History Recap / TheHardyBoys2020Season3

** Four more characters have their minds/consciousnesses trapped "in limbo" for good, meaning they're ''technically'' alive but functionally dead for all intents and purposes. Aaron Munder is confirmed to have been trapped inside the Crystal for 10 years, and this becomes permanent when his brother Adrian and George Estabrook both join him there with no way for any of them to escape this time. Drew, meanwhile, experiences a glitch when the DSA tries to bring her out of the simulation that leaves her stuck in between somewhere, no longer in it but not awake in the real world either. Drew's and Adrian's bodies are subsequently rendered catatonic {{Empty Shell}}s like Aaron's already was, and in George's case, his original body is long dead and decayed.

* DisownedParent: 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. 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.

* 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. 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 TheDragon.

** 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. 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.

* 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).

* BaitAndSwitch: 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.
* {{Bookends}}:
** 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: In the climax, Fenton finds Trudy, Brian, and Jessie tied to chairs back-to-back with tape over their mouths.

* BrickJoke: The series ends on a hilarious one. 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.
* 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: 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: 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.
* 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; 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=].

* 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. 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.
* DiesWideOpen: Olivia, after being shot by her own sister. In Olivia's case, Fenton closes her eyes after she's dead.

* DistressedDude and DamselInDistress:
** [[ParentsinDistress Trudy Hardy, Jessie Hooper, and Brian Conrad]] are LuredIntoATrap by Sparewell Technology, hit with KnockoutGas, and [[IHaveYourWife held hostage against the gang]]. 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.
** 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.
* 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.
** 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.

* EtTuBrute: Drew seems to become the eighth member of the team while planning the heist to help them bring down her evil father. When she reveals to the captured Frank and Joe that [[EvilAllAlong she's the real mastermind and was manipulating them all along]], this is written all over their faces.

* FriendshipMoment: 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.
* 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. 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.

* ICanRuleAlone: The BigBad, Drew, ends up shooting TheDragon to death ([[SiblingMurder her own sister Olivia]]), with the reasoning that 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.

** 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.

* KarmicDeath: Or in some cases, a karmic FateWorseThanDeath:
** 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.
** 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.
* LetsSplitUpGang: 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 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: 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.

* NearVillainVictory: 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. 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.

* ThePowerOfFriendship: 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.
* RealEventFictionalCause: 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.

** 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. 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.

* 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.

* SiblingMurder: 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.

* 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. 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:
** 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: 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: 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.

* 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.
* YouWouldntShootMe: 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.

* AllForNothing: 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:
** 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.
** 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.

* 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. Except it actually turns out to be the other way around; Hurd's innocent, and his two daughters are the ones who are evil.

* 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.
* 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: 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.

* BreatherEpisode: 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.

* 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).

* CharacterDeath:
** 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.
** 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.

* ChekhovsGun: 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.

* 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 Olivia Sparewell die this way after being shot by the BigBad. In Olivia's case, Fenton closes her eyes after she's dead.

** [[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". 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.
** 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.
** 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.

* 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.

* 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.
** 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.
** 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.

* ForgottenBirthday: 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.

* TheGlomp: 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.

* GuiltComplex: 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.

* 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. 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]].

* 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.
* InUniverseCatharsis: 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.

* 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: 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.

* LotusEaterMachine: 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.
** 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.
** 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, and his desire to see him again as well.
** 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.
** 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.

* ManipulativeBastard: 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.

* 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.
* 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.
** 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.
* ParentsInDistress: The boys' aunt, Biff's mom, and Belinda's dad knocked unconscious with gas and kidnapped by Sparewell in "Revelation".
* 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.

** 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).

* SuddenlyShouting: When the BigBad has Frank and Joe captured and is explaining the whole plot to them:
-->'''Drew''': No, [it's] not [Hurd]. No, I AM THE FUTURE, JOE!

* 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.

** "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.

* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: It's zigzagged throughout the season:
** 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. 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.
** 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.

* WhamLine:
** When Drew gets captured along with Frank and Joe in "The Spider's Net", and they learn that she was EvilAllAlong:
--->'''Olivia''': Drew, nice of you to join us.\\
'''Drew''': Join you, Olivia? You wish!...Kinda makes it sound like ''you're'' the brains of this operation.

* WhamEpisode:
** "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.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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.

* BoundAndGagged: Happens a few times, quite reminiscent of the source material:
** 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.
** In the climax, Fenton finds Trudy, Brian, and Jessie tied to chairs back-to-back with tape over their mouths.

** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* DrawAggro: 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* NotSoDifferentRemark: JB tells Joe that he likes him because Joe trusts his instincts and questions everything, and JB himself is the same way.

* 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.

* 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.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: 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.
* 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.

* 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. 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* TheBusCameBack: 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.

* ChokeHolds: George once again 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.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: A few significant recurring Bridgeport characters who were introduced in Season 2 do not reappear again here.
** Deputy Riley, Mayor Krassner, and Dennis Gilroy. This is justified by the fact that Dennis's case was solved in S2 and he doesn't have any more plot significance, and unlike in the previous seasons, the majority of this one takes place outside of Bridgeport, in or near Dixon City instead, so there's naturally not as much reason for them to be around.
** Though Lucy Wayne also no longer has a role left in the plot, she and Joe had a budding romance throughout the second season. But not only does she never appear in S3, she isn't even mentioned or referenced in any way. Likely because Joe has other, more pressing issues to deal with.

* 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.
* 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. 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.

* DrawAggro:
** 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.

* EnemyMine: 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]].

* 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.

* 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.
** 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.
* TheGlomp:
** Frank gives one to Joe when the latter shows up in the Crystal to rescue him, and Joe wholeheartedly returns it.
** 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.

* 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.

* {{Hypocrite}}: 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.]]

* 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]].

** 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.

** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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!

* ShutUpHannibal: 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.

* 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.
** 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''.

** "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.

* 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.

* 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.

* ChekhovsGun:
** 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.

* 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.

* DramaticIrony: 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.

* EnemyMine:
** 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.

* 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.

* {{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.]]

* 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.
* 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:
** 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.

* 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.
** 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.

* 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.

* ShipperOnDeck: 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.
* 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!]]\\

* 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.

* 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 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.

* 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.

* 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.
** 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.

* 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.
** 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.

** 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.

** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

** Joe discovers partway through the season premiere that JB stole [=McFarlane=]'s scroll from them in the previous episode.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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''.

** 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.

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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=].]]

** 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.]]

* 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.]]

* 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.

* 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.]]

** 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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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]].]]

* 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.]]

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.]]

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.]]

* 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.]]

** 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.

** 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.]]

* 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.]]

** 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]].]]

** 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.]]

-->[[spoiler:'''Drew''': No, [it's] not [Hurd]. No, I AM THE FUTURE, 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'']].

* 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.]]

** [[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.]]

** 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.]]

** [[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.]]

** 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.]]

** [[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.]]

** [[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.]]