. She's not all that sympathetic thanks to her role in experimenting on kids in the past with Project Midnight--despite apparently becoming TheAtoner by the present--and initially agreeing to give Dennis to the Shadow Man until the kids thwarted her.

* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: JB is already annoyed with Frank and Callie accusing him of being the Shadow Man (not even knowing what that means), but tries to just walk away and leave. Then Frank adds on claims that he's been hurting Dennis and tried to hit Joe with a car the night before, and JB, after saying he doesn't even know Dennis, sounds downright pissed off that Frank would think he had anything to do with trying to harm Joe, and sells him and Callie out to the Rosegrave teacher who comes over to the talk to them just to get them off his back.

** Joe finds Mack handcuffed to the railing in Angela's bathtub, and agrees to let him go only after Mack 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, Mack ''also'' lied with the information he provided.

* JennysNumber: Turns out this is JB's phone number, too. The letter he left for Joe has hidden clues telling him what channel to tune into on the radio, and it just plays "867-5309/Jenny" on repeat. Joe combines with the "IOU-1" in the note--which, when dialed in backwards, provides the area code--and finally is able to contact JB about calling in his favor, who shows up to meet him at the end.

* BoundAndGagged: Since knocking him out in "Hunting an Intruder", Angela has been keeping Mack handcuffed in the bathtub of the motel room with tape over his mouth, which is how Joe finds him after breaking in.

* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent: Angela tries to convince Chet to turn on Frank and help her get the Eye out of him. While her previous words did motivate Chet to finally confess his lingering complicated feelings about Frank's and Callie's relationship to them, he's now talked it out with them and put those issues to rest. He has no intention of actually betraying his friends, and only pretends to go rogue to convince Angela; the group is in on the whole plan. He outright refers to himself as a "double agent" when he successfully gets her to fall for his act.

* ArcWords: "I owe you one" from JB's note to Joe. It's written as "IOU-1", and Lucy telling Joe "I owe you one" for saving Dennis is a EurekaMoment where he figures out that reversing it (1-UOI) provides the area code for the rest of JB's phone number that he found earlier. Once JB gets his call and shows up as promised, he repeats, "I owe you '''one''', right?"

** In Brian Conrad's first year working with Stratemeyer Global, he helped cover up Project Midnight after the experiments failed, leaving one kid dead and another catatonic, only discovering how immoral the project really was after he was already in too deep with everything to lose. In the present, he's trying to find evidence to definitively connect Stratemeyer to Project Midnight to bring them down for good, and is using them to find the Eye so he can destroy or at least get rid of it and [[NoManShouldHaveThisPower make sure its power can never be misused again]].

* BigBrotherInstinct: When Frank briefly thinks JB's the Shadow Man, one thing he angrily accuses him of is trying to run Joe down with his car the previous night at the hospital, and JB actually takes major offense to this and snaps that he would ''never'' hurt Joe.

* ArcWords: "I owe you one" from JB's note to Joe. It's written as "IOU-1", and Lucy telling Joe "I owe you one" for saving Dennis is a EurekaMoment where he figures out that reversing it (1-UOI) provides the area code for the rest of JB's phone number that he found earlier. Once JB gets his call and shows up as promised, he repeats, "IOU 1, right?"

* BigBrotherInstinct:
** Despite Joe not even being present during the argument: When Frank briefly thinks JB's the Shadow Man, one thing he angrily accuses him of is trying to run Joe down last night at the hospital, and JB actually takes major offense to this and snaps that he would ''never'' hurt Joe.

* EurekaMoment: Lucy thanks Joe for protecting Dennis in the previous episode, and adds, "I owe you one." These words help Joe crack the final part of JB's code to get the area code for JennysNumber: reversing the "IOU-1", as written in his letter, and calling 1-UOI-867-5309.

* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Downplayed since JB is already annoyed with Frank accusing him of being the Shadow Man (not even knowing what that means), but tries to just walk away and leave. Then Frank adds on claims that he's been hurting Dennis and tried to hit Joe with a car the night before, and JB, after saying he doesn't know who Dennis is, sounds downright pissed off that Frank would think he had anything to do with trying to harm Joe, and sells him and Callie out to the Rosegrave teacher who comes over to the talk to them just to get Frank off his back.

** Adrian Munder, the recurring teacher, is connected in some way to Project Midnight. The gang initially thinks he's the Shadow Man, but then they go to his house and find him catatonic there....

* VillainousRescue: While Chet is waiting for Angela at Wilt's, Deputy Riley comes in and starts asking him about his truck being seen driving away from the bridge the previous night, where Dr. Burelli was murdered. It was actually Belinda driving it after meeting her father there, but Chet doesn't want to get her in trouble. Luckily, Angela then arrives and vouches that he was with her (which is actually true) and gets Riley to back off the questioning and leave by threatening to call in one of Stratemeyer's "big, fancy lawyers." Notably, though, this is not done out of the kindness of her heart, and is only because she thinks Chet is going to help her get the Eye and still needs him.

* AngerBornOfWorry: Frank's and Joe's bickering starts getting heated because Frank doesn't like his brother taking unnecessary risks by planning to break into Angela's motel room while she's meeting with Chet, worried he's going to get caught (and, implicitly, kidnapped again); Joe insists he'll be fine, and part of his own frustration stems from feeling that Frank is also risking himself by relying too much on the Eye.
* ArcWords: "I owe you one" from JB's note to Joe. It's written as "IOU-1", and Joe figures out that reversing it (1-UOI) provides the area code for the rest of JB's phone number that he found earlier. Once JB gets his call and shows up as promised, he repeats, "IOU 1, right?"

** Chet sneaks back up to the attic to secretly tell Angela to call him at Wilt's, and when she does, agrees (with conditions) to help her take the Eye's power away from Frank, asking her to meet him there the next day. It looks like Chet's still harboring enough resentment against Frank that he's decided to betray him or at least go behind his back, but then we see that all of his friends are there with him at Wilt's as he makes the call, and this is a plan they came up with together for Chet to go undercover as a DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent so they can stop Angela.
** Frank and Callie find evidence that the Shadow Man is Mr. Munder, and Joe, Phil, and Lucy go to his house to confront him, only to find him catatonic, apparently another victim of the Shadow Man instead.

** When JB meets up with Frank and Callie at Rosegrave Academy and starts talking to them, Callie confusedly asks who he is, and is left 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 team who's never actually met or seen him in before then and thus wouldn't recognize him on sight.
* DiegeticSwitch: Joe and Chet listen to "867-5309" on JB's private channel, which then becomes the background music as the scene transitions.

** Joe finds Mack chained up in Angela's bathtub, and agrees to let him go only after Mack 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, Mack ''also'' lied with the information he provided.

* JennysNumber: Turns out this is JB's phone number, too. The letter he left for Joe has hidden clues telling him what channel to tune into, and it just plays "867-5309/Jenny" on repeat. Joe combines with the "IOU-1" in the note--which, when dialed in backwards, provides the area code--and finally is able to contact JB about calling in his favor, who shows up to meet him at the end.

* OneDegreeOfSeparation: While the two main members of the BigBadEnsemble--Angela and her Stratemeyer cronies, and the Shadow Man--don't know each other and aren't working together in any way, they are connected like this. In the past, Rosegrave Prep secretly tested on a couple of students in "Project Midnight", and when the experiments failed, Stratemeyer Global (whom Angela officially works for, but has gone rogue and is pursuing her own agenda), including Brian, covered it up. Dr. Burelli was the one to run the tests, and the Shadow Man was a victim of them in some way.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Angela reveals to Chet when he asks that this is her reason for going rogue and wanting to get the Eye for herself 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.

* RedHerring: When JB reveals to Frank and Callie that he once attended Rosegrave, they ''very'' briefly suspect him of being the Shadow Man because he's about the right age to have been going to school there ten years ago when Project Midnight took place, and he's always been at least tangentially connected to their cases. JB pretty quickly puts this to rest by stating he doesn't even know who Dennis is, and is downright offended by Frank's accusation that he [[CarFu tried to hit Joe with a car]] in the events of the previous episode.

* PublicSecretMessage: Joe realizes that the radio JB gave him isn't used for contacting him directly; instead, it contains a code for a channel to listen to, which turns out to be playing the song "[[JennysNumber 867-5309/Jenny]]". For anyone else listening to the radio, they'd just hear music and not think anything of it, like Joe did the first time, but this is actually the phone number to contact JB.
* YouJustToldMe: Downplayed. The kids suspect but don't know for sure that Angela is the one listening in on them with the bug in the attic, so Chet, who's pretending to agree to work with her, tells her via the bug to call him at Wilt's in 20 minutes. She does, confirming everyone's suspicions, but she really doesn't seem to care in the slightest that he and the other kids know.

** Chet sneaks back up to the attic to secretly tell Angela to call him at Wilt's, and when she does, agrees to help her get the Eye out of Frank, with conditions, asking her to meet him there the next day. It looks like he's still harboring enough resentment against Frank that he's decided to betray him or at least go behind his back, but then we see that all of his friends are there with him at Wilt's as he makes the call, and this is a plan they came up with together for Chet to go undercover as a DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent so they can stop Angela.

** Mack Malone is murdered by his own partner at Stratemeyer, Angela Todd, who betrayed him and has been holding him prisoner in the bathtub in JB's old motel room. Once Mack lies to Joe to set a trap for him, Angela decides [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's no longer useful to her]] and goes back on her deal to set him free in exchange, putting a bullet in his brain instead.

** Krassner states to Riley that Bridgeport is supposed to be a place "where friends meet", referencing the town slogan seen on a welcome sign all the way back in the series premiere.
** When JB meets up with Frank and Callie at Rosegrave Academy and starts talking to them, Callie confusedly asks who he is, and is left 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 team who's never actually met or seen him in person before then.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Krassner criticizing the competence of the Bridgeport PD is awfully rich considering he has repeatedly brushed aside the Hardys every time they've tried to report their concerns about something bad happening in Bridgeport, and also disregarded the police ''themselves'' when they believed the boys, in favor of protecting his public image, risking the townspeople's safety as a result.

** Joe finds Mack Malone chained up in Angela's bathtub, and agrees to let him go only after Mack 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, Mack ''also'' lied with the information he provided.
** Angela turns out to have likewise lied to Mack 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]].

* NoManShouldHaveThisPower: Brian directly states this about the Eye, telling Belinda he's searching for it so he can destroy it for this reason. It contrasts him with his subordinate, Angela, who doesn't care one bit and is OnlyInItForTheMoney she can get from selling it.

* OneDegreeOfSeparation: While the two main members of the BigBadEnsemble--Angela and her Stratemeyer cronies, and the Shadow Man--don't know each other and aren't working together in any way, they are connected in this way. In the past, Stratemeyer Global (whom Angela officially works for, but has gone rogue and is pursuing her own agenda) and Rosegrave Prep, both secretly run by the Estabrooks, experimented on Rosegrave students in "Project Midnight". Dr. Burelli was the one to run the tests, and the Shadow Man was a victim of them in some way.

* PassiveAggressiveKombat: Between Deputy Riley and Mayor Krassner (a witness who happened to be in the area) after Dr. Burelli's body is found.

* YouJustToldMe: Downplayed. The kids suspect but don't know for sure that Angela is the one listening in on them with the bug in the attic, so Chet, who's pretending to agree to work with her, tells her via the bug to call her at Wilt's in 20 minutes. She does, confirming everyone's suspicions, but she really doesn't seem to care at all that he and the other kids know.

* CharacterDeath: Two major ones this episode.
** Dr. Vivian Burelli fled from the Shadow Man in the previous episode, only for Brian to find her car abandoned on a bridge not long after. It's confirmed that this is because the Shadow Man did catch up to her and murder her, and her body washes up from the river. She's not entirely sympathetic thanks to 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 thwarted her.
** Mack Malone is murdered by his own partner at Stratemeyer, Angela Todd, who betrayed him and has been holding him prisoner in the bathtub in JB's old motel room. Once Mack lies to Joe to set a trap for him, Angela decides [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's no longer useful to her]] and goes back on her deal to set him free in exchange, putting a bullet in his brain instead. 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.
* ContinuityNod: When JB meets up with Frank and Callie at Rosegrave Academy and starts talking to them, Callie confusedly asks who he is, and is left 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 team who's never met or seen him before then.

** 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]].

* TheReveal: JB Cox (which is an alias, not his real name) was a Rosegrave Academy student.