Season 1, Episode 5:
The Drop
After an attempt to lure out the buyer of a twice-stolen object, Frank and Joe find themselves pursued by someone they believed to be dead. Their friends are welcomed onto the team.This episode contains examples of:
- Abandoned Warehouse: JB's code to his buyer set the drop point for the idol as an abandoned brick factory—which, at this point, looks more like sparse warehouse—on the outskirts of town. Once the Hardys crack the code, they go there themselves to deliver the idol and spy on whoever comes to get it.
- Armor-Piercing Question: A couple in quick succession when the Hardy Boys encounter JB at the abandoned factory during the drop. As he tries to leave, Frank insists that he give them more information, resulting in:JB: You want "something?" Here's "something": I stole a golden idol from a killer. The people who hired me are probably just as dangerous, so what were you gonna do if you caught up with them, huh?
Frank: (Long Beat) I don't know, I hadn't thought that far ahead.
JB: Think ahead now. You let this go.
Frank: (To his back as he walks away) If somebody killed your mother, would you let it go?
JB: (Stops and turns around) No. I wouldn't. But I bet your mom wouldn't want you to end up like her. (Pauses to let this sink in.) Get out of here. - Big Brother Instinct: After Frank loses the person he was chasing who came to get the idol at the factory, he realizes he lost track of Joe during the chase, then hears him shouting for him while also struggling and arguing with someone. Frank grabs a nearby tire iron, rushes outside, and nearly beans JB in the face with it to protect his brother until Joe stops him and tells him who JB is.
- Captured on Purpose: As Sam fills Frank in on JB's background, revealing that he's a particularly skilled thief-for-hire, Sam notes that the only time JB was ever caught, he escaped from custody so quickly that it seems being captured was All According to Plan.
- Chase Scene: The Hardy Boys have two of these at the Abandoned Warehouse, swapping which side of the chase they're on between the two.
- The first time, they're spying on JB's buyer picking up the idol, only for Joe to accidentally bump into something and make a noise, causing the unknown man to flee. The boys chase after him, and although he gets away, they do later find a piece of his coat that got torn off in the chase. Then JB grabs Joe at some point during the chase and pulls him aside, but only to urge him to leave since it's not safe.
- The second time, the boys go back to the factory to search for clues, finding the aforementioned coat piece. Then they realize the Tall Man stalked them there, and run away while he chases them with a knife, narrowly managing to escape the building and jam the door behind them so he can't follow.
- Chase-Scene Obstacle Course: As the Hardys run from the Tall Man in the factory, Frank slows him down several times by kicking a door into him, blocking the path behind them with metal shelves, and barring the outer door with a wooden plank.
- Friend on the Force:
- After Sam Peterson was already this to his former partner Fenton, he acts as one to the boys as well by doing a background check on JB Cox at their request so they can learn more about him.
- Jesse Hooper also lampshades her status as this (by virtue of being his best friend's mom) when she reminds Joe that she's the reason he doesn't have any kind of juvenile record despite her catching him trespassing in the chief of police's office last episode.
- Heel Realization: Gloria makes no bones about the fact that she was not a good mom to Laura, outright admitting this sadly to Trudy, and it's clear she deeply regrets how she'll never have the chance to mend the rift between her and her daughter. Gloria's remorse about this seems to be her motivation to attempt to patch things up with Trudy, and she wants to at least try being a good grandma to the Hardy Boys.Gloria: She was complicated. And...I wouldn't have complications.
- Like Parent, Like Child: Discussed when Gloria and Trudy have tea together.
- Gloria surmises that Joe—an impulsive tween who frequently causes his guardians headaches by getting into mischief—is "an accurate facsimile of a young Fenton", and Trudy agrees, stating her brother was "such a terror" as a kid. She admits she worries about Joe a lot, but Gloria points out everything he's been through recently and states he'll likely settle down eventually because "he's also his mother's boy."
- Trudy then notes that she always saw more of Laura in Frank—a comparison that's been made before, and gets brought up again many more times—and Gloria agrees with this as well.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: When Gloria visits Trudy to attempt to make amends, the latter directly calls the former out on having always been this to her son-in-law Fenton, and to his family members (Trudy and their parents) even though they technically aren't her in-laws themselves, to the point that Trudy has always seen Gloria like this even more than Fenton has. Gloria makes no attempt to deny this, while also acknowledging a major source of Fenton's dislike for her:Trudy: Gloria...I'm sorry, but you're gonna to have to convince me that you're here to bury the hatchet. You've been so good at swinging it.
Gloria: I just want to help.
Trudy: Suddenly. You've never been kind to my family. To my parents, to Fenton. Till the boys moved here, I hadn't seen you in two years.
Gloria: The past will have to remain in the past. There's nothing I can say now to change it. And Fenton...will never like me, because...my daughter didn't like me. - Pet the Dog: Despite her largely haughty, snobby attitude and unkind behavior in the past, Gloria's attempts to make up for that do seem sincere.
- She makes a real effort to mend fences with Trudy Hardy, with whom she's never gotten along, likely out of sincere regret at losing Laura. She has suggests having tea with her and offers to talk to some friends at art galleries in the city about displaying and selling some of Trudy's artwork. While they'll certainly never be friends, and Trudy's conversations with Jesse make it clear she'll never fully forgive Gloria for everything, they're at least far less hostile and passive-aggressive to each other after this.
- She also wants to be a better grandmother to the boys than she was a mother to Laura, and while some of her efforts to do so are certainly a bit misguided, she clearly does care about them, looks out for their safety, and is nicer to them than she is to most other people.
- So Much for Stealth: The Hardys hide at the abandoned brick factory to spy on whoever comes to get the idol and see if they can figure out who it is. Just after they watch the man break it open to find nothing inside, Joe shifts just a little bit and knocks something over next to him, and the man hears it and flees the scene with the boys in chase.
- Stealing from Thieves: Played with. Just as JB previously stole the idol from the Tall Man, the Hardy Boys essentially do this to him by keeping what was inside it (which JB doesn't even know about), and bringing the idol to the drop themselves. As Joe points out, though, it's hard to say they stole it from him after JB left it hidden in Joe's own room for days.Joe: Hey, something's in my room for two days, it's mine.
JB: Is that right?
Joe: Yeah. It is. - Sure, Let's Go with That: While Sam is visiting the Hardy home to give Frank the intel he found on JB, Trudy comes home and asks Sam if he's there because Fenton asked him to check up on them. He goes along with this assumption by cheerfully agreeing, "You caught me," and goes ahead and actually does do this while he's there, asking Frank to give him a few minutes to chat with Trudy alone about Fenton's MIA status.
- The Team: This episode solidifies the six main kids—Frank and Joe Hardy, Chet Morton, Callie Shaw, Biff Hooper, and Phil Cohen—as a team working to unearth the conspiracy in Bridgeport, and learn what Laura Hardy knew about it and who killed her, with the Hardy Boys' friends promising to help them do so no matter what it takes.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The Hardy Gang's plan to capture the Tall Man and turn him over to the cops. Just a very basic, general premise of what they're planning to do—lure him to Chet's farm to catch him—is shared, while the details are kept hidden. It works perfectly, such that everyone at the police station is impressed.
